Inside Kelly Ripa’s Love-at-First-Sight Moment With Mark Consuelos on ‘All My Children’

When Judy Blye Wilson became the casting director for All My Children in 1991, the long-running soap was on the verge of a new era that would soon include one of its most memorable real-life love stories.

“That’s when Kelly Ripa came in (as Hayley Vaughan),” Wilson recalls. “And I can’t really take credit for it because she was cast by Joan D’Incecco (the previous casting director) and by that group prior to my getting there. But I definitely had a lot to do with Mark Consuelos (getting hired as Mateo Santos) and that’s an understatement.”