Soaps’ All-Time Most Recast Roles: Young & Restless’ Chance and More

How will Conner Floyd fare when he steps into Chance’s loafers?

We weren’t particularly surprised to hear that The Young and the Restless‘ Chance had been recast. Like most of the audience, we suspected that the rumors of his death were as greatly exaggerated as those which had previously been spread about Victor, Adam and several other Genoa City residents. We knew that it was just a matter of time before Abby’s husband would get a new face and make his way back to her.

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SInce Chance’s birth in 1988, no less than 13 actors have played the role, although many of those were babies and infants largely trotted out for the occasional scene. It wasn’t until 2000 that Nina and Philip’s son became a full-blown character, at the time played as a teen by Penn Badgley, who would later go on to star as Dan on the original Gossip Girl. Stricken with a case of soap-opera rapid-aging syndrome in 2009, Chance emerged as a hunky young hero, then played by John Driscoll (who’d by then proven his soap chops with a run as Guiding Light‘s Coop) until 2011.

Above: It’s not really a pose-off, guys. Then again, um, maybe it is?

Credit: John Paschal/JPI, Howard Wise/PI (2)

A decade later, Chance would return in the form of Donny Boaz (and, briefly, Justin Gaston, the real-life husband of Abby’s portrayer, Melissa Ordway) only to last month be declared dead following an explosion in Spain. But as Abby refused to accept her husband’s demise and no body was found… well, like we said, it seemed pretty hard to believe that Chance was dead.

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And so we arrive at the casting of Conner Floyd, who will later this month bring Chance back from the dead. Now, to primetime viewers, the fact that so many different actors have played the same part might seem unusual. After all, when Christopher Meloni decided to leave Law & Order: Special Victims Unit a few years ago, they didn’t run out and ask Kevin Bacon to step into the role of Stabler.

Sure, there have been examples of primetime recasting, particularly on primetime soaps such as both the current and past versions of Dynasty. But what’s rare after dark is virtually commonplace on soaps, where some roles have had five, six and even seven actors playing them. With that in mind, check out the below photo gallery of soaps’ most-recast characters of all time. Then hit the comments with any that you think we missed!