BOLD BOND

How B&B’s Matthew Atkinson and Scott Clifton went from on-screen rivals to off-screen pals

-  Tom Stacy

Soap Opera Digest: What were your first impressions of each other?

Scott Clifton: I can’t remember the first time I met you. I think the first time I met you was in the group scene when you show up and you have Douglas and you tell everyone Caroline is dead.

Matthew Atkinson: That is totally not true, but it makes sense that that’s what you would think. I met you years ago when I was doing Y&R [as Austin] and we went to the CBS Emmy party and we were a little bit toasted out of our brains and we chatted for quite a while. I remember us all having a good time. That was years ago and it feels like a different lifetime ago.

Clifton: I have to tell you something that is incredible. You told me this before but I actually still don’t remember that moment but my wife, as I’m on the phone with you right now, my wife took a notepad out and scribbles on a piece of paper and slides it across the counter to me and says we met at the CBS after-party.

Atkinson: [Laughs] There you go. See, that’s why you need her. That was a blast. I think I met everyone and their mom that night, so I do remember thinking that you resembled Chris Pratt. That is stuck in my brain and then when I saw you later it was like, “Oh, it’s the Chris Pratt guy.”

Clifton: I do remember when you got cast and I IMDB’d you, I was really excited to talk to you about the Alan Tudyk pilot of that superhero show [POWERLESS] that you did. I watched it until it went away and I was really into that show, so I know I wanted to ask you about that, so that was one of the first things I remember.

Digest: Do you remember your first one-on-one scene together?