Lisa Yamada earned Soap Hub’s The Bold and the Beautiful Performer of the Year honors in 2025 by anchoring one of the soap’s darkest, most psychologically complex storylines with unsettling control and emotional precision. As Luna Nozawa, Yamada didn’t just play a villain. She portrayed a character whose obsession, manipulation, and unraveling felt disturbingly real — and impossible to look away from.
Key Takeaways
- Lisa Yamada is Soap Hub’s Performer of the Year 2025.
- Luna was secretly saved by Li after her apparent death.
- Luna learned that Finn was her biological father.
- Luna became obsessed with Will and committed a brutal assault.
- Luna returned to prison, lost her pregnancy, escaped, and was struck by a car.
Yamada’s work stood out not because Luna was shocking, but because Luna was coherent. Every turn in the story tracked emotionally, even when it became extreme. The character never felt like a plot device. She felt like a person making dangerous, destructive choices, and Yamada committed fully to that reality.
Luna’s ‘Death,’ Rescue, and Shattered Identity
Luna’s storyline began with her apparent death shortly after learned that Finn was her biological father, a revelation that destabilized her sense of self and deepened her emotional isolation. Not too long after the news that Li (Naomi Matsuda) had secretly saved her life came out.
Yamada played this phase with quiet fragility layered over simmering unrest. Luna wasn’t just hiding physically. She was emotionally untethered, stripped of certainty about who she was and where she belonged.
Obsession, Deception, and a Crossing of the Line
That internal collapse fed directly into Luna’s fixation on Will (Crew Morrow) after Bill (Don Diamont) sprung her from prison. Yamada played the obsession not as lust, but as entitlement — a belief that Will belonged to her. That mindset drove Luna to steal Electra’s (Laneya Grace) mask and assault Will at Deacon’s apartment after his work promotion party.
It was an extraordinarily difficult storyline, and Yamada handled it without sensationalism or theatricality. She played Luna with chilling calm, making the act feel disturbing because of how deliberate and controlled it was.
Consequences, Collapse, and a Violent End
After returning to prison, Luna manipulated her own assault in an attempt to escape again. When she lost Will’s baby, Yamada shifted Luna into a new emotional register — not grief, but rage and desperation.
That spiral ended when Luna escaped prison and tried to see Will one last time, only to be struck by Dylan’s (Sydney Bullock) car. The moment felt inevitable, not because the plot demanded it, but because the character had nowhere else to go.
Lisa Yamada’s performance made Luna tragic, terrifying, and human all at once. That balance — and that bravery — is why she earned Performer of the Year. Will Luna return again? That’s something we can’t wait to find out in 2026.
