A shady character from Adam’s past has resurfaced on The Young and the Restless. Tina Casciani is back as Riza Thomson, the Newman scion’s former boss from his time as a Las Vegas card shark.
MORE: Is Dark Adam back on Y&R?
Here’s What You Need to Know
The Italian-Brazilian actress, who originally played Riza from 2019 to 2020, hails from New York and began her performing journey as a dancer. She eventually began modeling before segueing to acting, landing her first big gig as one of the leads in the independent film Mob Rules. Casciani has appeared in the movies Role Models with Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, and Bleed For This, as well as the television series How I Met Your Mother, Revenge, Jane The Virgin, Donny, and CSI: Miami.
Want to learn more about the actress? Here are seven things to know about Casciani.
1. She’s a former beauty pageant winner. Casciani was crowned Miss New York Teen USA in 2000. She went on to represent New York in the Ms. Teen USA pageant later that year.
2. Casciani’s modeling career began when she was discovered by an agent at IMG Models on a Manhattan train. She promptly signed with the esteemed agency and went on to travel the world while working for brands such as Giorgio Armani, Guess, L’Oréal, and others. Along the way, she lived in cities like Milan, Paris, London, Sydney, and Tokyo.
3. She’s graced the pages and appeared on the covers of an array of prestigious magazines. Among them: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Elle.
4. Casciani’s most notable role was portraying Tierney on the CW’s sci-fi series Pandora from 2019 to 2020. The character was the smart and ruthless leader of the Hypatia Syndicate, a criminal organization. She recurred in the show’s first season and was promoted to series regular in Season 2.
5. She raved about her experience working on Pandora, describing Hypatia as a group of “bad ass women dressed in Roman garb,” during a video chat with uInterview. “As the leader [I got] to have my Cleopatra flowing gowns, which was probably one of the funnest parts of working on the series.” Another perk was getting to do her own stunts, which she referred to as “my version of Catherine Zeta-Jones going through the lasers… [Doing] cartwheels, backflips, kicks…]”
6. Casciani is an avid supporter of BAWA (Bali Animal Welfare Association), which she links to on her Instagram page. The organization’s mission is to put compassion into action and create sustainable change for Bali’s animals. It envisions a Bali where each village is its own natural sanctuary for animals, where all animals are routinely vaccinated, healthy, cared for, and treated with respect.
7. In addition to acting, Casciani is also a proficient dancer – ballet, jazz, modern, classical, and tap, and a singer. Check out her Grammaton Recordings performance of Running Free from producers Airjax.
