Few Guiding Light fans have forgotten Michelle Forbes, who came to Springfield in 1987 and caused loads of trouble for GL supercouple Reva (Kim Zimmer) and Josh (Robert Newman) as both Sonni Carrera and her alter ego, Sonni's deceased twin, Solita Carrera. Many have followed the actress' primetime career, which includes big-time credits like True Blood, 24, and Chicago Fire. And now, the Texas native is adding another major credit to her résumé: ABC's Big Sky.
The crime drama, which made its debut in November of 2020, follows private detective Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) and ex-cop Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick), who join forces to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. When they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.
According to Deadline, Forbes has recently signed on in the recurring role of Margaret, a picture-perfect ranch wife who knows her place, likes to bake, and loves all of her children equally -- but scratch the surface, and there's real steel beneath.
Forbes joins new cast members Ted Levine, who plays the ranch's powerful owner Horst Kleinsasse; Britt Robertson, who plays the couple's messed-up daughter, Cheyenne Kleinsasser; Michael Raymond-James, who will play their alcoholic son, Blake Kleinsasser; Ryan Dorsey, who will play younger son Rand Kleinsasser; and Kyle Schmid, who will recur as Margaret and Horst's second-born son, John Wayne Kleinsasse.
Soap opera alum Ryan Phillippe (ex-Billy Douglas, One Life to Live) played a part in the first six episodes of Big Sky as Jenny Hoyt's estranged husband, Cody Hoyt. Phillippe was initially credited as one of the leads of the series, but Cody was killed off in the first episode -- and the mystery of whether or not the character is really dead is one of the ongoing storylines of the drama series.
Michelle Forbes' first credited role is that of Guiding Light's Sonni Carrera, which she played from 1987 to 1989. As fans may recall, Sonni was a brilliant psychiatrist from Venezuela who was revealed to be Josh Lewis' presumed-dead wife. Upon her arrival in Salem, she remarried Josh -- and then began causing all kinds of drama, including having an affair with Josh's best friend, Will Jeffries (Joseph Breen), with whom she teamed up to attempt to kill Josh and inherit his fortune!
Things got weird when it was later revealed that Sonni had died by suicide as a teenager, and the person causing all the drama in Salem was really her twin sister, Solita. Things got even weirder when it was then revealed that Solita was, in fact, Sonni -- and that Sonni had killed Solita and taken on her twin's personality as an alter ego. But no, folks, the weirdness didn't stop there. GL gave the storyline one more strange twist when Sonni remembered what happened the day her sister, Solita, died: When Sonni was a teenager, she had an affair with Will. When her father discovered them together, he assumed that she was Solita and savagely whipped her with a belt. Unfortunately, when Solita came home, he beat her, as well -- leading Solita to kill herself. Anguished with guilt, Sonni took on the personality of her now deceased twin as a defense mechanism. (Did you follow all that?!) The story was super soapy, and it earned Forbes a Daytime Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category in 1990.
After departing GL, Forbes went on to appear in several primetime series like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Homicide: Life on the Street, Battlestar Galactica, Prison Break, and more. In 2011, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category for her role in the AMC/Netflix series The Killing. She recently appeared on Epix's Berlin Station and USA's Treadstone.
What do you think about Michelle Forbes joining Big Sky in the heavily recurring role of Margaret? What do you remember from her time as GL's Sonni Carrera? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
