Y&R Alum Thad Luckinbill Gets Bumped Up to Series Regular

Thad Luckinbill still pops into Young and the Restless as JT Hellstrom on occasion, a feat all the more impressive as he works regularly in other genres. In fact, the actor has been bumped up to series regular in Season 2 of Lioness.

The Young and the Lioness

Deadline reports that Luckinbill is being bumped up to a series regular on Lioness. He plays the role of Kyle, a CIA Officer on the Paramount+ series.

The show is based on a real-life CIA program and tells the story of Cruz Manuelos (Laysa De Oliveira), a tough but passionate Marine who has been recruited to join a special division of the CIA called the “Lioness Engagement Team,” hence the show’s title.

Luckinbill’s post-Y&R credits include starring the Netflix movie Reptile, which tells the tale of a hardened detective who uncovers deception as he tries to figure out who killed a real estate agent. Luckinbill also produced the film.

He’s appeared in Granite Mountain opposite Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame) and Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick); the soap opera veteran was in Horse Soldiers, which starred Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers) and Michael Pena (Crash).

Luckinbill’s TV credits include the HBO series Ballers, Rizzoli & Isles, Nikita, CSI, Major Crimes, and Criminal Minds. He made his Y&R debut a quarter of a century ago in 1999 as bad boy J.T. The show developed the character into a younger leading man who romanced Colleen (Lyndsey Fonseca), and later had romances and marriages with Mac (Clementine Ford; Kelly Kruger) and Victoria (Amelia Heinle).

The actor returned to Y&R about 7 years ago for a storyline that revealed JT was an abuser. Perhaps inspired by the mini-series Big Little Lies, four women — Vicki, Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott), Phyllis (Gina Tognoni), and Sharon (Sharon Case) — killed JT (he turned out to later be alive) and tried to keep the circumstances of his death a secret.

JT secretly terrorized the women and abused Vicki in particular. Some felt this story was out of character for JT. The show wrote in that JT had suffered a brain tumor, which may have led to the drastic behavior change. Still, JT accepted responsibility for his actions and went to jail to pay for his crimes.