Jack Wagner Opens Up About His Long Career in Soaps

Published: June 17, 2025

Daytime veteran Jack Wagner, 65, has returned to The Bold and the Beautiful this summer as Nick Marone, a role he previously played from 2003 to 2012. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Wagner spoke about his long career in soaps and the "bad habits" he picked up along the way.

Wagner, who has also starred on General Hospital and Melrose Place, believes that working on soap operas can teach acting skills, but it also gave him some "bad habits" he had to unlearn. "What I don't like about it is that you can develop bad habits that you lean on as an actor," he said. "You want to create moments, but sometimes that keeps an actor from being still or being just in the moment."

Wagner explained that soap actors can "lean on inflections" or "lean on words or phrases that really aren't in the dialogue because there's so much to do in such a short period of time." He added, "Those are the habits I really had to work on. To be able to stay more present in the scene, do less busyness."

Wagner's summer story arc on The Bold and the Beautiful began airing June 16, and sees Nick stirring up old feelings with Katherine Kelly Lang's Brooke. Wagner teased that Nick and Brooke might make it out of the summer, adding that there's a "possible future here for Nick with Brooke."

Wagner, who also stars on When Calls the Heart, said that he has always been confident in his abilities as a performer and that he always wants to make his characters funny. "For me, which has always been a plus and a curse, I always want to make it funny," he said. "So I'm always looking for where the comedy can be here, where the sarcasm can be."