Greg Rikaart won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Daytime Drama for his role as Kevin on The Young and the Restless. He has been nominated five additional times, four for playing Kevin, and once for playing Leo on Days of our Lives.
Greg Rikaart: Always Amazes
Rikaart is an amazing actor. Whatever material he is given, he never sleepwalks through his scenes. He puts 150% into every line reading, trying to make it both entertaining and nuanced. This is why his being saddled with a horrible character like Leo is a daytime tragedy.
Sin Count
It was one thing when Leo was conning Craig (Kevin Spirtas) and breaking up his marriage to Nancy (Patrika Darbo) so he could get his hands on Craig’s money. Leo later claimed to have truly fallen in love with the wealthy doc (and even got him to the altar), but considering he was also flirting with every man who crossed his path at the same time, his claims were a wee bit hard to believe.
We thought he couldn’t sink any lower than when he betrayed literally the only person who ever gave a damn and treated him decently when he slept with Gwen’s (Emily O’Brien) husband. He, again, claimed true love. It was equally as difficult to swallow.
But, Leo truly hit rock bottom when he decided extorting money from Sloan (Jessica Sefarty) was more important than letting Nicole (Arianne Zucker) know that her baby was still alive. Yikes, Leo. Yikes.
Seeing Is Believing
We might have bought that Leo felt a twinge of guilt for his latest scheme if he weren’t also flitting about a ton, being snarky, and finding himself absolutely delightful. Rikaart does a spectacular job of showing us how much Leo enjoys causing trouble, and that would have made the character watchable. If we weren’t also, at the same time, being forced to watch Nicole suffer — and knowing Leo could alleviate her grief with the snap of a finger.
Rikaart isn’t helped by the allegedly clever dialogue, which is more a mish-mash of lame dad jokes, which the actor manages to bring to half-life through sheer force of will and charge. Rikaart is amazing. Leo is atrocious. Leo deserves everything awful he has coming to him. Rikaart deserves so, so much more.
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