The actress will appear as Shauna Fulton in the Thursday, May 28, episode of the soap
NEED TO KNOW
- Denise Richards is returning to The Bold and the Beautiful as Shauna Fulton after a four-year hiatus
- Richards will appear in the May 28 episode
- She teases other exciting projects in the works and calls this a “whole new chapter” in her career
Denise Richards is stepping back into the world of The Bold and the Beautiful.
After a four-year hiatus from the CBS soap, the actress, 55, will make her return as Shauna Fulton in the episode airing Thursday, May 28.
"It's nice to be back," Richards tells PEOPLE. "It feels like I never left. It's such a great family environment, and I love my character. She likes to cause a little trouble."
Credit: The Bold and the Beautiful/CBS
In a PEOPLE exclusive preview of the episode, Richards' Shauna can be seen greeting her former flame Bill Spencer (Don Diamont) and his son Wyatt (Darin Brooks) at the offices of Spencer Publications.
"The Spencer men are so handsome — especially you, Bill," she tells a shocked Bill. "Congratulations, by the way, I heard about [your company] Logan. You are a real player in the fashion world now."
"I mean, too bad things didn't work out with Eric Forrester," she continues. "Katie must be on the hunt for a new designer. Remember Bill, I ran some very high-end boutiques in Vegas, and it just so happens I'm available now. I can just imagine getting in on the ground floor of the newest game in town. Wouldn't that be something?"
While Richards says it "can be very intimidating going into a set where people have worked together for so long," that's never been the case on The Bold and the Beautiful.
"Everyone's just very embracing and very supportive," she says. "The actors I was working with made it so much easier to step back in."
Credit: Brianna Bryson/Getty
Richards says getting to return to the show at the same time as Brooks' Wyatt — who departed the program in 2024 — was also "so fun."
"I loved that Darin was returning too," she says. "I like that with Wyatt and Shauna, our characters, we're light and fun, so we'll see where we go. A lot of times we have no idea what's going to happen too, which is so fun getting the scripts every Friday."
Richards began playing Shauna in 2019, years after she was initially turned down for a part on the show.
"I tested years ago when I first started acting for General Hospital and didn't get it," she says. "I'd had friends on soap operas and always thought it was such a great experience no matter what level you are at in your career."
Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS
When Richards later got a call with an offer to do Bold and the Beautiful, she says she "was terrified" but "knew I had to do it."
"I'll never forget my very first day I had over 50 pages and all my scenes were back to back," she says. "I had a little bit of a panic moment of, 'How am I going to do this?'"
Richards was thankful to have gotten a call from Rena Sofer, who was on the show at the time.
"She said, 'I know it's overwhelming. Don't think of it as you have all of these pages, think of it as one scene at a time,'" she recalls. "And so I did, and somehow I was able to memorize all the pages."
Now, Richards tells "every actor they should do a soap at one point or another in their career, especially if they are starting out."
"It is the best place to learn," she says. "It moves fast. The pages, there's so much dialogue and we try to do one or two takes, which can be overwhelming. I mean, if you don't get it, you don't get it and you have to do more takes, but you don't want to be that person that throws the whole schedule off and make everyone be behind. It's a very well-oiled machine."
Along with Bold and the Beautiful, Richards says she has some other exciting projects in the works that she'll be able to let fans in on soon.
"I love being on set and working with all different people," she says. "I've always just had such a passion for it and glad I'm still working. This is just a whole new chapter for me in general."
The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS (check local listings).