‘The Bold and the Beautiful’: Zende and Nicole’s Marriage ‘Hiccups’ Lead Him Back to Los Angeles

This upcoming week will see the return of Zende Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful, though the character will be played by another actor on the soap opera. Delon de Metz recently revealed more about where we will see Zende when the show comes back.

Rome Flynn’s iteration of the character and how he left the show

The character is a member of the Forrester family, one of the two prominent families on the show. Specifically, Zende is the son of Kristen Forrester Dominguez, one of the daughters of Eric Forrester and Stephanie Forrester.

Zende was first introduced in 2001 when Kristen and her husband Antonio Dominguez were Africa during their honeymoon. He had been living in an orphanage after his parents died of AIDS. After returning to Los Angeles, they kept thinking about Zende. Antonio battled AIDS himself and therefore connected with him on a deeper level. The couple returned to adopt him. They ended up leaving LA and moved to Florida.

When the character was brought back in 2015, he returned to work at Forrester Creations and had a relationship with Nicole Avant. The two ended up getting married and moved to Europe.

Daniel Smith portrayed a younger Zende when he was first on the show from 2001 to 2002. After this, he appeared once again in 2005. When the character was rapidly aged and brought back to the show’s canvas as an adult, Rome Flynn debuted in the role in 2015. Flynn left the show in 2017 and jumped to primetime.

Delon de Metz teases what to expect

The actor is set to debut in the role on Oct. 7. In an interview with Soaps in Depth, he called his audition “a wild ride.” He reveals that the audition took place on Zoom.

“It was my first time doing a Zoom audition,” he explained to the publication. “The first round, I had to make a tape. None of my friends were available and everyone else was on lockdown. I ended up with a kind of wacky setup. I took a tripod, put my cell phone on the tripod, and taped myself while I FaceTimed with an actress I worked with on another CBS show called Zoo. She did the audition with me on my laptop while I shot it on my phone!”

He sent this audition in and then had a callback which was also on Zoom. The callback was recorded, then there was a third round that included a chemistry read with Kiara Barnes, who plays Zoe Buckingham. de Metz says that this chemistry read “sealed the deal.”

Though Barnes has been a huge part of his transition to the show, de Metz says that co-star Tanner Novlan helped him even before he stepped on the set.

““I’ve known him in L.A. over the years,” he said. “I jumped on the phone with him before I started and he’s like, ‘Dude, whatever they’ve told you you don’t know what to expect when you’re there. It’s really, really fast.’ And he was definitely right. I think everyone probably underplayed how fast the pace is!”

Are Zende and Nicole over?

Before beginning to film scenes, de Metz made sure to do proper prep for the role. This included doing a lot of research as well as getting very familiar with Flynn’s work in the role.

 “I did all the Wikipedia research on the character and I talked to [producer] Ed Scott about his backstory and we went pretty deep,” hhe said. “Then I watched a bunch of Rome’s work when he was playing the character to get a sense of the tone and where he’s been and where he might be going. And then I was like, okay, now it’s time for me to put myself in this.”

However, the biggest thing that fans have been wondering about is what brings Zende back to LA, and if this means that he and Nicole are no longer together. de Metz confirmed that “something” happened.

 “There were some hiccups as you might assume with his marriage to Nicole,” he said.“And that motivates him to come back to L.A. and reintegrate into Forrester’s U.S. operations. I don’t know where it’s gonna go. “I really don’t!”

The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS.