Young & Restless Exclusive: On Joshua Morrow’s 30th (!) Nick-versary, He Tells All About His Nerve-Wracking Start, His First-Day Shock and More

All those years ago, Joshua Morrow was bummed. He’d auditioned to the nth for the part of The Bold and the Beautiful stripper Dylan Shaw — and hadn’t gotten it. But about a week later, he got a life-changing call: The Young and the Restless wanted to meet with him about the role of Nicholas Newman. “They’re like, ‘Hey, this one didn’t work out, but we think you’d be great on Young & Restless.’ I was like, ‘Awesome, man,’” he tells Soaps.com. “I assumed I’d go back to that whole long process, but literally, my read was with [the show’s late, great co-creator] Bill Bell and Ed Scott in their corner office with Heather Tom [who at the time was playing Nick’s sister, Victoria]. That was it. I read one time, and then Ed looks at me and goes, ‘You got the job, kid.’ I was like, ‘Seriously?’ It was that fast.”

Though it seemed to Morrow that things had progressed at lightning speed, that wasn’t quite the case behind the scenes. “They’d been looking for someone to play [the son of supercouple Victor and Nikki for a while], and they were deep in their process,” he says. Since the powers that be already knew from his Bold & Beautiful tryout how promising a prospect the newcomer was, “I was very fortunate to be the guy” who booked the gig — and on only his fourth audition ever, even!

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Soon after Morrow made his Young & Restless debut on June 21, 1994, he became not only a fan favorite but a frontburner mainstay and a multiple Emmy nominee to boot. At this point, the leading man is as pivotal to the show as “Nadia’s Theme” and shipper wars between supporters of “Phick” and “Shick.” And he loves doing the show as much as its viewers adore seeing him on it. From the very start, he was hooked. On his first day, he recalls that his inaugural scene was taped with Tom at 7:30 am. “I’d never done a job, not a single job in this world, and I just assumed it was like an all-day thing. I had four scenes with Heather, and I was done at 8 in the morning. I was like, ‘All right, well, what do I do now?’ They’re like, ‘You go home.’

“Back then, I was still living with my mom, so I drove home and walked in the house, and my mom’s like, ‘What are you doing here? Did you get fired?’” he continues. “I’m like, ‘No, I shot my show. I’m done for the day.’… Now, it’s rarely like that, but it’s a great schedule. I just remember that day being very uniquely exciting and nerve-wracking. I really wanted to do a good job, and you know, 30 years later, here I am. Time has flown by, and I couldn’t be more proud. It’s an awesome achievement, and I’m just so thankful the show stuck with me for this long.”

And to think: If Morrow had wound up winning that Bold & Beautiful role instead, things would have worked out very differently. “I joined Young & Restless shortly after [Dylan Neal] had started on Bold & Beautiful, so I saw him all the time. We became buddies, but I want to say he only lasted two or three years, and that could have been me. They could have been like, ‘You know what? We’re done.’ But getting Nick Newman, who’s obviously a cornerstone of the show and a huge part of this main family… I mean, some longevity was sort of baked into it. Assuming that’s what I wanted to do and was responsible and showed up on time and was efficient, I could stay as long as I wanted pretty much.”

Luckily, Morrow isn’t one of those actors who sees daytime as a stepping stone to higher-profile work. “I couldn’t want to be famous less,” he says, “and for all intents and purposes, I’m not. Nobody cares what I do in this town. There are far, far more people who are way more famous and interesting, so I can live my life and not have to worry about that. So this is an incredible way to provide for my family, to make a great living and to be in a job that is very fulfilling that lets me work with incredible people… It’s really been just like the Powerball of jobs as far as I’m concerned.”

On this auspicious occasion, celebrate with the below photo gallery of highlights of Morrow’s legendary run as Nick. Then hit the comments with your favorite memory of his stint in the role.