Soap Opera Digest: AMC has been building to this moment ever since you joined the show. How did you prepare yourself to tape the coming-out episodes?
Jeffrey Carlson: I just sort of gave myself a little talking to that day. I said, "Just step across the line and see what happens." I didn't sleep very well the night before. The words were going through my head. I spent a lot of time on those scripts. I didn't want to have to be thinking about what I learned on the page; I wanted to allow what she was feeling to come out on those words. When you're doing a play, you have four weeks of rehearsal to allow that to happen; you don't have the luxury of that in daytime. I just really, really wanted the words to go away. That's what was going through my head: "How do I get myself to concentrate like that?"

Digest: What did you and Eden Riegel [Bianca] talk about before taping that day?
Carlson: I think, really, we both knew what was coming in terms of the intensity of the scenes. I just remember the two of us looking into each other's eyes and going [exhales deeply]. It was just about breathing and knowing where we had to go because we can't be Jeff and Eden at that moment. I remember one of the directors, Steven Wilford, coming down and saying to keep that in mind.

Digest: What did he say, exactly?
Carlson: He said, "I can tell you and Eden like each other a lot, but just know that we need to go to a place that doesn't involve you two."

Digest: Francesca James also directed one of the episodes in the unfolding of Zoe's coming out to Bianca. Can you tell me a story about her contribution to the scenes?
Carlson: Ah, Francesca is wonderful. She actually directed the first of the coming-out episodes and [beforehand] she came down to my dressing room and asked to see my hands. She wanted to look at my hands because they'd given me a french manicure and had asked me to grow out my nails. She said, "I want you to listen to something." Without words, she wanted me to know what she had in her mind [for the tone of the scenes]. I put on her iPod headphones and a song came on that I knew; it was familiar to me. I was like, "What is it?" She said, "It's from The Mission." God, that song is so beautiful and I personally loved it. That night I went to the store and bought the CD. Whenever I go to put Zoe back inside, right when I get to work I turn it on. Every day. I play the whole soundtrack and if I need to take a nap during the day, I keep it on in the background. It's just the whole theme that continues to go through it that now means so much more to me than just the movie, which is one of my favorites. It's now to me representative of Zoe's journey. That theme — thank you, Francesca James, has become her theme. I really love Francesca. The delicacy and the time that she and Steven took on those first two days meant the world to me. There was a lot of pressure in those scenes, you know. I tried to shake that pressure off as much as possible. Chills went down my arm when I went to knock on her door and when she opened the door and I looked at her, eight million things went through my head, because it was Zoe acknowledging what she looks like, wanting to say, "I love you," probably wanting to cry, barf, laugh, everything at the same time. And as an actor, you can probably only play one. So mine was, "Stay standing up!" I just looked right into her eyes and tried to get those first words out.