Daytime Emmy-Winner Courtney Hope Talks Love, Loss and Love Triangles
‘Y&R’ and ‘B&B’ soap opera star reflects on her career, as well as Sally and Adam’s future
Even before The Young and the Restless star Courtney Hope won her Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama earlier this month, Sally Spectra’s portrayer was celebrating her success. With an impressive list of guest gigs going back to 2000 and a serious following among gamers who play Quantum Break and Control, Hope has made a name for herself in the soap world since signing onto The Bold and the Beautiful in 2017 and then bringing Sally to The Young and The Restless a few years later.
Here, the newly minted Daytime Emmy-winner opens up to FIRST for Women about her journey – not to mention Sally’s growth, Newman love triangle, and future with Adam on The Young and The Restless.
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Courtney Hope’s Daytime Emmy win is just a piece of her dream come true
Courtney Hope put aside her usual edgy style for the 2024 Daytime Emmys and went all out princess in an Ashley Paige gown – and it turned out to be the perfect look as The Young and the Restless star lived out a fairytale moment.
“It feels surreal,” Sally’s portrayer says of winning Outstanding Supporting Actress. “When I was four, I would say, ‘I’m going to be a famous dancer and singer on Broadway,’ which was hysterical, because I didn’t know anything about anything I was saying. And I don’t sing!”
Thankfully, at five, Hope discovered television and readjusted her sights. By six, she was modeling and taking acting and dance classes and after the Texan moved to Los Angeles at 14, she gave up competitive dance to dedicate herself to carving out a career in TV.
As she built her list of credits, the fitness instructor kept coming close to landing game-changing roles… only to see them go to her competition.
“I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” Hope cracks – until Sally Spectra came along in 2017. “I’ve had a few moments lately where I’m like, ‘Wow, the little girl inside of me is just so excited!’ I mean, I’m actually able to live my life and support myself doing something I adore doing.”
Soap star reflects on “devastating” Daytime Emmy-winning storyline
To top it off, that little girl now also has a Daytime Emmy to her name – and for all the times Hope had practiced her acceptance speeches, the real thing was nothing like she’d imagined.
“This was way better,” she says with a grin. “It was crazy getting up there and looking around. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, these are my peers and the people I’ve looked up to for so long – and now I’m here, a part of it!’ When I was younger, it was about the speech and wanting this moment. When I got up there and saw that, it flipped the script on it.”
With only 30 seconds onstage, Hope was quick to rattle off her thank yous. Then, with her Emmy submission reel all about Sally learning she’d lost her baby, she dedicated her win to anyone who’s lost a child.
“It was devastating to play, but on my Instagram, 1000s of people that have been through it reached out to me and were talking to each other, back and forth,” she explains. “That is what I love to see. Stories like this are important. I live for telling them and helping people feel less alone.”
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Daytime Emmy-winner Courtney Hope reflects on Sally’s growth on ‘Y&R’
Powerful storylines like that are also essential for character growth – something Sally has seen quite a bit of since her days on The Bold and The Beautiful, where the redhead was introduced as a schemer on par with her larger-than-life great aunt and namesake, played by late Darlene Conley.
“When Sally first came to B&B, she was career-driven and just fought to be seen and heard,” Hope reminds. “Then love smacked her upside the face a couple times, and she got her heart broken.
“I’ve enjoyed seeing her with a whole new cast of players,” she continues. “When she came to Y&R, she tried to pull some fast ones over on Summer and then realized she needed to level up as a person and find other ways to get ahead.”
While her career is in flux, Sally’s now working for Summer, of all people. She’s certainly come a long way from being a brash businesswoman who stole designs – let alone a vixen who faked a deadly illness to land a man!
“Her name still stops her sometimes,” Hope contends. “Victor’s shaking his fist, ‘Oh, that Spectra woman!’ It’s so funny. But Sally has found better footing as to who she is and the kind of woman she wants to be, and the baby loss was a huge catalyst for that. It’s helped her be able to support Adam as he deals with Connor’s mental health, and she’s now standing up for the things that matter to her.”
‘Y&R’ Daytime Emmy-winner reflects on Sally, Adam, and Nick
These days, Hope would even be friends with her loyal, fun, creative, hardworking character – though she admits Sally’s choices might frustrate her, at times.
“In real life, you want relationships that are more peaceful,” she explains. “Her relationship with Adam isn’t always that. I’d be like, ‘What are you doing?’”
While she might not agree with Sally, Hope does understand why her character chose volatile Adam over stable, grounded Nick.
“She was heartbroken leaving Nick because she really did love him, but she was just so pulled to Adam,” she says. “He’s a bit of a wildcard, but she feels like he’s cut from the same cloth and really understands her. If he hadn’t dumped her in the beginning – for ‘her own good’ or whatever! – she would have continued to date him. So she had to see this through.”
For now, Sally’s choice is paying off. She’s enjoying a quiet moment – which has given Hope a bit of extra time to focus on life outside of Genoa City. The actress has been busy creating a new clothing line with her brother, working on a top-secret new gaming project, and finding a balance between staying fit and healthy and dancing for pure joy.
Daytime Emmy-winner Courtney Hope considers Sally and Adam’s future on ‘Y&R’
As Courtney Hope celebrates her first Daytime Emmy win and getting to tell stories that move viewers, she’s also rooting for Sally and Adam to live their best life together on The Young and the Restless.
“I’m so invested in Sally, her path, and her unsuccessful love excursions,” Hope tells FIRST. “I want her to have the dream! Given what she and Adam have been through and lost, it would be a beautiful and healing moment for them to have a child that actually survives.”
With The Young and the Restless a soap opera, however, those happily ever afters are hard to come by.
“If anything were to happen with Adam, it would shatter Sally,” Hope concludes with a sigh. “Her trust is temperamental right now, especially with him. I would hate to see her heartbroken again. But we can’t be happy forever! That’s the kiss of death on soap operas, so… we’ll see.”
