An Interview with Mykel Shannon Jenkins

Now? As he tells Soap Opera Digest, the actor is enjoying his time as Charlie Baker on The Bold and the Beautiful.

SOAP OPERA DIGEST: Welcome back to daytime. After taking a spin in prime-time, what lured you back to soaps?
JENKINS: It's a superb role. Some people say they wouldn't go back to something unless it was the right thing and this was the right thing. The screen test was wonderfully written. It was 12 pages long and it had all of the things that I like in storytelling. I loved the scene so much that I would to do it as many times as they wanted me to do it.

DIGEST: Was your screen test alone or did you have a scene partner?
JENKINS: I had Dan Martin [Lt. Brad Baker] with me.

DIGEST: What do you think of Dan?
JENKINS: He's not only a great guy, but he's a serious actor. He's a craftsman. He doesn't mind me knocking on his door. I want to make it fun for him. I always wanted to make my own father proud and Dan reminds me a lot of him. Lt. Baker will say, "Good job, Charlie" and I have to stop to bathe in that for a minute because it means everything to me to hear my own father say that.

DIGEST: What's your take on Charlie?
JENKINS: He's a man trying to find a place outside of his father and stand on his own. The most important thing to him is to make his dad proud. Charlie followed in his footsteps as a cop, but it's cost him too because that's why he has no wife or children.

But Charlie is at that age where he wants more now and I think there's conflict coming. I can feel it in the scenes. Charlie is eager to wrap things up but his dad is going, "Hold up. Wait a minute We need to re-examine that."

DIGEST: What was your first day like?
JENKINS: Fantastic. The actors here aren't scared by the new kid. They rolled out the red carpet for me.

DIGEST: You recently played a straight fashion designer pretending to be gay on Ugly Betty. How was that?
JENKINS: I loved it, but Tavares scared me to death.

To read the full interview, click here.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.