Actor John Driscoll arrives at the press room at the Creative Arts Daytime Emmy Awards. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images)

The Young and the Restless is on a spree of bringing back major game-changing characters to the show lately. The newest potential returnee is the long-missed Chance Chancellor. When the old name was mentioned, Y&R newbies are going “Chance Chancellor who?” So, for the uninitiated, we’ve got the deets on Chance Chancellor before we see the familiar character back on Y&R.

Who Is Chance Chancellor?

The Young and the Restless character Phillip Chancellor IV, better known as Chance Chancellor, is the son of Phillip Chancellor III and Nina Webster. He was born onscreen in March 1988. Chance was first portrayed by infant twins Michael and Jonathan Hall, followed by assorted child actors as Chance aged.

The last time Chance was seen as a child, he was played by Penn Badgley from 2000 to 2001, who would go on to star as Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl and in the Netflix movie You. John Driscoll portrayed an adult Chance from 2009 to 2011.

Through his parents, Chance has a direct connection to Genoa City’s prominent families, including his grandmothers, Katherine Chancellor and Jill Abbott.

After his father apparently dies, Chance was raised by Nina’s partner, Ryan McNeil. However, Ryan was killed and Chance left Genoa City with his mother.

Nina returned some years later, sans Chance, who had joined the military and was deployed overseas. Both Katherine and Jill were upset that Nina let Chance take on a dangerous job.

Nonetheless, Chance returned from military service to settle in Genoa City. But it wasn’t smooth-sailing from there. From finding out his father is alive to romantic drama, he has gone through it all.

Not being lucky in love, Chance went back to the army and then to take a job at the Pentagon. At that time, we’d all thought that was the last we saw of Chance…but, in true soap opera form, apparently that’s not the case!

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Chance Chancellor Actor, John Driscoll, Joined the Army in Real Life

Born on June 27, 1981, Virginia native John Driscoll studied theater at George Mason University while modeling on the side.

He did small roles in Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent before making his daytime debut with Guiding Light as Coop. Soon after he ended his stint on the show in 2009, he joined Y&R as the older Chance Chancellor.

Chance’s exit from the show in 2011 was written in when the actor playing him, John Driscoll, decided to join the military for real.

In 2012, Driscoll followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the United States Army National Guard. He was deployed with the Virginia Army National Guard 29th Infantry Division, in Kuwait.

Though it might seem a surprising decision, his family, agent, and Y&R costars were happy for him. And Driscoll hadn’t completely said goodbye to acting or Chance just yet.

“I would be honored to reprise the role on a recurring basis, giving the show as much time as possible. I know that my employers do joke about it from time-to-time already. If the show were to reach out and make the offer, I’d consider it as long as the content doesn’t reflect anything that would compromise my real-time work or paint my person in a fashion that would reflect negatively on the military,” said Driscoll.

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Will Chance Really Return to Y&R?

It seems the Y&R writers are on a mission to bring the show back to its glory days when it was teeming with intense characters that kept us hooked. The Chancellor family had fallen off the map of Genoa City after Katherine’s death and Phillip III retirement to Australia. But now it looks like the Chancellor family might be revived.

With the return of Adam Newman (Mark Grossman) and Michelle Stafford’s Phyllis, we now have Chance’s likely homecoming to look forward to.

If you’ve been keeping up, the formerly presumed dead Adam is in Vegas where he is a high-stakes poker player. He supposedly has memory loss, but Vic Newman and others are digging around his new life and many secrets.

After being kidnapped by Kevin, Phyllis (then Gina Tognoni) escaped to Vegas. There, Phyllis (now Stafford) has been dealing with Adam, apparently aware of what he has been doing while everyone else  thought he was dead.

When looking for leverage to control Adam, Phyllis found that he’s connected to a prominent figure from Genoa City. While she was trying to figure out Adam’s mysterious accomplice, she spotted Chance in Vegas…and connected the dots.

In the most recent meeting between Phyllis and Adam, she dropped Chance’s name, rattling Adam. Even Victor mentioned Chance when Adam met him.

So far we’re hearing a lot about Chance, a government official, who’s somehow connected to Adam, now a suspicious gambler. There’s anticipation among Y&R viewers that the show is building up to Chance’s return.

There are so many questions to be answered. Who will play Chance this time? What is Chance doing in Vegas? How is he connected to Adam?

We’ll just have to stay tuned to The Young and the Restless to find out.

Also Read: What Happened to Phyllis on “The Young and the Restless”?