Newcomer Laneya Grace will make her soap debut on The Bold and the Beautiful on October 22 as Electra Forrester, the newest member of the show’s first family.
The actress was a student at the University of Houston when the chance to be a part of B&B came her way. “The audition process was a little bit crazy for me,” she begins. “I feel like I’ve never really had anything like this before. I sent in a self-tape and my manager called me and said, ‘Hey, they want to see you in LA to do this callback,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, It’s my first day of school. I guess I could do that.’ So, I ended up skipping my first day of school and I came down to LA and I met a bunch of producers and Brad Bell [executive producer/head writer] and I got to meet some of the other girls who were auditioning with me who were so incredibly nice. And then not even a week later, I got the call saying, ‘Hey, you got the role,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is insane.’ ”
Grace, who began modeling as a child, ultimately transitioned into performing. “I started when I was four years old,” she explains. “I got approached one day while I was on set for a Ralph Lauren photo shoot and they said, ‘Hey, we sponsor this artist that needs a little girl for his music video. Do you wanna be in it?’ And my dad, who was my momager growing up, was like, ‘Yes, of course.’ That music video was Avicii ‘Wake Me Up’ and I did that when I was nine years old. My dad and I had a talk and he said, ‘Is this something you want to do?’ And I said, ‘Yes, please. This is great.’ So, I started taking acting lessons and I got a manager and an agent and I’ve been taking acting classes since I was 11 years old. And then I started doing theater in high school and I was studying it at the University of Houston before I ended up moving out here for The Bold and the Beautiful.’ ”
Though being on a soap set was new to Grace, her first day went off without a hitch. “Everyone was so sweet,” she says. “A week before I started, I got a tour of the building and the studio. I got to meet a bunch of the actors and the crew and the makeup and hair artists and all that. And then, on my first day, I ended up finding my dressing room by the grace of God; I did not get lost. the directors were so helpful and so encouraging on that first day, which is exactly what I needed.”
She admits she battled some butterflies before she did her first scene. “I was so nervous,” she recalls. “I knew that I knew all of my lines and I got up there and I was like, ‘Are they gonna leave my brain?’ I did end up remembering all of them and the nerves went away so quickly.”
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Grace has already found a lot to like about Electra, whom she describes as driven. “She knows what she wants and she wants to take it and I love her,” Grace relays. “She’s maybe got a little bit of a path that we might find out about later. But she’s definitely very, very excited to be in Los Angeles with her Aunt Ivy and doing what she loves.”
Ashleigh Brewer, who plays Ivy, already feels like family to Grace. “She is the sweetest person I’ve ever met. She’s like a real-life aunt to me now. We just met three weeks ago and she’s just so kind and so encouraging and so supportive. I love her a lot.”
The importance of being a member of the Forrester clan isn’t lost on Grace. “It’s just an incredible legacy to be a part of,” she says. “I didn’t even realize I would get to be a part of when I was first auditioning, and they gave me my name and it said Forrester, and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. Are you serious?’ So, I definitely felt a little bit of pressure before I started, but as the days went on, I felt more comfortable. John McCook who plays Eric, Jacqueline [MacInnes Wood] who plays Steffy and Thorsten [Kaye, Ridge Forrester] are all so sweet.”
Grace adds that she researched the complicated ties of the Forresters before she began working. “I did some family tree poking around because I knew when I looked at that, it was a crazy big family tree and I was like, ‘I’m gonna need to know all of this,’ ” she explains. “And even in the scripts that I’ve gotten, they do some exposition where they tell us how people are related and I’ve been writing it down seriously, like, ‘Ok, so that’s this person’s daughter. I think I got it.’ ”
The newcomer has also bonded with Crew Morrow, who plays Will Spencer, one of her scene partners. “He was my first actor friend on the show,” Grace shares. “He’s also really, really sweet and has been very comforting to me. It was nice to come in my first day and have a familiar face, because I met him when I came to LA the first time, and we had lunch together before I started filming.”
As for the college friends she left behind in Houston, they’re all rooting for her success. “They all have the date of my first episode written down in their calendars,” she enthuses. “They’re all really, really excited to see me. I talked to them before I had even booked it. I was like, ‘Guys, I’m really nervous. What if I book this? I have to drop out of college,’ and one of my friends actually said, ‘I hope you do. Not because I hate you, but because that means that you’re doing exactly what we’re trying to do and that’s amazing.’ ”
With her debut set for two weeks from now and surrounded by so much love and support, Grace is feeling positive about the future. “I’m so excited,” she smiles. “My goal when I was in college was to make enough money acting that I didn’t need a day job, and I ended up being able to do that before I even graduated. So, it’s crazy, it’s surreal and it’s really, really nice.”
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