Twenty-five years ago All My Children embarked one of daytime television's most iconic storylines when Erica Kane (Susan Lucci)’s daughter, Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel), came out as gay. Bianca's journey was a groundbreaking moment for LGBTQ+ representation in television. Now on the milestone anniversary of this story, Riegel is reflecting on the story, how she found out about it, and the lasting impact of creator Agnes Nixon's vision.
Riegel recently spoke with Remind Magazine, reflecting on the ground breaking story.
Riegel booked the part in 2000, taking over from Nathalie Paulding. When she was cast, Riegel wasn’t informed of the direction that her character would be taking. The actress shared, “I knew that there was a lot of angst involved, but no, I booked the part and then, they brought me into Jean Dadario Burke’s office, and the head writer was there too. They needed to make sure that I would be okay with this. By that I mean, would I be okay with receiving hate mail or being pigeonholed. They didn’t even know my personal beliefs.”
After being informed of the direction the story would be taking, Riegel shared her reaction, saying, “They told me Bianca was going to come out as gay, I sat there and I waited for them to tell me what the ‘big thing’ was because I was, like, ‘Okay! What’s next?’ I didn’t see what the big deal was. But I could tell how serious they were taking it and they were clearly invested.”
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Riegel knew that this was going to be an important story, and shared how she approached it. “I got the picture pretty fast that I also needed to approach it with a similar level of investment and humanity, because I was being put into the minds of people who possibly had never met another gay person in their life.”
Riegel shared that the story was one of show creators Agnes Nixon’s last major acts. The actress shared, “It was one of [Agnes’s] last acts, she said, ‘No notes! No notes!’ This was a passion project for her.” When describing Nixon decided to use Erica and her daughter, Riegel shared that Nixon “wanted to make sure that that the character who came out would be somebody that couldn’t just be quietly written off, Agnes was a genius.”
Lifetime is currently developing a potential All My Children continuation movie series.
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