Jade Harlow on Marie’s Journey, Her Connection With Nick, and Why Y&R Has Asked Her and Joshua Morrow to Dial Back Their Chemistry

As Marie Kirkland, Jade Harlow is at the center of one of The Young and the Restless’ most emotionally difficult storylines, portraying a woman struggling with addiction, coming out of an abusive marriage, and experiencing a loss of hope so profound that she no longer recognizes the person she once was or cares whether she finds her way back

In an exclusive interview with The Soap Scene today, Harlow explained why she and Joshua Morrow have to dial it back sometimes, who Marie really is, and how she connects with the emotionally difficult material.

Jade Harlow Recognizes Marie Kirkland

Viewers of The Young and the Restless have barely begun to scratch the surface of getting to know Marie Kirkland. She walked into Nick Newman’s life when they were in similar places, recognizing themselves in one another.

For actress Jade Harlow, understanding how to play Marie began with recognizing just how far gone she was when viewers first met her.

“I saw a woman who no longer felt a will to live,” Harlow explained. “I saw a woman who, whatever had happened to her in life, had gotten to her. She was in a place where she no longer cared about her future,” Harlow explained.

Rather than approaching Marie simply as a woman at her lowest point, Harlow found herself wanting to protect her. “That immediately made me want to scoop her up and protect her,” she said. “Because, you know, people get depressed, people go through things, addiction, you name it, and it feels like, at the time, whatever you’re going through, whether it’s grief, or a divorce, or a family issue, whatever it is, it feels so insurmountable when you’re in it.”

Getting to Know Marie

The woman viewers first met isn’t necessarily representative of who Marie was before her life unraveled — or who she will become.

Harlow sees Marie as funny, perceptive, and emotionally intelligent, someone who can immediately understand what is happening around her. But an abusive relationship has gradually forced those qualities into the background as Marie has focused on nothing more than surviving.

“Before she found herself in this place in life, she was a very bright, very sharp woman,” Harlow said. “She doesn’t miss a tick. She can read a room in a second.” Harlow believes that many of Marie’s qualities were gradually suppressed by the circumstances she found herself in.

“I think that she — as so many women do when they find themselves in an abusive relationship — found that light within her being bent for survival,” she explained. “So she’s in a place where she doesn’t even recognize who she is anymore or what she has going for her, or what she has to live for.”

As Marie wades through the darkest period of her life, however, Harlow believes viewers will finally have the opportunity to meet the woman underneath the trauma.

“As we watch her get sober and start to walk out of this phase of her life that felt unsurvivable, we get to really get to know her for the first time,” Harlow said. “We really get to see the humor and the heart.”

One of Marie’s defining characteristics is also her instinct to care for other people, even when she is struggling to care for herself. “I think she’s somebody who cares more about other people than she does herself,” Harlow said. That quality connects Marie to Nick.

Why Marie Sees Nick Differently

Nick and Marie may come from dramatically different worlds, but Harlow sees a surprising amount they have in common. Marie doesn’t know Nick Newman as the wealthy, well-connected member of one of Genoa City’s most prominent families. She knows him as the man who was kind to her at her lowest point.

“Marie doesn’t know Nick, quote unquote, Newman,” Harlow explained. “She doesn’t know anything about his family, anything about the money. They met each other anonymously, and they’ve been in an anonymous environment where last names aren’t shared.”

That anonymity has allowed the two characters to see each other without the expectations and judgments that normally surround them. “She knows Nick for the man that saved her in her darkest hour,” Harlow said. “She knows Nick for the kindness he showed her when the entire world threw her away. That’s who she knows.”

That is also why Marie can see something in Nick that other people in Genoa City may not recognize. Harlow sees both characters as having developed a tendency to put other people’s needs ahead of their own, even when doing so puts them in danger.

“Even though there’s a class divide between Nick and Marie, they couldn’t be more alike when it comes to the problems you’re trying to overcome, their big hearts wanting to make things okay for other people, and then putting themselves in a situation, jeopardizing their safety,” she said.

That understanding also lets Marie challenge Nick in a way others may not. She can recognize his instinct to rescue people, and she isn’t afraid to tell him when he needs to stop.

“While she’s in a broken place, she’s still strong enough to go toe to toe with him and call him on his nonsense,” Harlow said. “And draw a very firm boundary and say, ‘This is for me to deal with. You need to focus on you.’”

For Marie, refusing to let Nick be her hero is part of her own recovery. Although Marie appreciates Nick wanting to help her and be her friend, Harlow insists that Marie needs to save herself. That said, Harlow sees their friendship as one of the first genuinely healthy relationships Marie has experienced as an adult with someone who didn’t want to hurt her or take from her. 

That’s also precisely why Marie is protective of Nick. As he has his own self-discovery about his need to be the hero, Marie might be the only person in his life who isn’t asking for him to be there for her in some way.

Finding the Chemistry Between Jade Harlow and Joshua Morrow

The connection between Marie and Nick has also translated into a strong working relationship between Harlow and Morrow. “Going into this role, I only needed to know how much experience my partner had,” she explained. “Knowing that Joshua Morrow has been a pillar of legacy for years on this show, that immediately offered me a lot of comfort,” Harlow said.

The material they were tackling was raw and vulnerable, and Harlow knew she needed to trust the person opposite her. “With Josh and me, I think we’re both very comfortable with each other,” she said. “We both enjoy the work, and are supportive of one another.”

That trust has become one of the foundations of their work together. “Whatever scenes come down the pike for the two of us, we’re going to go to each other, and the first words out of our mouths are going to be, ‘Do you need? What do you need from me?’” Harlow explained.

It’s the kind of professional relationship she doesn’t take for granted. Harlow noted that other actors may have different processes or time constraints, but she and Morrow have found that their approaches as scene partners work well together. In fact, their on-screen dynamic has worked so well that directors have even reminded them to be conscious of the chemistry between Marie and Nick.

“I can’t tell you how many times, episode to episode, directors have given the note to pull back the chemistry,” Harlow revealed. “So now we’re mindful of, okay, it is there, and other people can see it. Now we have to pretend like it’s not there.”

Protecting the Performance

The emotional weight of Marie’s storyline means Harlow approaches the material differently from Morrow, who she says is particularly good at moving in and out of difficult scenes.

“Joshua is amazing at popping in and popping out [of character],” she said. “I don’t work that way.” Instead, Harlow prefers to remain immersed in Marie’s thoughts and emotional state.

That doesn’t mean the set is consistently a heavy environment. Harlow says that when the material allows them to be lighter, she and Morrow naturally fall into a comfortable rhythm together. After a particularly difficult scene, that relationship helps them shake off some of the emotional weight.

“When things have gotten too heavy for one or the other, and someone called ‘Cut’ at the end of that scene, right away, one or the other was very playful,” she said. That balance has helped Harlow maintain the story’s emotional intensity without feeling isolated by it.

“It helps you go home at the end of the day with this feeling of, ‘I really love my teammates. And I want to win for this team,’” she said.

Why Marie’s Story Matters to Jade Harlow

Harlow is particularly passionate about Marie’s storyline because it’s an opportunity to confront the stigma surrounding addiction while showing what the experience actually looks like. She praised the work being done on the show to portray recovery seriously, including the role of group therapy and the importance of men being willing to seek mental health support.

“If we can take the stigma away from addiction, and if we can just look a thing in the face, then we can say, okay, this is what it looks like, and this is what hurts, then we know how to help,” Harlow said. “As long as we sweep it under the rug, there will be no resources, no safety net, no plan of action to help somebody walk through this.”

But Harlow doesn’t view Marie as defined by that darkness. At the heart of her performance is the belief that Marie can find her way back to the woman she was before everything became about survival.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” Harlow said. “You just gotta go through it.”