After more than a decade playing Chad on Days of Our Lives, taking over the role of Cane Ashby on Young and Restless was quite the adjustment for Billy Flynn, though he reports that he’s settling in nicely at his new soap. “It was such a monumental change in my life,” he tells Soap Opera Digest. “I’m still getting used to everything.”
Getting to Know You
In addition to learning the lay of the land and getting to know his new castmates at Y&R, the actor also has to get comfortable in his new role. “I’m going to be learning about the character and figuring things out for the next however many years,” Flynn says with a chuckle. “I feel like I didn’t get a grasp on my character at DAYS, Chad DiMera, for like, four years.”
Cane has changed quite a bit from when Daniel Goddard (now Dalton on General Hospital) played him from 2007-19, and given the way daytime works, he’ll continue to evolve with Flynn in the role. “Things are always changing,” he allows. “It takes quite a long time before you kind of feel like the writing has fleshed out who the character really is. And even then, you get thrown for a loop on something — a new long-lost brother or son, you know what I mean?”
As he continues to become more comfortable in Cane’s skin, Flynn knows there’s still a lot of work to be done. “I’m no mechanic by any means,” he says, “but it’s kind of like getting into an old car and going, ‘Okay, I need to rebuild this thing.’ Like, you try to keep what’s good and ditch the stuff that’s not. So I’m still in the process of figuring that out, and what Cane’s intentions are and what his actual motives are in certain areas. So it’s fascinating. I’m still in that, like, honeymoon phase, if you will, where me and Cane are still having this real cute relationship, getting to know each other.”
Man of Mystery
As an actor, Flynn is also enjoying exploring a new character that is different from the one he played on DAYS. “Chad was a character who, from a very young age, came from wealth,” he explains. “He was kind of arrogant and cocky, but at the same time, he wore his heart on his sleeve. “Whereas Cane, I feel like everything’s kept a little bit closer, and he carries a little bit more shame and guilt for what happened in the past with Lily.”
During his time away, Cane created the alias of Aristotle Dumas and amassed a great fortune, which is why Flynn compares him to Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby. “Where it’s like he’s trying to make up for lost time and he’s created this thing to prove that he’s worthy,” he muses. “And at the same time, he’s trying to figure out, really, who he is and what it is he wants, and nothing’s going according to plan.”
Cane came to Genoa City with big plans, but then changed them all completely as he refocused on what was most important to him, namely Lily and their children. But his ever-shifting behavior has created even more questions, as no one in Genoa City knows where they stand with the guy. Flynn appreciates playing a more “morally ambiguous” character that gives him the opportunity to flex different acting muscles than the ones he used on DAYS.
“It allows me to just be kind of calm and quiet,” he explains. “As scenes have played out with Victor, you can kind of see there’s nothing that really rattles me. It’s as if I’ve kind of played every idea out in my head, kind of as an overthinker would. So I’ve got to focus more on being still and calm and being specific with my words.”
