Zoe Buckingham may have taken off for Paris after her personal life came crashing down on The Bold and the Beautiful but her portrayer, Kiara Barnes, is now living on Fantasy Island, a revival of the ABC primetime series that ran from 1977-84.
In the new Fantasy Island, which stars Grand Hotel alum Roselyn Sánchez (ex-Pilar, As the World Turns) as Elena Roarke, a descendant of the late Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalbán), Barnes plays Ruby, a woman who has terminal cancer. She travels to Fantasy Island hoping to have one last great vacation only to experience the unexpected.
How did her landing the role of Ruby come about? “It was your standard audition process,” Barnes tells Soap Hub. “At one point, the process went very quickly and they said, ‘We’ll see you in Puerto Rico’ [where the series films].”
As Kiara Barnes is a series regular, something presumably will occur in the storyline that keeps her on the island. “Ruby comes to the island with her husband Mel [played by Adain Bradley, ex-Xander Avant],” the actress explains. “They’re 75 [years old]. Ruby is dying from cancer but she doesn’t necessarily want to undergo the treatments which can be difficult on her body. Her last wish is to come to the island and feel good again and have fun with her husband.
“They get turned into their 20-year-old selves and while she’s there, she gets more life lessons — ones that she didn’t process when she was younger,” Kiara Barnes adds. “I’ve learned so much playing Ruby. This has been such a sweet opportunity.”
Did Barnes recommend Bradley to the show’s producers? “It was a total coincidence,” Barnes reveals. “It’s funny because [Adain] was helping me with my audition. He was reading on the other side of the camera [when I did my tape]. Then, he ended up getting the part [of Mel]. We fell back into our chemistry [so well] because we’d worked together before. I’d missed working with him.”
Kiara Barnes says she’ll miss her B&B pals especially since the company grew even more close while learning to shoot during the pandemic. “We spent so many hours at the studio,” she says with a smile. “It was like a family. I really loved working with Katrina [Bowden, Flo Fulton] and Lawrence [Saint-Victor, Carter Walton]. He’s super-sweet. I could go on about the show’s cast…[John] McCook [who plays Eric Forrester] — what a legend.”
Would Barnes like to see any of her other B&B pals appear on Fantasy Island? “Sure, why not!” she enthuses. “It’d be really fun if Lawrence came on. We had such a great time. We connected when we came back to the show [after the initial lockdown]. We learned how to have this relationship from 12 feet apart; then, it was 8 feet [due to safety protocols]. It was months of doing that. It’d be nice to have a reunion.”
Fantasy Island debuts on Tuesday, August 10 at 9 p.m. ET on Fox. The Bold and the Beautiful (BB) airs weekdays on CBS. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Los Angeles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on B&B spoilers.
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