With the departure of Sonny's love interest Brenda as Vanessa Marcil left in 1998, Sonny's romantic pairings did not take off until the coupling of Sonny and Carly towards the turn of the century. Carly Benson (originated by Sarah Brown), had been in town since 1996, making grand gestures to make her birth mother, Bobbie Spencer's, life miserable. In 1999, writer Patrick Mulcahey had admitted the writers were not sure which direction Carly was going in. Brown and Benard proved to have chemistry when tested on-screen, and their couple would propel them into supercouple status in the coming decade.