Rebecca Budig Confesses Joining “The Bold and the Beautiful” as Dr. Taylor Hayes Was 'Really Hard' (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Rebecca Budig opens up to PEOPLE about the challenges of joining The Bold and the Beautiful in 2024 and taking on the role of Dr. Taylor Hayes

• Budig says some fans "are never going to be happy," but most are "usually very kind"

• Budig, a daytime drama veteran, hosts the new CBS podcast Soapy, all about soap operas

Rebecca Budig is a major soap vet, but even she gets tripped up sometimes.

Budig, 52, tells PEOPLE exclusively that when she joined The Bold and the Beautiful in 2024 as Dr. Taylor Hayes, she found taking over the role to be “really hard.”

“I feel like there's going to be a group of fans that are never going to be happy,” Budig says of taking over an already established role from someone else. “They're never going to love you.” Over the years, Hunter Tylo, Sherilyn Wolter and Krista Allen have all played Dr. Hayes.

Despite that, Budig says, in the “small little world” of soap operas, she thinks most fans are “usually very kind and eventually come around.”

“It was really hard,” she says of joining the series. “I think I didn't realize how big of a role I was taking on, just because she's been on since the beginning of the show pretty much.” Dr. Hayes debuted on the series in 1990, three years after The Bold and the Beautiful began, and Budig notes it’s impossible “to study” that much history.

Instead, she trusts in producer Bradley Bell’s vision for the character. “I always feel like, well, you're going to have people that love you and people that don't like you, especially because they get attached to the person who played it before, and I understand that,” Budig says. But it’s still difficult, she says, “because you want to be liked. You want people to like it.”

Thanks to the internet, fan reactions to what they’re seeing on-screen can be pretty instantaneous. “I don't read it because I don't need to get caught up in the minutiae,” Budig says of the instant feedback. “I have to just have faith that I'm just going to try and do my best.”

But in Budig’s earliest days on The Bold and the Beautiful, she says, she struggled because she would do scenes where she wanted people “to feel empathy” for her character, “but they don't really know your version of the character” yet.

“I was put into a storyline where you wanted the audience to feel for her, but they really didn't have a chance to get to know her yet,” she says. “So hopefully they're starting. It's been a year. We'll see.”

The Bold and the Beautiful is Budig’s fourth soap. From 1995 to 1998, she played Michelle Bauer on Guiding Light. Then in 1999, she joined All My Children as Greenlee Smythe, where she appeared on and off until the series was canceled in 2011. From 2015 to 2017 (and again in 2019), she portrayed Hayden Barnes on General Hospital.

One thing about playing Taylor that Budig loves is that the character is close to her real age, instead of someone younger. “To be on a show where I'm playing a grandma and stuff like that, I love it,” she says.

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Budig is also co-host of the new CBS podcast Soapy, which premiered July 8. She and fellow soap veteran (and her longtime friend) Greg Rikaart host the weekly podcast, which features interviews with fellow soap stars, past and present.

Budig tells PEOPLE that with the premiere of a new soap, Beyond the Gates, this year, “it felt like the right time to celebrate soaps.”

“I think that, at least in the industry, when you are on a soap, you're at the bottom of the barrel. I just disagree with that,” she says. “I think we work really hard and there's lots to celebrate, and I think it's fun to talk to my coworkers.”

Soapy is available wherever you get your podcasts.