One of the cornerstones of The Young and the Restless is the never-ending rivalry between self-made man Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) and cosmetics heir Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman). The tension between the two has broiled for decades, and it’s spilled over to the next generation (namely, Victor’s granddaughter, who’s dating Jack’s son, as Victor tries to break them up). That tension on screen initially carried over to the actors, Bergman shared in an interview with Questions for Cancer Research’s YouTube channel, although he noted he and Braeden have long since developed a friendship.

Reflecting on Jack and Victor’s mutual hatred, Bergman stated:

Well, I’m very proud of this enmity that is probably the oldest rivalry in the history of television. There have never been periods where we are friends. There have been periods where we tolerated each other fairly well, but we have been oil and water on this show, predates my arrival there, so Eric and I are both very proud of that.

He went on:

It’s funny how life sometimes feeds these things. When I first arrived at the show, Jack was, as I said, a smart-ass cad of an opportunist and that did not come naturally to me. So it required a good deal of acting and with the time constraints, I kind of just stayed in character in my first year there, just trying to—when I am there and I got that suit on, I am Jack, and I tried to build a certain pomposity, a certain swagger. And Eric, who’d been there for some time, probably looked over and said, ‘Who does this guy think he is?’

Bergman admitted he and Braeden have different methods when it comes to acting, saying:

Eric and I have always worked completely differently, I have a completely different process than Eric does, and we’ve had to learn how to work with each other. So all this is to say, things were strained at the beginning, and it made this rivalry so rich, so powerful, so easy to play.

He then stated plainly:

We did not like each other at the beginning. We did not like each other, and we found our way to a friendship and a respect for each other that I am also very proud of. But we had some very dark days on this show, he and I, and I’m very proud of the fact that we found our way past that and now probably have the oldest rivalry in television.

Watch Bergman’s full interview below.

This story was originally reported by Daytime Confidential on Aug 4, 2025, where it first appeared.