With Sharon Case celebrating 30 years of playing Sharon Newman on The Young and the Restless, the soap opera has taken dives back into some of her most significant storylines – from Cassie’s death to her journey with bipolar disorder. Here, the Daytime Emmy awards nominee, who got her start on General Hospital sits down with Woman’s World to reflect on her 30 years in Genoa City – and teases that Sharon’s special anniversary episode airing on September 24 comes amid an old-school The Young and the Restless adventure!
Plus, what has it been like for Case to grow up alongside Joshua Morrow, who plays Nick, and how does she feel about the return of Linden Ashby’s Cameron?
After delivering the drama on General Hospital, As the World Turns and Valley of the Dolls, Sharon Case joined the The Young and the Restless teen scene that included Nick Newman, Eddie Cibrian’s Matt, and Jennifer Gareis’ Grace on September 14, 1994. Today, Case can’t quite fathom that that was 30 years ago.
“All these years I watched so many actors have these big anniversaries and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s so cool. What a great milestone,’” Case says. “Now that it’s mine, it doesn’t feel like that… but I’m very lucky and it’s been lovely how everybody’s been acknowledging it so nicely.”
With September 14 officially marking 30 years since Case first aired on the long running The Young and the Restless, the show caught her by surprise while she was shooting Sharon’s upcoming standout episode.
“I was doing a whole set of scenes that were pretty emotional, so I was very focused for hours,” she shares. “Then the lights came up, I looked up… and there’s 50 people on stage applauding and giving me beautiful roses! I was still sort of in my reverie from doing the scenes, so it was an emotional roller coaster, but it was really wonderful.”
Thanks to Sharon, Case can handle roller coasters. Her character was a teen mom who gave up her daughter…only to re-unite with that daughter, Cassie, and see her die as a teen and then find surprise twin Mariah, who is still on canvas. Sharon has also been raped, kidnapped, imprisoned, and struggled with her mental health – and Case could not be more impressed with the woman she’s become.
“She’s grown to be a healthy, wonderful, successful woman who has a great outlook on life and raised three children,” she says. “I love her survival instinct and how she leans into each challenge. It may be difficult, sad, or heartbreaking, but she sees what she’s dealing with and where she’s going land.”
Unfortunately, since she changed her bipolar meds earlier this year, Sharon has not done well. She’s even seeing visions of Cassie and Cameron.
“But her spinning out is part of what makes her so great,” Case contends. “I mean, who doesn’t spin out sometimes?
“This story about her mental illness is a long arc, and I love that we’re doing it,” she continues. “The storyline is important, but also very entertaining – and what’s to come is wildly entertaining! In all these years, I’ve never seen people on set so excited about a storyline.”
In the lead up to her anniversary, The Young and the Restless has revisited some of Cases’ favorite storylines, but here, the actress is referencing an action-adventure story that kicks off the week of September 23.
“When Sharon was younger, I did a lot of stunts,” she reminds. “It was hard work as a young person, but I have wanted to do more action over the years – and that’s happening now. Be careful what you ask for!”
This beauty boasts a regular regimen of going to the gym a few times a week to take yoga classes, work the machine circuits, and sweat it out the elliptical – but that didn’t quite prepare her for shooting an action storyline at 53!
“It’s exhausting, physical work,” says Case, whose only workout these days is onset. “It’s harder than going to those emotional, dark places. Even if you are physically fit, there’s different kinds of fitness. My hands are always very sore, because I don’t normally do… what I can’t tell you I’m doing!”
Sharon’s anniversary episode is very much grounded in the show’s ongoing story, but fans will still get to see the requisite flashbacks going back three decades – and naturally, leading man Joshua Morrow, who plays Nick, will be a part of those.
“It’s always so crazy to see these episodes and to see me and Joshua younger, with all of our different hairstyles we’ve been through at every age,” she marvels. “It’s a nice walk down memory lane and it’s wonderful to see how far we’ve come. It makes it more real to me that it has been 30 years.”
Sharon isn’t currently sharing a romance with Nick and they’ve both been tied to other characters – including his brother, Adam – but Case and Morrow have worked together in one way or another since their characters were high school sweethearts.
“When Sharon’s chips are down, Nick is always there,” Case contends. “Like Nikki and Victor, these two characters are partners for life. They share children, so that makes them partners, and Joshua and I are partners because we have been on the show all this time together.”
Case confesses her first impression of Morrow was purely superficial – and she was wowed.
“Joshua is STILL ‘the most handsome man in all the land,’” she says. “Don Diamont (of The Bold and the Beautiful and previously The Young and the Restless) made up that phrase. And it’s just stuck. We still, to this day, giggle about it. The other day, the director was coming to give a note about a scene, and Joshua joked, ‘What, you want more handsome?”
While there is no denying Morrow is a hunk, he also helps Case survive Sharon’s big drama.
“Even though I go through long periods of dark storylines, don’t forget, I’ve got Joshua, Camryn Grimes (Cassie/Mariah), and the Newmans around me laughing and making jokes,” she explains. “I laugh until I have to stop… and then I cry.
“I’m just so lucky Joshua’s my partner – and I think he likes me,” she cracks. “He tolerates me, at least, so it’s gone well.”
For all Sharon and Nick have been through, both actors will tell you losing Cassie was among their most powerful stories, because it was both gut-wrenchingly beautiful and completely changed everyone’s trajectory on the show.
“It’s terrific and real that we’re revisiting Cassie death and worrying about Faith, right now,” Case says. “Often in soap opera land, we move onto new story – and we should – but the truth of the matter is, no one ever gets over the loss of their child. That is something that will always affect you and sometimes becomes more poignant.”
While Faith’s recent car accident sent her into a tailspin, Sharon’s also been being tortured by those visions of dead Cameron for a while now.
“Not only is this fun to play, but it actually creates another real character on the show,” Case raves. “Sharon has this new partner and I have a colleague that I work with every day… who is playing a role that isn’t even alive. It’s very interesting and cool to me. And I love working with Linden Ashby!”
After 30 years in Genoa City, it’s Sharon’s drama that’s kept Case coming back to stages of The Young and the Restless.
“The show has always given Sharon interesting and challenging storyline,” Case tells WW. “In between those big, exhausting storylines, I do get a break – and I need it! Anyone would. But doing them consistently for 30 years has kept me really involved and interested in this role, these stories, and all the other characters that Sharon interacts.”
