Young & Restless Exclusive: Mark Grossman Shares His Surprising Wish for Adam’s Future
Monday, November 29th, 2021
He needs to “manipulate someone or steal a baby,” suggested the actor.
It’s been a while since The Young and the Restless had Adam plotting to blow up his entire family. And “I am enjoying it right now,” portrayer Mark Grossman recently told Soap Opera Digest. “I’m enjoying the dynamic with Adam and Victoria and the kind of light side with Adam and Sally, and Adam and Victor are getting along, and [so are he and] Nick. But… ”
Ah, yes. There’s a “but.” Of course there’s a “but.” “But I’m always like, ‘I need to do something bad,’” Grossman admitted with a laugh. “It’s been too normal.”
Were it up to the actor — one of soaps’ all-time best recasts, if you ask us — his complicated character would “manipulate someone or steal a baby, do something” true to his conniving form, he said. “It’s way more fun to… stir things up.”
That’s not a complaint on Grossman’s part, mind you, just a little… confession, if you will. “For right now I’m enjoying [Adam not being at odds with everybody in town], so I’m leaning into it,” he said. “But I hope it doesn’t last too long. It’s more fun to do the conflict stuff.”
Knowing Adam, there’s probably a 50-75 percent chance that by the time you get done reading this article, he’ll have gotten up to his old tricks again. While you’re here, stop off at the below photo gallery, which revisits highlights of the indefatigable schemer’s bonkers life in Genoa City.
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Image: Sean Smith/JPI (2)
1/13
<p>Upon relocating from Kansas to Genoa City, Adam embarked on a doomed relationship with Paul Williams’ attorney daughter that ushered in a period of great change. How great was it? Well, for starters, not only did he go from being played by Chris Engen to Michael Muhney, she went from being played by Vail Bloom to Eden Riegel. By the time their engagement was broken, they — wait for it — hardly recognized one another.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
2/13
<p>Eager to keep his suspicious lawyer from figuring out that he was behind the gaslighting of stepmother Ashley Abbott, Adam pretended that he was gay — <em>and</em> interested in more than legal counsel. A dirty trick, to be sure, but at least no one could say that the conniver didn’t go all in with his performance: Adam actually went so far as to hook up with Rafe to keep him from deducing that he was just another pawn in the game.</p>
Image: Aaron Montgomery/JPI
3/13
<p>As if it wasn’t awkward enough that the blonde bombshell was the former wife of Adam’s half brother, Nick, she was also the grieving mother from whom he’d stolen a perfectly healthy baby girl to give to Ashley after causing her to miscarry. (Got all that?) Despite his monstrous misdeed, Adam fell deeply in love with Sharon — and vice versa, to the point that, even after the truth came out, she couldn’t entirely shake her feelings for him.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
4/13
<p>Adam might have met his match in his old college girlfriend, a scheme queen every bit as sneaky as he is. But he could never commit to her wholeheartedly, a fact made abundantly clear when he screwed her over in some business shenanigans that threatened to make her new address federal prison. Honestly, we seemed to like Skye more than Adam did, so we were bummed when, after dad Victor helped her fake her death, she wound up taking a fatal tumble into a volcano. Which, we’d imagine, most tumbles into volcanos would be.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
5/13
<p>When the con artist and Adam were both persona non grata in Genoa City — which, honestly, could have been any given year, as fond of stirring the pot as they both are — their commiseration turned into friendship and then into a romance that was surprisingly sweet, even inspiring. Of course, there would always be the little matter of his inability to completely and totally shut Sharon out of his life.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
6/13
<p>No sooner had the paralegal begun working at Newman Enterprises than she’d started working Adam, pursuing a relationship with him as a way of obtaining intel to feed his father, Victor. When Adam figured out what she was up to and tried to use her to turn the tables on Daddy, Victor fired the vixen — which only left her even more fired up. Enraged, she falsely accused Adam of rape, then skipped town to avoid being sent up the river.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
7/13
<p>After accidentally running down Billy Abbott and Chloe Mitchell’s daughter, Adam dodged jail time — as well as Delia’s vengeful parents — by playing dead and undergoing enough plastic surgery to turn him into a replica of Gabe Bingham (then Justin Hartley). To further sell the charade, he played along with a marriage of convenience with Gabe’s bride — as you can see, <em>extremely</em> convenient now and then. But Sage was drawn to Nick, and Adam himself couldn’t stay away from…</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
8/13
<p>Yes, when Adam rose from the grave as Gabe, he wasn’t nearly as interested as usual in Sharon. Rather, he was all about Connor’s mom. After revealing to her why she was so attracted to Gabe, aside from the fact that he looked like Justin Hartley, Adam made plans to run away with his family and start over. “Not so fast,” said Chloe, who vindictively blew those plans — and, we thought, Adam — to smithereens.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
9/13
<p>Needless to say, Adam (now Mark Grossman) wasn’t dead, much less as dead as a doornail. And once he regained his memory, the amnesiac sought to pick up where he left off with his lost love and their son. Despite her reawakened feelings for old flame Nick, it looked like she and Adam just might make it the second — 22nd? — time around. Alas, looks can be deceiving, and in this case, were. He wound up being drawn like a moth to a flame back to…</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI (3)
10/13
<p>She was building a new life with stand-up guy Rey Rosales when she got tangled up once again in Adam’s web. And while she did her best to fight her feelings, oh, c’mon, it was a losing battle if ever there was one. Besides, if she could get over Adam stealing baby Faith from her, she could certainly get over Rey. A “Shadam” reunion seemed to be as safe a bet as Victor coming out on top in any corporate face-off.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
11/13
<p>Against all odds, “Shadam” <em>didn’t</em> reunite. And “Chadam” didn’t stick together, either. So Adam found himself being alternately entertained, intrigued and infuriated by the new pot-stirrer in town — despite his insistence that there wasn’t and never would be anything going on between them. Mm-hmm. Just look at the way she’s looking at him here: That’s a “You’re kidding yourself” expression if ever we’ve seen one.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
12/13
<p>It seemed like only yesterday that Adam and Sally had first exchanged “I love yous” when into his lap dropped something for which he might have cared even more: the CEO position at Newman Enterprises. In no time, he’d removed his half sister’s portrait, popped the bubbly and “christened” the office with Sally. But given Daddy Dearest’s habit of rotating execs, did Adam <em>really</em> stand a chance of making this a “long-term relationship”?</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
13/13
