Kyle Lowder plays Rick in Bold and the Beautiful.

Kyle Lowder is known to most soap audiences as Brady Black from Days of Our Lives. After all, he played the part for five years and was always in the middle of a juicy storyline. So, why would a successful actor in a popular role want to leave the show that made him a household name?

Kyle explains: "It was a big decision. It was almost a mutual decision between me and the show. Ken (Corday, executive producer) and I sat down and talked about it. We came to an agreement to take a break. I felt I had done all I wanted to do with the character. But we left it open-ended - Brady wasn't killed off; he got to ride into the sunset with his beautiful new bride (Chloe, played by Nadia Bjorlin)."

Does thismean Brady Black could return to Salem one day? "I never say 'never' to anything."

But in the meantime, Kyle is having a ball at his new job on The Bold and the Beautiful. After all, he is in the ideal situation: He gets to blend two of his loves into one role. An accomplished singer and songwriter, Kyle was thrilled to learn that the character the producers wanted him for on B&B would also be a classically trained musician, just as Kyle himself is.

Daytime and music

The way it all came about, as Kyle says, "was serendipitous. I wanted to get back into daytime television. I knew I could do both - daytime and music. Once I got the music ball rolling, I sent up a flare to see if anything was available in daytime. I wanted a role I could really sink my teeth into."

And then, the Bells came a-calling. "I had a meeting with Bradley Bell (executive producer of B&B), and it went really well. I fell in love with the guy. We were talking about the character of Rick, but he didn't tell me that it would be a recast. We were talking about him as if he were a whole new character. I knew the character would be big, with a big story arc. It was a great meeting - Brad was open to suggestions about Rick. By the end of the meeting, I told him, 'Brad, I'd love to come work for you'."

According to Kyle, his new role is "the ideal working situation. I can keep up my music career and work for a family like the Bells."

Playing the part of Rick Forrester isn't all songs and roses though. As things usually go in Soapland, trouble is afoot - in the form of a potentially explosive love triangle. What the audience knows, but Rick's girlfriend, Phoebe (MacKenzie Mauzy) doesn't, is that Rick had a "white-hot, passionate, on-fire romance" with Ashley Abbott (Eileen Davidson) while he was in Paris, before he became involved with Phoebe. As Kyle explains it: "The affair with Ashley ends abruptly, Rick comes back to L.A., with no job, he's pissed, Ashley's gone, but then he meets Phoebe. They share a passionatelove for each other; Rick is a new man."

Former lovers

But no one can be happy on a soap for too long, because now Ashley is back in L.A., and a spark still exists between the former lovers. Is Rick on the road to heartache?

Kyle tells me: "Rick is a man of commitment, honesty and loyalty. He is with Phoebe and is committed to her. He is in love with her - what they have is real. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't look at Ashley and lose his head."

And as for Constantine (Constantine Maroulis), Phoebe's music producer, does Rick see him as a threat to his happiness with Phoebe? "Rick knows Constantine is interested in more than just Phoebe's voice. He sees all the things that Rick saw in her (when he first met her). He sees what is happening, and he will put a stop to it."

So, with Kyle at the helm, Rick has come back from Paris a stronger, more experienced and more passionate man than when he left. Plus, he can make the girls swoon with a song. Not a bad job, if you can get it.

- Cindy Elavsky