When Linden Ashby was cast as Dr. Brett Cooper on Melrose Place in 1997, he didn’t know what he was getting into.
“It was funny because I was coming out of such a sort of different genre — I’d done movies and an action series and other stuff and then I got on the show,” the actor, who recently returned to The Young and the Restless, recalls. “And I remember coming home to Susan [Walters, his wife, who played Christine Denton on Melrose Place in 1998] and I’m like, ‘This dialogue; I would never have this conversation. It just wouldn’t happen. I would be like, ‘Hey, we’re not having this conversation.’ It was much more talking to each other than I was used to at that point in my life. So, that was hard.”
But he appreciated being part of the popular production. “I came on in Season 6, and you were walking into a well-oiled machine, and it was cool,” he smiles. “I loved Aaron [Spelling, executive producer]. Aaron was nothing but good to me, nothing but good to Susan. And he was loyal, and he was generous and the world is a poorer place without him.”
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While there is a reboot of the popular series in the works, Ashby doesn’t think he’ll get the call to join. “I was just doing a convention and I was hanging out with Alyssa [Milano, who played Jennifer Mancini from 1997-1998] a lot and we were talking about Melrose Place. You hear talk about a reboot but I don’t know if I was an integral part in that show. I think that there are other actors who were the faces of Melrose. I was just kind of a visitor.”
Nevertheless, he’d welcome the chance to be a part of the new series and re-explore the character. “Yeah, of course! It would be great. It’d be fun,” he enthuses. “I’d like to go back and do it better than I did the first time. You don’t often get a chance to do that in life and it’s like, ‘You know what? I think I can do that better.’”
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Speaking of revisiting past roles, Ashby was thrilled to be a part of 2023’s Teen Wolf: The Movie, where he seamlessly portrayed Sheriff Noah Stilinski again. “It was fun,” he reports. “It’s like, they’re paying you to come hang out with your friends and do something you love to do. And so that was really great. It was like putting on a comfy pair of jeans or something and they still fit well.”
Ashby is proud to be associated with so many fan-favorite vehicles, including portraying Johnny Cage in the 1995 film Mortal Kombat, and Cameron Kirsten on The Young and the Restless. “To be a part of these pop cultural phenomena is pretty unique, pretty amazing and lucky,” he reflects. “I mean, a lot of people go their whole career and they have very successful careers, but they don’t get in something that becomes this cultural touchstone in the way that these shows have. And it’s a real honor to be a part of that.”
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