In a celebratory interview with TV Source Magazine, Ms. Hall spoke with us and discussed her lengthy career and the evolution of the television landscape as she shared this historic event. 

Congratulations on reaching 5,000 episodes on Days of our Lives! What does this milestone mean to you, and how does it feel to have been a part of the show for so long? 

Somebody one day said I was coming up on 5000 and I went, “Ok, bye.” Of course in hindsight it’s extraordinary. There’s no such thing as 5000 shows.  I don’t even think there’s much of anything that’s close to that. So I’m, I’m very pleased to have been the person that got to make it to this landmark. It meant a life. It’s meant that I get to do a job that I love, that I get to work with people that I admire and respect.  The phone number doesn’t change. The parking space doesn’t change.  I love all that. I get to come home and have time with my family and know what my schedule is for the next three or four weeks. I know when my vacations are.  I mean it’s the best job there is.

You’ve played Marlena Evans for over 40 years. How has the character of Marlena evolved over the course of those 5,000 episodes?

Well, Marlena evolves as the country evolves.  We tell current and topical stories. For example; many, many years ago I did the first crib death, which had never been discussed on television. We had the first gay wedding. Our writers have always felt that being relevant was important. Ken Corday and Ron Carlavati continue this.  Because I think one thing the daytime does is it helps you see how somebody else handles it. It’s not watching the Kardashians. So if there was a death in the family everybody is shell shocked and horrified and heartbroken. Now what do they do? You know, Don and Marlena could not survive a crib death. Most couples can’t. The fact that we get to do a little bit of teaching along the way I think is awfully important.

What would you say is the key to the show’s longevity and continued success after so many years on the air? 

First of all, I think it’s being run by a family. Because the Corday’s are a family. When I came on Betty Corday was my boss and then Ken swept in and he took over at one point. So we’re family run you know so we have those values. Betty and even Ken are very attached to the story that we’re doing. What are we telling and what are we saying. 

We’ve got the wealthy family, we’ve got the not so wealthy family. The Brady family of whom I was apart. We knew how they lived and what was important and how they held together and the things that were incredibly important to them. Then we have the Horton family, which was the doctors, lawyers and you know, all those fancy folks and we got to see how they live and how they interacted.  We got to see a lot of contrast, which I think is important for people to see. 

We also get to be a family off camera as well. That means that when there is a tragedy, when there’s a joy, we’re such a safe place. A person coming to work gets to be handled anyway they want to be handled. We know each other really well. I don’t think a lot of us get together outside the studio but we don’t have to. I know what my makeup artist is going through,  I know what my hairdresser is going through.  I know what the stage manager is finding a challenge at the moment.  So those things I get to know and it makes a real difference working in such a positive environment. 

How have you seen the soap opera genre change over the course of your career, and where do you see it going in the future? 

I think we’ve stayed current with our storylines. Things that couldn’t have been told 10 or 20 years ago we were telling. I think our audience has an appetite for it and they appreciate our take on what’s going on. Where do I see it going? I don’t know where I see it going. I think I see it staying the same and getting better.

What message would you like to say to your fans?

What I want to say to the fans is, first of all, we do it as a family, and you are a part of that. Because we don’t do it without somebody watching. We don’t do it without somebody being moved by it and being inspired by it. and that’s important to us.  So that’s what keeps us on the air and especially to the people that followed us to Peacock. Thank you so very much, Thank you for all of that. It’s just been a real blessing, so thank you.

Thank you so much for speaking with us today and once again congratulations on this amazing achievement.

Peacock is now the new exclusive home of the fan-favorite drama series Days of our Lives. The 61-time Emmy Award-winning daytime drama began streaming daily ONLY on Peacock in September. In addition to new episodes streaming daily, the past season will also be available exclusively to Peacock Premium customers.

Peacock is also home to the Peacock’s Original limited drama series Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem and the holiday film Days of our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas.

The post Interview: Celebrating 5,000 Episodes with ‘Days of Our Lives’ Icon Deidre Hall! appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

With a brief stint on As The World Turns under his belt, Peter Reckell forged his path to daytime royalty as the bad news little brother of fan favorite, Roman Brady on Days Of Our Lives. But it wouldn’t take him long to carve out a lane of his own. Over the next 40 years, Beauregard Aurelius Brady would become a beloved and integral part of the NBC sudster whether his character was on screen or not. From the shock of Bo’s true paternity to one — if not the — greatest daytime love stories of all time, Peter humbly credits the writing for his character’s longevity and popularity. But we know that the writing would mean little if the portrayer was anything less than iconic.

TV Source Magazine was honored to sit down with Peter Reckell to discuss Bo’s return to Salem, who he is eager for his character to reconnect with and if Bope fans can expect immediate gratification or just a tad bit more torture.

In previous interviews, you mentioned that the vibe onset at Beyond Salem felt alive again in a way that it wasn’t during the end of your previous runs. Now that you’ve returned to the main show, how would you describe the onset vibe now compared to when the show aired on network tv? 

We have a little bit more freedom now that it’s on Peacock. So that helps. It’s more freedom in terms of storylines, as well as more freedom in regards to both language and content. So that kind of opens things up for you as an actor. When I first started on Days, especially with the character I’m playing being so “out there” with his emotions, my language sometimes needed to be curbed. But nowadays it’s nice to have that freedom as an actor to express those emotions.

The show went through, as all of us, some pretty incredible things with the pandemic. The results of which remain with us. For the show, production became much more streamlined. So as an actor, you really have to be prepared when you go in. You don’t get a lot of rehearsal. 

For me, it’s been different than everyone else’s experience because I’m coming back and I’ve got this atmosphere of friends both in the cast and crew. For example, the other day I finished a scene and I went back to pick up a prop behind a set. I heard one of the cameramen say to the other cameraman, who was new, “Hey, it’s so great to have Pete back. He really knows how to help us out.” I was like, “Oh my God, I couldn’t get a better compliment from somebody on the crew than that.” 

So yeah, it’s been great to be back on the show.

Based on all of the press surrounding the move from NBC to Peacock, a big factor in the decision appeared to be how well the Beyond Salem franchise performed. You’re no stranger to the growing online soap genre. How did it feel knowing that you were a part of moving the soap genre into the future on a new platform? 

That’s kind of hard to talk about without sounding a little bit egotistical, but it feels good. They asked me if I wanted to be part of the Emmys, and I was like, you know what? That’s a whole political thing. I’ve already gotten my accolades, but just being there and seeing the show being picked up through its 60th year, and people in the crew saying, “Hey, it’s good to have you back. you’re helping out the show.” 

That’s enough for me. I don’t need to get an Emmy or anything. Just the day to day emotions from the cast and crew is better than anything else.

Some fans were initially apprehensive about the move to Peacock, but it seems like the actors have really enjoyed it. Have you felt any big differences in production from NBC to Peacock?

When I was doing the stuff in heaven, they had me swear a couple of times and I was like, “I don’t think I can do that.” It was difficult for me. However, I think I did a couple of times on this go around, but mostly because of where my character is at the time. Bo’s been through an awful lot and done some crazy things. But this go around is unlike anything that he’s been through before.

I think the audience is going to be glad to see him, but also shouting, “what the heck is the matter with you” while throwing things at the TV. So it’s going to be quite a ride.

As Bope fans, we have to admit that we have been through quite a bit over the decades and we never really got our happily ever after that so many super couples have received. What would you like to say to the Bo and Hope fans that never gave up and where can we expect their story to go? 

For Bo and Hope, their best love stories are always ones where the circumstances keep them apart and they are struggling to get back together. That’s what we have coming up here as these circumstances will keep them apart but obviously you know their love is going to carry them through. 

To have fans who — you know, fans just doesn’t seem the right word, they’re almost like friends who’ve been there, and it’s because of them that this couple has survived.

I mean, it’s crazy. I first left the show over ten years ago [in 2012]. I came back because Bo’s absence was really felt strongly by the audience. They didn’t have a chance to really say goodbye. So I came back for that stint, where Bo passed away [in 2015], so that the audience had a chance to say goodbye to Bo. At the time we thought that that was going to be it. There was so much uncertainty with the future of Daytime. We are one of four shows left, and who knew what was going to happen to Days of Our Lives? But despite all the odds it is still going, and now we’ve gotten picked up and we’re going to make it to the 60th anniversary, which is astounding.

So when I left the show, I didn’t know that I would have an opportunity like this to come back. 

The reaction from the audience to Bo and Hope coming back is just breathtaking to me. We’ve had amazing storylines and I’m pretty excited to be back and to see what else they can come up with for Bo and Hope.

It’s been over fifteen years since you last appeared in a scene with Brandon Beemer’s Shawn-Douglas and you have never shared a scene with Victoria Konefal’s Ciara. What was it like getting to work with your on-screen kids?

I have been so lucky to work with some amazing actors. I actually had an idea about presenting a storyline for Ciara and Bo because the audience reaction to that relationship is quite large. She’s just an incredible little actress and I would love to work with her. To be able to bring in this older audience that I have and combine it with the younger audience that she has I think would be wonderful.

In the past, Bo’s had very multifaceted relationships from Mrs. H, his mother, Pops, his brother and his sisters. So it’d be awesome to be able to work with my family, specifically my kids again.

On May 3rd, 1983 the character of Bo Brady debuted on DAYS and immediately became a fan favorite. What about the character do you think has resonated so much with fans? 

You know, if I could answer that question, I’d probably be a very rich producer. Most of it had to do with the writing. The writing was multifaceted and had storylines that were rather long. You’d have arcs that were six to eight months long. One of the biggest being the storyline revolving around the prisms and our trip to New Orleans. 

Honestly, Kristian and I just gave everything we had. We worked really hard. We both had a similar work ethic. To this day when we get together, we’re like, okay, how can we make this work? And what can we do? It’s that respect for each other. So when we look into each other’s eyes on screen you can see that. I think that’s what really pulls people in. When we have that close up just on our eyes, there’s no faking the audience out. It’s got to be there, and hopefully that’s what the audience will see in this go around, too. 

As previously mentioned, your character quickly became a fan favorite and really took off in 1984 when Roman Brady “died”. The then final scenes that you shared with Wayne Northrop are still highly regarded for your performances. Was the dynamic between you and Wayne similar to that of Bo and Roman?

Oh, absolutely. And it wasn’t just Wayne, you know, it was James [Reynolds] and Deidre [Hall]. I was thrown in with these icons of Daytime. I had done my two years on As the World Turns, so I knew a little bit about Daytime television. But to be thrown in the mix with these powerhouses was a learning lesson. They helped me along quite a bit. I learned an awful lot from them, and Frances Reid. The Bo and Mrs. H. relationship was one of the more important relationships in Bo’s life. I was extremely fortunate to work with those people and I learned an awful lot with them. 

Bo has had many great loves in his life. What was your reaction when you learned that Bo’s ex Megan Hathaway would be behind his return? 

It’s perfect, you know, especially with the ultimate Daytime villains no longer there. It just makes sense, especially the fact that Bo and Megan had a relationship pre-Days of Our Lives. So it’s just perfect for the writers coming up with that. It’s a perfect segway.

Recently, we sadly lost John Aniston who played Victor Kiriakis, Bo Brady’s biological father. What was your favorite memory of working with him?

Yeah, that hit me hard. I didn’t even realize how much he meant to me. Having my father pass just recently, and when I found out John passed it hit me pretty hard.

I think the best compliment you can get as an actor is when you hear “I didn’t catch you acting” and that’s what it was with him. You could never catch him. He just was.  Looking into his eyes when I was on set, I never saw anything but my father, or at the beginning this asshole who mistreated my sister, he just was. Every day I’d go in and work with him in his dressing room and he’d have a couple of jokes, always a couple of jokes and honestly some advice quite often, whether it was something about the show or mostly about life, ranging from the stock market to my personal life. He was always there. He was very wise and able to help me out during difficult circumstances. So going into rehearsal with him wasn’t always just about rehearsal. It was just a couple of jokes to lift my spirits or some advice to help me out through some circumstances.

Is there a current actor you’d like to work with or a character that you would like Bo to interact with that you may not have yet?

I think with my kids I’d really like to build those relationships because it seems like the audience wants to see that. They want to see us build on those, especially with Victoria. She has sort of taken on, or rather they have given her the mantle of Bo Brady’s spirit. The rebel, and she’s quite a feisty little actress and performer and people have recognized that as a Bo Brady attribute. So it’d be cool to get the two of us together.

We expect a lot of twists and turns as Bo and Hope’s return story unfolds. What can you tease for viewers?

As we see coming out of the cryogenics with Megan, she’s obviously going to have some kind of hold over Bo and when we’re looking at what’s keeping Bo and Hope apart, obviously Megan’s going to do everything she can to make Bo love her and try to rekindle what they had 40 years ago. Megan’s going to be the fly in the ointment, as they say.

Bo is coming with his memory of who he is right? Because sometimes whenever someone comes back from the dead or they’re coming back from, you know, a suspended state of reality, they don’t always have their memory of who they are and who they love. So we’re hoping that Bo comes back and he’s aware of who he is. He’s trying to get back to his family because if he comes back and his memories are wiped out, that’s just going to take a very long time.

His memories aren’t going to be wiped out, that I can guarantee you. But who he cares about and honestly more searching for himself because he doesn’t really know where he’s going and what his priorities are, which is the interesting part about him because his priorities are shifted. So that’s how they elongated the story. If you want to see Bo and Hope together right away…

Not going to happen.

On a personal note, what is something that you would tell others about life in Alaska that they may be surprised to know?

It’s incredibly beautiful. When people first learn that we’ve been in New Zealand, and now we’re in Alaska, I’d say, “Yeah, we just want to live in the places that people want to visit.” People go, “Wow, you lived in New Zealand, that must be beautiful.” We’re like, “Yep, it was” then people will say they want to go on a cruise to Alaska. To which I’m like “Yep, you should, because it’s beautiful here.”

I grew up in Michigan and lived part of my childhood in Marquette, Michigan, which is right on Lake Superior. So the weather there was very similar to here, maybe not quite as long or quite as cold, but very similar. I thought I might have some issues living here. Kelly is absolutely loving it because she’s back home. But I fell right into it. I got my mountain bike all set up. So I’m still riding my bike over the winter. I feel at home here. 

Climate change is really hitting Alaska hard and faster than quite a few places on Earth. I’ve always been an advocate for the environment, and have done so via social media.I recently recorded a video to the Alabama song “Pass It Down” which came out in the early 90s. There were people aware of what was going to happen in regards to climate change a long time ago. There’s a line in that song that says, “Now we all outta feel just a little bit guilty, When we look into the eyes of our kids, ‘Cause, brothers, it’s a fact, if we take and don’t put back, They’ll have to pay for all we did.” 

That’s a huge part of who I am. Because I’ve got a daughter now and knowing what she is going to be faced with when I’m gone is… To see the hurt and pain in her eyes is. That’s hard to face. 

As a veteran in this ever changing industry that is Hollywood, What advice would you give to up and coming actors that you wish you’d known as a young actor?

This is something I’ve said forever. If you’ve got something to fall back on if acting doesn’t work out, just go ahead and do that because this is a very difficult path in your life. So go ahead and take on your second plan. As long as you’ve got that in your back pocket, it’s ok if you don’t make it in this industry. 

Thank you so much for speaking with us today. We are huge fans and are very excited about your return. We can’t wait to see what unfolds!

Peacock is now the new exclusive home of the fan-favorite drama series Days of our Lives. The 61-time Emmy Award-winning daytime drama began streaming daily ONLY on Peacock in September. In addition to new episodes streaming daily, the past season will also be available exclusively to Peacock Premium customers.

Peacock is also home to the Peacock’s Original limited drama series Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem and the holiday film Days of our Lives: A Very Salem Christmas.

The post Daytime Legend Peter Reckell Talks ‘Days of Our Lives’ Move to Peacock, the Loves of Bo Brady’s Life and How This Return to Salem Will Be Different (EXCLUSIVE) appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

With this transition, we had the amazing opportunity to sit down with the reigning Queen of Daytime, Deidre Hall. 

Spanning four decades (off and on), Deidre Hall has aired in a staggering 4,955 episodes. As Dr. Marlena Evans Black, she has been kidnapped 33 times, had 18 on-screen weddings, given birth to 6 children, been possessed by the devil twice, and continues to be one of Daytime’s most talked about characters. 

Without further ado, TVSource Magazine is pleased to present to you our discussion with the one and only, Deidre Hall.

TVSource: Hello, and thank you so much for taking this opportunity to speak with us today! We are huge fans of both you and the show. We are so honored that you took the time out of your busy schedule to speak with us today. 

Deidre Hall: Well, you are very kind to say that and thank you for helping us to get the word out!

How was the news of this transition to Peacock shared with the cast? And what are you and the rest of the cast most excited to do on this new platform? 

You know, there was so much rumbling about NBC and Peacock, and we [Days of our Lives] have been on Peacock for awhile and it’s been a very good home to us.

So I think we were all just sort of already on this road and just waiting to see what was going to happen. Then we were told that we were going to Peacock and it was like, “It’s great.”  Without hesitation. We’ve been there before. They’re very good to us and we perform well on Peacock. It’s where we did Beyond Salem Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 as well as the Christmas special, so it’s been terrific. 

Ron Carlivati, our head writer, has that lovely way of turning the crystal just a little bit to make it work for Peacock. A little bit of suspension of disbelief, a little bit of, “Oh, here’s something new. Let’s try this!” Ken Corday, our showrunner, signed off on everything and the two of them just made magic happen. So we’re thrilled to be back and home at Peacock. 

With that said, speaking for myself, I’m excited to see how it goes. And to ask,  “What are the numbers on Monday? How did we do? What do they say?”

What would you say to fans that are nervous about the show’s future as it leaves network television and begins its life on this new platform?

Well, it’s a really good question and the answer is that we’re all feeling that same low-level anxiety. It’s new. It’s different. Nobody likes change, especially after 57 years on the network. So it’s a learning curve and what I’ve been saying is if you can’t get it to work then ask your 8 year old neighbor next door. Because the kids are so savvy about streaming. Streaming is just the venue of the future. 

Days of Our Lives, well, we are the first to truly leap into it with both feet. So I think everybody is watching us a little carefully and we’re just hoping for the best results.

You can catch us in most markets from 6 a.m. on, all day long. With streaming, one of the best things is if you missed yesterday’s show because you were flying in from New York, guess what? It’s still on Peacock and you can go back and watch it. 

Speaking of New York! Recently, Days of Our Lives fan, Elizabeth Capobianco flew over 500 miles to help her grandmother set up Peacock to make sure she continues watching Jarlena’s adventures on DAYS!

SHUT UP! Good girl! We flew in late last night, so I haven’t been able to keep up with all of the fan reaction but you know what? What a great, passionate and caring granddaughter. Wow, just wow. 

I hope she stayed for a while because it doesn’t take that long to set up. Hopefully they grabbed lunch or something afterwards. 

Editor’s Note: We reached out to Ms. Capobianco who happily assured us, “Yes, I stayed all day. We went to lunch and made a day out of it. 

Not to worry, Deidre! Grandma got the Peacock and hasn’t stopped watching yet.” 

While some fans wish for their favorite couple to settle down and trade pleasantries, Jarlena fans have proudly proclaimed, “Shoot the bride” after that now famous wedding shooting and often cheer whenever they hear their favorite supercouple’s lives are in peril. 

What do you think it is about John and Marlena that created such a pleasant group of ride or die fans? 

I think that Jarlena fans — and I think that it’s so weird for me to call them that — so the John and Marlena fans are responding to not just the greatest love story of all time, and not just how these characters have fought their way through some very difficult times, but we’re all hungry for consistency right now. 

You know, we’re all hungry for that feeling of, “I want to turn on my TV and no surprises.” I want my favorite people doing my favorite thing, being happy, being safe, and reassuring me that the world is a safe place. Because for so many people, it is not a safe place right now. Between wars and pandemics. It’s been a hard couple of years and I think we have provided the audience with that adventure and consistency.

Oh, and we’re cute.

Days of Our Lives and in particular, your character of Marlena have been at the core of telling positive LGBTQ storylines with the relationship between her and her grandchildren (Will and Allie). 

What has that experience been like for you as an actress?

As an actress, I’m getting to work with kids that I love and adore and it’s just been so much fun to have screen time with them. As I’ve said before, we really are on the cutting edge of most things, for example, we did the first gay wedding which I got to preside over. We got a lot of letters after Will’s coming out story and from the wedding. We got a lot of positive feedback from the audience about how important these stories were to them and how they wished they had someone like Marlena in their lives and it was rather touching.

We were so delighted by the audience’s response to those stories because it meant that they weren’t just finding it entertaining or even provocative, they were deeply moved by it. And some to the point and it was psychologically important to them.  

Our writers and our whole team are very good about having their pulse on the country and seeing what’s going on, then addressing it.

Does it feel like soaps are slowly having their resurgence again with NBC and Peacock doubling down on support for DAYS?

We’ve lost a number of soaps over the years. We used to have over 13 soaps on the air and we’re down to 4. But what we are seeing now is that soaps and continuing drama is not a lost art form. 

I think people that love us are really dedicated to their shows, and I think the Days fans hands down are the most dedicated of any fans. As I said before, I’ll be so curious now to see what happens with Peacock and to see the numbers from this move. We have shot shows through Christmas, so we will be there. 

How did it feel to record the opening epigraph for the first season of Beyond Salem, especially since John and Marlena are filling the void left behind by Tom and Alice?

When I was asked to do it, I was deeply moved. I had spent 40 plus years hearing Macdonald Carey say the words. So when I was asked to do the opening for Beyond Salem, I was moved. 

I was terribly excited and hearing it on the air was peculiar. It was just peculiar, it was a new animal to me and I was thrilled to do it and would love to do it again.

When you and Drake Hogestyn started working together in 1986, did you ever imagine that John and Marlena would become one of Daytime’s most iconic supercouples?

First, thanks for saying it that way. 

You don’t think about that. You just think about the job in front of you. The day in front of you. There are so many people who are a part of getting a show on the air and it’s not just Drake and me. It’s hair and makeup, and wardrobe, and production, and direction, and sound, and lighting. It’s everybody doing 110% of their very best to get that show on the air. I love the show. 

So, does it surprise me that we are still on the show? No, it doesn’t because I love it and our audience loves it. But I’m glad we are one of the remaining few that are on and having fans come to watch us.

Watching old DAYS clips, it’s so frustrating watching Marlena falling off a building, ending up in a coma, getting kidnapped by the ISA and blown up a few times while John comes to her rescue as we’re cheering for him through the screen.

One of the best parts of DAYS is seeing how your character’s adventures unfold. So thank you for the hard work that you all do every day.

Well, first of all we have to get you medicated for that.

Second, DAYS provides all sorts of different types of entertainment ranging from a damsel in distress and or helping people through incredibly difficult times or welcoming a gay grandchild who is coming out. It’s all a part of what we do. I think that’s why we’re able to have such a wide demographic. There’s something for everybody in every show. There’s always a young love story, there’s always a jeopardy story, there’s always something else that’s surprising.

I watched soaps a million years ago. I watched one. Doesn’t matter what network it was because it wasn’t ours, and I didn’t mean to get hooked on it. I just was watching a show where there was a young girl pianist and I wonder if she’s going to get… and there. Just like that I was hooked. I wonder if she’s going to achieve whatever goal she was after.  So I understand it. I have a very deep understanding of not wanting to miss an episode.

The character of Marlena has been involved in some of Daytime’s most influential storylines, which of those countless storylines are you most proud of being a part of?

Days of Our Lives, with the character of Marlena, told the first crib death storyline. It was so amazing, and I gained such a deep respect for our team at that point. I thought the story was written so beautifully.

You know, Don Craig (Jed Allan) and Marlena’s child was going to die of crib death and our team was deeply concerned about how to announce that. Whether on the one hand, to promote it enormously and say “Days of Our Lives tells a tragedy, a crib death” or do we just air it with no preamble? What was decided in the moment was that when a woman comes in and finds that baby, she doesn’t get a warning. She walks into it. The decision was to let that happen to Marlena and I thought that was beyond wise and disturbing… but beyond wise. 

We got an enormous amount of calls at that point. There was such an outpouring of people who were trusting us with that part of their lives and hanging in there with us. 

I was just so impressed with our ability to do that for our audience.

Over the years, Marlena has welcomed many fresh faces into Salem, and as such, you have welcomed many actors into the soap fold. 

What would you say to someone that is aspiring to set foot onto an iconic soap opera like Days of Our Lives?

I think there’s a grave misconception that Daytime is a good training ground for actors. Every time I hear that, my reaction to it is always the same, “Are you kidding? I mean, seriously are you kidding? A training ground?”

These are some of the hardest working actors you will ever find. We work so hard every single day and everybody comes in utterly prepared and ready to do a day’s work. Not just the actors, but everyone from those behind the scenes including the set people that come in at 4 a.m., to those that are there at the end of the day taking it all down. All day long this job is being done, and the show is being churned out and it is not a training ground, folks. 

This is a place where you better arrive knowing what you’re doing. Otherwise, everybody has to pull you through it and they’re working at capacity already. 

I’m sounding so fierce… whew! 

Not at all! From a viewer’s perspective, we feel the same. 

Daytime’s production model is one of the most rigorous, and you can see the heavy lifting that the veterans are having to do to lift the scenes up sometimes. 

Having said that, my twin sister joined the show, Andrea Gengler, and she had come from working as a special education teacher. When our then head writer, Ann Marcus realized I had a twin, they flew her in and they put her on camera. We’ve never had real twins on a Daytime show, and it’s too difficult to have one person playing twins. So they brought her out of her special education contract and put her on camera. 

Watching her have to learn… oof. That learning curve of how to go from a special education teacher to an actor who is being given quite lengthy material was extraordinary.

So my suggestion — I don’t give advice — but my suggestion is if you want to do a soap opera, go do something else first. Go to a class, go take a college course, go do some stage work. Learn how to hit a mark, find a light and not overlap. 

What does overlapping mean? Don’t pour coffee over somebody else’s line. It’s a world of information and not a thing you want to learn at everybody else’s expense.

There have been numerous actors who have come on the scene with Days of Our Lives and with the urban myth that it’s a training ground, that has to be frustrating. 

With that said, with the nature of our production, we hire young actors who have never really done a three camera production before. At that point, all of us pull together and it turns into a workshop. So when we’re not doing our dialogue, it becomes, ”You need to step back 6 to 8 inches until you see my face, fully lit.” That kind of thing.

Or, “If you step downstage off your mark, you’re now blocking my camera,” the new actor doesn’t know that. So the veteran will take another step downstage and adjust.

It’s all things that we love to help young people learn and it makes them extraordinary performers.

Soap fans love a good wedding, and Marlena has had her fair share of them. Which of the many iconic weddings has been your favorite?

I think it might have been the first wedding with John [then Roman] in 1986. I’m never quite sure because there have been rather a few. It is when Marlena married John in the church. 

Lee Smith designed an extraordinary headpiece, we didn’t want a veil because it wasn’t quite appropriate to have one, but it had these amazing cut out sleeves with cut outs on the side with a lovely little train. I just adored it.

What can you tease for us that’s coming up for Marlena on Peacock?

We have shot through December, with all of those shows in the can. So what’s coming toward you is what was prepared originally to be on network television. But with that said, Marlena will always be consistent. She will always be empathic and available and dare I say in jeopardy from time to time, I’m sure. 

But nothing will really change for the moment. I think farther down the road, Ron Carlivati will figure out a way to relax those margins a bit. But for the moment, no surprise changes to the audience, just find us in a different place. That’s the only surprise.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. It was a great honor and we are so appreciative!

Days of Our Lives streams exclusively on Peacock. 

Fans can sign up for Peacock at PeacockTV.com, or by clicking here. Throughout the month of September, new premium subscribers can get Peacock for $1.99/month for 12 months or for $19.99/year for one year. 

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed Greg Meng as Co-Executive Producer and has been updated.

The post A Peacock Preview – An Exclusive Interview With The Queen of ‘Days of Our Lives,’ Deidre Hall appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

TV Source Magazine learned that while his character has shifted from frontburner romantic hero to a more supporting role, Billy has enjoyed every step of the journey with DAYS. There’s a genuine love there for Chad and it shows.

As new stories kick up for the young Dimera heir, we hope you enjoy this time getting to know Billy as an actor and the passion he puts into his complicated character of Chad.

TVSource: You’re entering your 8th year off and on at DAYS. Congrats, does it feel like it’s been that long? What’s changed the most for you in those years?

It doesn’t feel like that long. Well, it does and it doesn’t. I’m a whole different person from when I started and I’ve also accomplished a lot in those eight years.

It feels like a lot when you’re in the day-to-day, but if you look at it as part of the timeline or a chapter, or a couple of chapters of the whole story then you go, “Wow, I did a lot in those eight years.” It’s a cool, great chunk of the whole journey.

TVSource: Did you ever feel pressured being a part of such a big supercouple on the show, arguably the first big supercouple on DAYS in the 2010s? Did you expect such popularity?

It’s pretty wild to think about. At the time. I didn’t know anything about soaps or super couples. When I was coming into the show, I remember Allison Sweeney had been leaving and James Scott was there for maybe two weeks, so I wasn’t even aware that super couples existed for a time. I don’t know if Chad and Abigail were intended to always be a super couple or if Kate Mansi and I just made something through the work we did.

I’ve always said that there’s kind of a pivotal period a few months in. There is a scene at Will’s apartment where Chad and Abigail both have a breakthrough. At the time, I had started to come into my own as an actor and then Kate and I found our rhythm in that scene too. That’s really kind of where it feels like the spark for Chad and Abigail hit.

And you also asked if I’d seen it coming and I don’t think so, I don’t think I was really prepared for it. At first it was exciting and cool, then your ego takes over because you forget that this is what the show is and how it goes. Even though we’re the first ones in a while, you’re like, “Wow, there’s just never been a couple like this before. We must be doing something special.” There were tons of super couples before us and now the show has Ben, Ciara and others, so it goes on. I just think it was a surprise for me and I think as time has gone on, I’m able to look back and see it was a really cool period.

I did feel the pressure probably in 2018 and I think it had been like three or four years at that point of us being a super couple. We were definitely overworked, in every storyline, and so on. You know, on a soap, happiness is where a couple goes to die and then your ego gets involved, you start to become less satisfied with how the story’s moving along. You feel like, “Well, how do we top what we did?” I also didn’t know how soaps work. I was like, “How do you keep doing the same kind of breakups?” I think even with Chad and Abigail now, I think that’s been the hardest thing. What do you do after that period of time? Unless you have a show that’s still super dedicated to making you guys the couple, but when you’re not, I feel like you just kind of linger in the background. They don’t really work as a super couple if you don’t have the writing to support.

I was lucky I didn’t only strike that kind of gold with one actor, I got it with two. Not an easy thing to do. But long story short, there was definitely a lot of pressure during that period but not so much anymore.

TVSource: Chabby fans are super dedicated and supportive of Chabby in all forms. We’re curious, does it ever feel like a different Chabby when working with Kate vs Marci?

The fans have been absolutely incredible. I think over the years, I think they probably got a little bit frustrated which I can kinda see any time I decide to check in on Twitter. I think the two Abigails, Kate Mansi and Marci Miller are very different and they wrote them differently. The relationship with Chad and Kate’s version of Abigail felt a little bit more young, fiery, passionate and they butted heads a little bit more, you know. Marci’s version of Abigail felt like two people who were really fluid. So you work differently with them. But you also worked the same, right? There were certain things that were through lines.

Since I came on, it was just Chad and Abigail, there was nothing else. That was Chad’s only objective but now you throw in kids. I think with Marci’s version of Abigail, we grew, we aged a little bit with the characters. I think that was a really interesting period. You get to see how a married couple keeps things sexy. I would dance a little bit more, I would be a little bit goofier and you’re more comfortable. I think the hardest part was when Kate came back, because now we’ve developed this thing. Then it became doing that thing with Kate but then Kate left again, then Marci came back and then I just realized I had to play Chad consistently. But they’re both so good.

Ultimately, you know, we don’t create the story. We just say what’s on the page. Sometimes you have to play against some of the writing to still have a connection because writing can kind of pull you apart. Relaying back to your first question, I think that is where the pressure comes when you’re playing part of a super couple. The vets do this really well and it is no matter what is in the scene, you always have to play drawn together. So sometimes you get a scene where it doesn’t make sense for the couple, but you have to play against that. Whether it’s a look or the emotion behind the scene, the vulnerability behind it, the sexual tension or whatever it is. You always have to find something, layer that in. And at a certain point, if they stop writing a lot for the characters, you have to continue finding that if you want the couple to survive.

I think that got harder and harder as it went on and we were leaving and coming. I think their interest in writing Chad and Abigail gets harder and harder because they can’t plan for story. So for me, I’m just going how do I keep this thing alive?

TVSource: Was it hard coming to the show as a recast? Do you feel like you’ve fully solidified your Chad Dimera?

I don’t know if I put a ton of pressure on it in the beginning about playing a recast. I think for me, where I was at that stage of my life, I think I was more concerned with how the guy who used to play Chad was like 6’6” and a supermodel. I think I felt very insecure that he was better looking. I didn’t think about the character much. I don’t know if I had that kind of intellect to think that far outside the box. I think I was just nervous and doing my best.

I think the character solidified itself over time because I got more comfortable with who I was and what I wanted to bring to the character. There’s certain things to me that are super Chad Dimera now. I know that Chad was friends with Sonny and Will before I came on. But the way that they’re friends now and the love that they have, despite it being a gay couple and a straight man was something I feel like I did.

As I’ve grown and gotten more comfortable with myself, I think Chad has as well. I think I’ve solidified that in Chad. That character that swings from goofy to romantic to hero, to not afraid to be ugly or weird in a scene or weak in a scene. I think Chad’s done a good job and that’s the credit to a lot of the writing too. Maybe I’m biased or I just don’t have a wide knowledge of soap characters, but I think the male soap trope or whatever the word is, usually the guy has gotta be masculine and always the hero. I think I’ve always played Chad like the opposite, and that it’s okay to be uglier or not be ripped.

The next guy who plays Chad is gonna have to be really sexy and be a little bit goofy too.

TVSource: How would you best sum up Chad Dimera in a few words?

I think Chad is – I don’t know, like me. I think he’s imperfect and I think he’s doing his best just to get himself and his family through the day. That’s kind of the most that any of us can do.

I also think Chad leads with his heart and is kind of just unapologetically himself. Flaws and all.

TVSource: Fans are dying to know, what’s it been like being folded back into the WilSon world? How’s it been getting to work with a new Sonny, Zach Tinker? Will there really be a throuple?

I love Freddie [Smith] and all but Zach [Tinker] brings a whole different thing to Sonny. They’re just different people. Zach and I have a ton of fun. He’s a total weirdo. But he also takes his job seriously. The three of us – Billy, Chandler and Zach – always have a blast working together. I wish we did it more often other than when they’re asking Chad to do weird things like try to get into bed with Leo.

Now I’ve seen a lot about the throuple. Here’s my take on that. As somebody who plays Chad, I think it would ruin the friendship, right? Not every gay man wants to try to sleep with a straight man or something. I think the idea that you have this friendship, that is what it is, this straight man, two gay best friends. If you mix that up I don’t know. I guess my question would be, does that ruin the meaning of the friendship over the years? Does it muddle that?

Was Chad showing affection all those years because he had a secret that he was attracted to them? As opposed to just letting it be pure in what it is and what I think that we built, which is just a friendship with people who are just humans and aren’t afraid to show love or chemistry or whatever exactly.

I think Chad would die for Will or Sonny and – he certainly is willing to dress in drag and put himself in precarious situations for them every time. But I take it as a compliment. The fact that people want that for them just goes to show the chemistry that we have as actors. But in my opinion, I think it ruins a really interesting friendship.

TVSource: What’s it been like being a part of the Dimera resurgence? Do you wish Joe Mascolo could have been here to see it?

I think it’s amazing. Joe [Mascolo] was the biggest advocate for the Dimera family. He loved it, same with Thaao [Penglis]. Thaao also doesn’t get enough credit for his work. He was on the show even before Joe was.

I think it’s just a credit to them that they left such a legacy that we can continue to branch off more Dimeras.

But what makes the Dimeras is how they work together. If you’re gonna have a large number of Dimeras, at some point you gotta have them all come together. You have to bring together whoever Brandon Barash is playing at the time. Bring in Theo. He was always one of my favorites too. You look back and they were best friends when they were younger. I would like to see that kind of mentorship continue to grow.

TVSource: You’re so big in the DAYS community on Twitter. What’s your favorite part about getting to connect so closely to fans? How do you block out the hate?

To be on a soap as an actor is not easy. Everybody has talked about it over the years. It’s like you’re almost within the [acting] industry forgotten about, and it’s hard to feel like you’re part of that community. So to have such a strong community of fans makes you feel really at home, like you do have a place and you’re not just doing some weird story that nobody cares about. An actor’s job is to tell stories that move people one way or another and that’s what we’re doing. So to have such a strong community in the fans and seeing the interaction on Twitter and social media is a really nice reminder that we’re not just some old show that’s considered outside its own industry.

It’s a cool genre of storytelling and the fans are amazing. As far as the hate, I used to feel really overwhelmed. This was probably back before 2018, I made a lot of life changes in 2018, and I think it affected me more back then. I mean, now I can’t remember the last time I saw something that actually affected me. Everybody has their own opinions and they’re entitled to that.

Some fans of Ben and Ciarra don’t like this, and some fans of Chad and Abby don’t like Broe, to me they should just enjoy the show and enjoy that there’s multiple couples that they get to root for. But I don’t know. I think I spend a little less time on social media now than I used to as well. So I think that probably helps. I kind ofI dip my toe in to say hello and then I dip it right back out before it shifts.

I think when you realize, maybe this is just age, that people who are saying mean things to begin with, what are they going through that day? You know, what do they have going on that they need to go on and tell somebody that they’re an asshole. I find more compassion for people who talk weird on Twitter then it upsets me. Instead of going “I hate them” or allowing it to make me feel bad. I kind of just go, “oh man, that person’s having a rough day. I hope it gets better.”

TVSource: You’re kind of the digital spin off king having starred in all three so far. What’s it been like exploring Chad outside of daytime’s Salem?

It started with Chad and Abby in Paris. That was the first idea that was like, “oh, let’s see what happens outside of here.” The success of it gave birth to a lot of what you’re seeing now. On a show like DAYS where you have so many characters and actors that have played different characters over the years, that’s a lot of story arcs and multiverses you can explore. It’s fascinating, you know?

I had a blast with Chad and Abby in Paris, I thought it was a really cool experience. Beyond Salem had a lot more money behind it and it has NBC behind it. I think it’s just cool to see. Hopefully it is a way to find some new viewers and ultimately anything that can extend the life of the show is super positive.

TVSource: On top of acting, you also write and produce! How important is it to you to keep creative in multiple ways?

I think it’s really important. I mean, we move so fast and the show is such a machine. I think sometimes it’s hard to feel super creative. I think it has its ups and downs. Sometimes you’re able to feel very creative and some days you just do your best to kind of get through the day. I don’t think you should make anything your “end all be all.” With that said, I haven’t been writing much as of late, I’ve done a couple really cool little side projects, My wife wrote and produced a short film and I was in that and I have a friend named Tipper Newton, who’s done a couple of short films and I’ll just go and do that and I can make it work on my time off.

But I’ve found something more creative and a different type of fulfillment now. We bought a house about a year ago and I have been landscaping and doing that kind of stuff, which has been satisfying. So not even acting or writing or any of that stuff, just remodeling the kitchen and planting things in the yard feels weirdly creative to me lately. Maybe again it’s just me getting older.

TVSource: What can you tease about what’s to come for Chad?

Well, new beginnings.

I don’t know what can be printed yet. But there’s already some rumors out there. I think it’s gonna be fun to try to flex some acting chops. I feel like I haven’t had any really big scenes in a while. I think Chad is going to have some dark days but hopefully some light at the end of the tunnel.

It is actually the first time in a long time that I have felt almost insecure as an actor because it’s been so long I almost had to be like, “how do I do this again?” Because I’d done it before with a certain storyline.

I felt like there were two sides, one on good days when I thought the scenes went well, it was like, “Y’all must have forgotten, but I still got it!” Because I’ve just haven’t done much in the last couple years. Then other days I was like,man, why do you guys have to give me stuff so hard?”

I think with where they’re hopefully going with Chad, I think it’ll be a necessary change of pace.

Days of our Lives airs weekdays on NBC. Episodes are also available on Peacock TV. 

The post ‘Days of our Lives’ Star Billy Flynn Opens Up About His Salem Journey, Romance and New Beginnings appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

TVSource: Having been airing on the show since March 2017, what’s been your favorite part of working on DAYS? What was it like coming into an institution like a fifty-plus year old soap opera? 

Oh man, I may sound cliché, but I mean, honestly, just working with everybody because it’s so much fun. For example; working with Stephen and Marybeth, when I get to just go in and see them it’s so much fun. It is like a little family. So I’d say the best part about it is just honestly, the experience and the camaraderie around with everybody.

As far as coming into a show with such history, it was nerve wracking, to say the least. It was a little easier for me because I wasn’t coming in as a recast. So I got to make the character of Tripp how I wanted him. So that was at least a little easier for me. But I was also very nervous because I was the son of a legacy character and I wanted to do it justice. So I was very nervous, but I was also very excited for the opportunity.

TVSource: Tripp is finally a doctor now! What would you say your dream story is for Tripp outside his usual romantic entanglements?

With being a doctor I feel like he’s got to perform some type of trauma surgery. I think he needs to perform something like open heart surgery in the middle of the Horton cabin or somewhere like that. That would probably be something fun, just because Tripp would obviously find himself in some weird situation like that. So I think that would be really fun just because I already have to Google all the medical terms I need to say anyway, so if I just have to do stuff with my hands that will be one hundred percent easier.

TVSource: And the cool thing about Days is you can specialize in just about anything and then do the other thing the next week. So it’s fine.

Exactly. You know, Tripp is just a doctor, not necessarily a doctor of anything. He’s a general practitioner doctor. He is a jack of all trades. He just roams around the hospital like “Oh, you need a doctor.” and be like “I just did brain surgery across the hall.” So we’re good to go.

TVSource: Since joining the show, your character has been tied to some pretty big names in Days of Our Lives history. Who has been your favorite person to work with and who is the person you want to work with more?  

Well, like I said earlier, Steve [Nichols] and Mary Beth [Evans], I mean the two of them are just amazing. When I first started they really took me under their wing and really acted as if they were my parents in a way. So I would definitely say the two of them, along with Tamara Braun. The three of them together, is just so much fun. It’s hard to explain but when you’re just in the room with them you can’t go wrong. 

Then someone I would probably want to work with more because we’ve only had maybe one scene together, tops, is probably Paul Telfer just because a Xander and Tripp scenario would be very interesting to see. I love Paul to death and so getting to work with him would be really fun. Tripp with his mafia background along with Xander and his intense background. You know, that might be a dynamic duo right there.

TVSource: Being the on-screen son of one of daytime’s most iconic “anti-heroes”, Steve ‘Patch’ Johnson, has ingrained your character into the soap fabric. But Tripp is also the son of a mob princess, Ava Vitali. Do you hope to see some of their rough edges rub off on Tripp?

Totally. When I first started Tripp was very troubled and he had a lot of issues with his past. Over the years I think that he’s become much more of the “good guy”, the one always making the right choice. I would really like to see some more of his anger come out every once in a while.  Every now and then it’s like, “oh, he can be angry”, you know? And he does have this dark side to him. He just tries so hard to compress it and put it away. Sometimes it just comes out like that.  I think that’s why it’s exciting because he is like the Boy Scout so whenever he explodes, it’s almost like nobody’s expecting it anymore.

TVSource: Tripp’s had quite the rocky love life since arriving in Salem, from his tumultuous relationship with Ciara to the rollercoaster that was Allie, will Tripp ever have an easy love life? What’s it been like playing out his constant romantic disappointment?

I always make jokes with Eric Marstolf (Brady) as you know he hasn’t had the best luck with women either. Sometimes you just have the characters that try their best, but that’s never good enough. But hey, as long as you step up to bat, you’ll eventually hit a home run.

TVSource: Fans loved seeing an alternate reality version of Tripp and Chanel get to play out on A Very Salem Christmas, and this week we’re getting to see it play out on the main show. What can you tease about this coupling? Did you expect this to happen in the main show too?

Well, it’s actually been really fun. Raven [Bowens] is one of my favorite people, so working with her is so fun and doing those scenes in A Very Salem Christmas is just almost like an “of course” it is going to lead to this. Because on the main show, both of our characters are just depressed. We don’t really have anybody to talk to. So who else to confide in than each other? 

It’s interesting because it’s almost like we’re enemies in a way, even though we were fairly friendly at the time. It is like that kind of opposition that draws you closer. It’s like magnets with opposites attracting. So, I think that they really just needed someone to basically hug and just talk it out. The fact that they both found each other in their arms totally makes sense in that way.

TVSource: It’s been really interesting as a fan to see the quad of Johnny/Chanel/Allie/Tripp and how there’s not really a bad guy there, other than you know, the devil. Viewers can see different angles and everybody can root for each pairing in different ways and that’s been a real joy to watch.

Because it’s really just mimicking life in that way! Sometimes nobody’s in the wrong. It’s just you’re living your life the way you need to live it. Like that’s just kind of how things go. So I think that’s what the four of us have really tried to capture is just that sometimes this stuff just happens.

TVSource: What was your reaction when you heard that Tripp was going to be involved with one of the most iconic storylines in Days of Our Lives history, the Devil Possession storyline? 

It was very surprising. I wasn’t expecting that I was going to be really involved with the Devil storyline. Then it kind of just rippled all across Salem. 

I love it because it’s really throwing a wrench into everything. So I was actually pretty excited, especially because it’s also, like you said, an iconic storyline. Having it come back is really fun and to get to play around with this evil character has been wonderful. 

Also, Linz (Lindsay Arnold) as the Devil – she was just dying waiting to become evil at one point. She was very excited and she’s great at it. So yeah it’s really, really fun.

TVSource: Speaking of Lindsay Arnold, she told us that you’re big on hosting and having your cast members over and having a fun time. How do you all keep your amazing chemistry on screen alive? What’s a cast hang out at your place like?

We’re really good friends. I think that it’s something we all try hard to take seriously, especially when a new actor comes in. We all want to make sure they feel welcome. 

Lindsay and I have been through a roller coaster of a relationship on this show. So we have kind of been friends basically ever since she started. I have people over to the house, we play board games, I cook and like to host all the time. We’re all just great friends. Like I said earlier, it sounds cliche, but it is like a big family over here.

TVSource: Outside of soaps, what kind of acting challenge would you like to tackle next? 

Well, I’ve always wanted to do something very dark and gritty. Just something that I can just sink my teeth into, maybe a period piece would be so fun. 

Wouldn’t it be awesome to see a Western nowadays? Or like a medieval show or movie? That’d be really fun. I really just want something dark and grittier than I usually get casted for. 

TVSource: Congratulations on being a part of the second season of Beyond Salem! We know it’s really early to be talking about it, but what’s the vibe on set been like since the announcement? 

Oh, it’s awesome. Everybody is just super excited because of the Peacock vibes, it’s like such a different feeling. 

The storylines are a little bit different, the characters are a little bit different and everybody’s just super excited to be involved in this. The fact that it’s become so popular, it really makes us feel awesome because we love doing this stuff for the fans. So the fact that the fans love it, is even better.

TVSource: Looking at things from a technical standpoint, was the production on A Very Salem Christmas any different than the way traditional episodes of DAYS are shot?

With the regular show, a lot of times we’ll do rehearsal and then you do one or maybe two takes for some stuff. 

With A Very Salem Christmas and Beyond, you’re actually getting a couple of takes. There’s getting more camera angles involved. They bring more cameras in so you can have more of a crane shot or a jib shot and things like that. So they really make it feel more like a movie. But they’re really like taking their time on everything instead of our normal speed where we really just kind of go, go, go, because we are this machine that can do that. 

So I think with the Peacock content, they’re really taking their time. For example, with A Very Salem Christmas we had a choreographer for the dance routine come in. We had like three days of dance routine stuff and then they brought in extra cameras for the whole Christmas show. So we would do one take on the stage and then they’d do it again where the crowd is reacting. So that was a little different. They’re starting to feel more like a movie or an hour-long drama that feels like single-cam style, which is nice.

TVSource: What can you tease is coming up for Tripp in the coming days? 

Let’s see. What can I say here? 

I would say it’s about to get even more complicated for him. I think he’s finally dealing with some of his own, like pun not intended, but inner demons. I think he’s finally just dealing with the fact that his relationship is over. I think that he needs to really just kind of focus on that and just kind of, like I said, start living for himself now.

TVSource: Do you have any words of advice for aspiring young actors like yourself? In other words, any words of advice for the Lucas Adamses who just started their acting journey? 

That’s a good question. 

I would say get into some classes and focus on memorization. Then after that, work on the feelings and the emotions. Because especially here, you have to memorize sometimes pages and pages of dialogue and just come in and be ready to go. 

So I would definitely say memorization and, I don’t know if this makes any sense but, just feeling the flow of scenes. By that I mean just letting the scene come to you instead of you trying to force exactly what you want in a scene. Just let the scene play out and then figure out what goes on from there. You know, you come in, you have something that you have all written down in front of you. But you have to have an idea of how you’re going to be saying this, how you’re going to be doing this, so you have the idea and then you just play with that.

Days of our Lives airs weekdays on NBC. Episodes are also available on Peacock TV. 

The post ‘Days of our Lives’ Star Lucas Adams Breaks Down Salem’s Latest Doctor appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

TV Source Magazine got to sit down with the Scottish-born actor to learn about how he approaches playing the twisted but damaged Kiriakis black sheep, Xander’s tangled up love life and even more about his exciting thriller film, Green Rush and going full dark.

Our time was spent full of laughter but also insightful conversation that will hopefully enlighten you all on all things Xander but more importantly, inspire you to learn on the incomparable Paul Telfer as well.

TV Source: You’ve just made it to your seven year anniversary at Days of Our Lives, congratulations! Do you mind telling us a little bit about your journey with the show, starting as Kiriakis henchman, Damon and then becoming Xander Kiriakis? 

Yes, actually, it’s funny. They say that every 7 years, your cells regenerate. So every 7 years you’re like a different person. So I’m a whole different guy now from when I first got this job!

Well, it’s been fun looking back. I watched the big wedding episodes yesterday with my wife Carmen. I don’t often watch the show on the day that it airs, but if there’s enough interest in it then she’ll watch it. But I was like, “Okay, you need to watch four more episodes first so it can make sense.”

It really was crazy to see how – not necessarily different Xander is, he’s still kind of the same terrible person – but to see how different his position in the show, in the town and his perception from everybody else is now. 

It’s almost like my early experience on the show very much tracked like Xander’s, in the sense that, you know, I was dipping my toe in when I played Damon. I really, really enjoyed it. And I thought that this is actually perfect, you know. Just a small side character that can do like one or two episodes a month, get my health insurance, pay the rent, it’s all gonna be great. That’s what was going through my head. 

Then they go, “How about a whole new brand new character, where you come on contract and do it for real?” I said great. And all they told me about him was that he was a charming psychopath that could flip on a dime. He could be so lovely in one scene and in the next be a different person, vicious and awful. I said, “Got it, can do, sounds great.” 

TV Source: Charming psychopath? That’s definitely Xander, for sure. 

That is, for sure. Especially early on, they don’t warn you what they’re going to turn you into. Know what I mean? They also may not even really know at that point. I come on, and I’m charming and I’m kind of mean to Serena, then I’m even more charming to Nicole and then I’m even more mean to Serena. It just keeps building and building up until I’m full-on wrestling around with her and throwing her around her hotel room.

It never quite crosses that line of full on, horrible abuse but he’s definitely a bad guy. I thought, “I can thread this needle for a bit longer. I don’t think everybody’s going to hate me that much. And I guess Serena’s a new character too, maybe they won’t mind so much that I’m so horrible to her.” But then they started having me sticking Nicole and Eric in a pizza oven to try and burn them alive. I don’t really know if I could come back from all this!

I remember going to Arianne Zucker who took me under her wing early on and asked her what was I to do, there wasn’t any coming back from this for Xander. I know I’m only on a year contract, I don’t see how the character can continue at this point. She goes, “We’ve all done terrible things! I was married to Victor and tried to throw a toaster in his bathtub to kill him.” I felt okay and then two weeks later, they fired me. To be fair at the time, they brought in a new writing team and let go a whole bunch of people on the canvas at the time. It hurt and was painful but I thought, maybe it wasn’t really my fault and they told me they’d try to get me back. 

From then on, it really felt like how Xander vies for his position within the Kiriakis family and some kind of respect in Salem, I was also vying for my slot on the show as a recurring villain. Every time I came back, I got a little bit more to do as a useful player until they gave me another contract.

For now, it’s been the best and longest job I’ve ever had. It’s the most consistent institution I’ve been a part of outside of marriage.

TV Source: Xander’s always been the type of character striving for acceptance from his family, always the black sheep (whether deserved or not). How do you usually approach his character? How do you relate to him?

I think a lot of the charming psychopath stuff is mostly his attempt to cover and protect that he’s just a very vulnerable, sensitive, emotionally damaged little guy in a lot of ways. He’s very juvenile in a lot of his emotional reactions to things. Especially when he tries to be the big tough, international Man of Mystery there. “They seek him here, they seek him there”, you know? No one even knows where his accent’s from. 

He’s essentially what the fatherless child raised by a struggling single mother – who has no name. One day we will get a name at least!

He’s just someone who has always felt on the outside of everything and at a certain point, he made a little deal with himself that he wouldn’t mind kicking the windows in to get inside. Why should he have to jump through every legal, and moral hoop when everybody else seems to do what they want and not get judged to the same degree because of who their parents are or who their uncle is. 

Victor Kiriakis who is superficially respectable and legitimate but who Xander knows as a gangster being his closest male role model in his life. But he doesn’t have the resources or even mental resources to build himself into someone like Victor. He just does not have that same security. Victor is the most secure, solid and indomitable kind of guy but if you say the wrong thing to Xander, he’ll tear his hair out and run out of the room or lash out at somebody. 

That frustration between how he’d like to be or like to be perceived versus the kind of person he actually is, is the fun tension to play with Xander. 

TV Source: Did you ever imagine Xander would have his own romantic storylines after all the craziness he’s done? 

I have to say, I was surprised that the story we did was he immediately fell head over heels in love with Maggie Horton’s daughter. Not only that, but nobly stepping in to help raise his despised enemy, Eric Brady’s child. But oh, no, it’s not really his! 

It was not what I was expecting. I was expecting them to make him this ridiculous lothario. That had been my experience on the show. He’s supposed to be this hot guy who’s really confident with women and the women are often described as swooning over him. But he would never get any action. I used to start joking that he was like Pepe Le Pew, the old cartoon and then they literally made him start wearing patchouli. Now people are commenting on how he smells! I was like, “What have I done wrong that they don’t want me to be this romantic guy?” 

In a case of careful what you wish for, the process of semi-redeeming and turning Xander something a bit more vulnerable was to just put it through the absolute ringer. But again, it never crossed my mind. I always assumed that if I was to have a regular place on the show, it would essentially be as the black sheep of the Kiriakis family where I would slip into this Victor-lite mode. You know, potentially be his CEO or his business assistant by day and then by night, I’d be doing crimes for him that would help the business or would help his endeavors. We’d have little spots of that here and there but really that turned out to be more the thing of when I was a recurring villain. Once I was on the the show they wisely knew to turn Xander into his own thing.

I don’t think I’ve even seen John Aniston in over a year now. But I think it was really smart to break him off of the Kiriakis family and push him to the other side of the Salem world for a bit. I’ve also noticed that a lot of fans essentially watch their version of the show and fast forward the rest so if they hadn’t been interested in the Kirakis drama, then they might not even click into who you are until they see you with someone they actually like. So the more you can glob onto legacy characters, the more chance you have to get noticed by the fanbase who are understandably resistant to new characters. 

I think the shift towards Xander being his own person (even though he’s not very good at it), has done the character a lot of favors. If they do bring him back into the Kiriakis fold, he would come back as a different guy instead of the same stories of him vying for Victor’s affection. If he can build a life for himself, respect for himself, love and friendship then maybe he won’t be so needy and pathetic in the future. 

TVSource: Xander is currently caught up in an extremely complicated love triangle with Sarah Horton and Gwen Rizczech  – if it can be as simplified as that! How did you handle the fan reaction to losing such a popular couple to starting a new one? 

Paul: The main thing I always try to remember is that fan reaction is valid, right? They’re not getting paid to do it. Before I was a consistently working actor and I occasionally worked in restaurants and suc,  they would always tell those that a negative review will get shared a lot further than a positive review. If somebody has a bad meal at a restaurant, they’ll tell maybe 10 people. If somebody has a good meal restaurant, they’ll tell maybe two people. Just the way it goes. The most vocal are often negative. So once you accept that and don’t take it too personally – which is easy for me to say right now because I’ve been doing it for a while, but early on it isn’t that easy. Especially when you’re feeling secure, you’re not sure if you’re going to keep a job and how long it’s going to last, and you’re not really sure who even you’re trying to please. Is it the fans, the producers of the show, the writers? Eventually you realize that you’ve just got to forget all that and do your job and just enjoy it. 

TV Source: What was the shift from working primarily with Linsey Godfrey’s Sarah to Emily O’Brien’s Gwen like for you? 

So I felt in terms of the shift from Linsey to Emily, I was fortunate in the sense that Linsey is more experienced on soap operas than I am. So again, just like Ari had, she was able to… not so much to take me under her wing because I’ve been doing it for a little bit by that time, but I never really played a romance on the show. So to have somebody that I was a good friend, I could trust and could really talk things through about how to place things and what might be happening, what might not be happening. 

Sometimes it’s hard, you know. If you know you’re going to be or you assume you’re going to be on a show for years and you’re going to have all this story, you never really know quite where you are in the story. And it’s very rare that the show gives us hints or even explicit facts about what’s coming down the pipe. So you’re kind of like the first audience for it.

In a typical job, you would have a script that has a beginning, a middle and an end or you might have between 12 and 24 episodes of a season. This is different. It’s a constantly produced narrative that you’re a part of the ebb and flow of. You’re not the center of it but sometimes you are, sometimes you aren’t. So sometimes it can be really hard to know where you really are in the story. And that’s when it becomes really important to just trust your partner. So shifting to Emily. I know she was struggling with the whole notion that she was playing this villain and it was very hard to make her sympathetic because of the kind of villain she was. 

She’s not holding the town to ransom or any crazy schemes, it’s all this very manipulative, personal, emotional stuff that she’s doing. There’s children, miscarriages, sisters and fathers and it’s just kind of deeply rooted and real. I know that she struggled with how was she supposed to make her likable. I said, you don’t have to make her likable, you just have to make her not boring. That’s the main thing, the main achievement we’re looking for is to not bore people. As long as you don’t give up on Gwen and as long as you fight for her to have a reason to be doing things she’s doing, just watch and it will take a while, but the audience will slowly, but surely start to shift where they get that they’re supposed to hate you. The fact that they hate you isn’t like some weird accident, it’s the point. You’ll hit a kind of critical point where so much of the right kind of hate comes your way, that it’ll turn into love. I feel like it’s actually happening now. It feels like now is the shift.

TV Source: Xander and Sarah was a hugely popular couple with a lot of fan support behind it while his pairing with Gwen had a rougher start. As someone very in tune with and a part of social media, how do you handle the fan reactions to Xander’s stories? 

As awful as the things that Gwen’s done and though it’s slightly different because Emily’s a woman and women viewers react differently to female villains than to male villains – but still, it’s so similar to the Sarah/Xander relationship. Similar in the sense that Xander was lying to Sarah for so much of it. You know, and he was doing it for love, he was doing it for Victor, he was doing it for Maggie. But really ultimately he was still lying to Sarah to maintain a relationship and that’s exactly what Gwen was doing about Sarah. So yeah, Xander doesn’t really have a leg to stand on morally but like I said earlier, that doesn’t really matter in terms of his natural reaction to what happened. 

But in terms of the audience’s ability to sympathize with Gwen’s decision, even if it’s super evil and mean and awful, but as long as you can relate to it or some aspects of the audience can relate to it, you’re gold. In fact, the more they hate you, the more powerful that tension is between, “But yeah, I get why she did it… but she’s so bad!” 

To be able to  talk to Emily and say, “Look, I’ve been through this.” When I was first on the show and people would say nasty things, it got to me. The longer I was on, when they say nasty things, I’d smile like, “gotcha!”. At that point, very often they’re saying things about stuff that I shot up to six to nine months ago and I know I’m still on the show. So all their complaining that Xander shouldn’t be there is like, “Well, tough titties! I’m on the show!”

That’s what I always say to Emily. The fans are fighting yesterday’s war. You know that you’ve already moved on to these storylines and these things, just keep pushing. I’m really interested to see what happens next because she’s going to go through a whole, you know – Well, that’s Emily’s story to tell. Stay tuned. 

But yeah, I really like that it seems that there’s no dead ends to any of these relationships. I guess there’s always the possibility of things being rekindled and coming back. And I should be so lucky to be caught in a love triangle between Linsey Godfrey and Emily O’Brien. 

TV Source: Xander, Gwen, Leo and Craig’s double wedding was the talk of Twitter! How was it like filming such a big dramatic moment and did everyone hold it together during Leo’s entrance?

We shot it over two days. It really was one day was the Leo and Craig wedding and one day was for Xander and Gwen. We had all this heavy, dramatic, build-up about losing Sarah, and kind of saying goodbye to Maggie as well. I didn’t expect it to play as well as it did both when we shot it and when it aired. Xander doesn’t really have a reason to be friends with Maggie after he cut ties with little baby Sarah and also, he’s marrying this person everyone hates that’s done terrible things to people that other people care about so it’s going to be tricky to maintain the friendship. 

It was all kind of just emotionally heavy stuff and so to come in on Thursday for the wedding, having a little mini-reunion with Leo Stark was a lot of fun. Because what can Xander really say to Leo? There’s a lot of that sentiment amongst the fans – as there should be – on who is this guy to think his poo don’t stink and then here’s Leo to explain exactly how it really is, and it’s pretty great. 

But on a bigger television show or movie, that would take days to shoot but on DAYS we move so fast and cover things all at once, you really do sometimes get to watch the show. That was such a fun day! I hadn’t seen Leo’s costume for his entrance until he stepped out. So I got to react as myself and then as Xander which is always kind of delicious. 

Then I didn’t realize until it was happening that Emily O’Brien and Greg Rikaart have a longstanding friendship when they were a couple on another soap opera years ago! That was kind of mindblowing and lovely as well. Nadia Bjorlin, Eric Martsolf and Wally Kurth were absolutely killing me! They were doing all this business stringing along the ceremony. Just getting to do a bunch of explicit comedy stuff they don’t get to was just so much fun.

I only had maybe one line in that first episode but I still got paid! But then the next day was like, now here’s the real work. 

I kind of loved the two weddings in two days as fun as they were in different ways and as satisfying as they were for each audience to get to see this guy get his comeuppance and this girl get her comeuppance. No matter how different the two days were emotionally, they still had cohesive energy to them. 

That’s just really got to go to Greg, Emily and Marci Miller, honestly, because they had the lion’s share of the dialogue. And Jackie Cox too, Jackie looked amazing. To just march into the show — and we move fast, we don’t get takes and, you know, it’s just whatever you do is going to go on TV. So for her to come in and just nail it like that was so satisfying.

TV Source: There should be a ruined wedding support group in Salem. Soap fans are used to wedding fallouts but this one was definitely new, unique and fun to watch. We even had a full on drag queen on daytime TV across America! That was unheard of until now!

Paul: Sometimes I have to make my wife watch the show but she kept saying these episodes were really fun, she loved it. I was like, “This aired at 1 o’clock in the afternoon in America! It’s really cool to be a part of.” And then we go into the next day, for a more traditional soapy disaster wedding which was cool too. It felt like a real, great piece of work.

TV Source: You mentioned before that these relationships don’t have any dead ends even after such a big bust up at the wedding. Where do you think Xander’s heart truly lies? Where do you hope that Xander finds himself with love?

For me, for Paul, I’ve always maintained that he loves Gwen and he loves Sarah. He loves them in different ways and for different reasons because the love grew in very different circumstances. But Sarah was first, you know, We’ve never seen Xander be in love with anyone until her. He was kind of obsessed with Nicole but much of that was about the fact that she didn’t want him than it was that he was really into her. So much of it was when he first came to town and he had a crush on Nicole and she kind of messed him around a little bit, not knowing that he was crazy and violent. So what happened happened. But he’s not really that guy anymore. 

With Sarah, there was never any maliciousness or conniving aspect to how she treated him. She was always very upfront and he loves it when she’s like telling him off. She’s so little and she’s screaming up at him, and he finds it so adorable, you know. 

But the major difference between the two loves is that one is aspirational, right? Like as much as he loves Sarah the person, Sarah also represents a lot to him. She represents a different kind of life to the one that he had, one of legitimacy and security, she’s leveraged into a very important Salem family outside of his own. He’s already a very disrespected and alienated part of the Kiriakis family, but then here’s Sarah with the proper Horton thing too. Then also there’s the analog between Sarah/Xander and Maggie/Victor. To Xander, here’s a template for how it could be. Wouldn’t it be wonderful having that, being the patriarch and Sarah’s his Maggie and all of the things that we could do.

To me, there’s this hugely aspirational part of Xander’s love for Sarah even though it is genuine. Early on when he was courting her, that was clearly a big part of his motivation was to basically marry into a certain kind of decency and legitimacy, so maybe a rub off on him. He did not realize all the work he was going to have to do to actually become a little bit more decent and a little bit more respectable.

But with Gwen, there was no chasing. He tricked himself into thinking he’s just helping out his best mate’s daughter who’s having a bit of a hard time and yeah, she’s gorgeous, but he’s just doing it to be a buddy. He couldn’t let her get into trouble. Then as things go along, you just can’t help but notice that well, they both seem to be unexplained British people and very similar criminal reactions to things, an instinct to lie and sneak around, dark humor with difficult, murky family origins. There was just a lot of connection there. So as opposed to Xander chasing after somebody, this was a discovery of somebody right in front of him with whom he shared all of these similar traits. 

But I don’t want to have to walk between them because the Xander that can be with Sarah forever is a very different guy to the Xander that can be with Gwen forever. Andd it’s a soap opera! As long as he’s on the show and the show is on television, I don’t see him being with anybody forever. I’m sure he’ll end up getting drugged and forget who either of them are or his evil twin will come to town to seduce someone. Something will happen because we can’t just be happy, that’ll be dull. The last thing we want is to bore you guys, we’d rather torture you than bore you.

TV Source: What about throwing Leo into Xander’s dating pool?

Oh! That could work too. But they might need a bit more counseling but yeah, I could see it.

TV Source: What sort of new direction would you like to see Xander go in the main show or even on another DAYS digital spin-off series? 

What I would love to win back is some of the danger of the character. Outside of scaring Dr. Snyder to death by accident – I was really pushing for Xander to just murder him but they were like no, you can’t just rip his throat out in the middle of the Horton living room, Paul. It’s one in the afternoon on NBC.

But there’s a big unresolved thing for me and I would love for them to address it just because it would give me more time with these actors. But you know, Xander did shoot Marlena. And Marlena and John kind of took it in their stride. I know I was like a recurring villain when I did it and it’s just like a bit of a retcon at the time because I’d been off the show for a few months and they told me when I came back. It just feels like at a certain point, John should’ve tried to get revenge but they always have so much going on. I’ve never gotten to work with Deidre Hall much but I have with Drake Hogestyn, and he’s a lovely guy. 

I’ve always loved the idea of Xander’s mercenary, soldier for hire past and I think it’d be fun to pull him into the spy world like the ISA. I think it’d be kind of fun with his criminal connections from the past, it would be a way for him to be respectable on the surface. For instance, if he’s with Sarah, she’s not gonna let him go off and smuggle diamonds. But say John comes to him and asks for help to take down a diamond smuggling ring or something, and have Xander be slightly seduced to do the naughty thing while doing the good thing. Things like that would be fun. 

I’ve also always wanted a full on Kiriakis and Dimera family war. A united front of the Kiriakis family against the Dimera family for a couple months where we just fight. There’s so many fun actors on both sides that don’t really get to interact with each other. 

I would like while maintaining the semi-redeemed aspects of the character, for him to still indulge in his edge now and then. I think a simple way of doing that would be to allow him to get revenge on some other baddies. If he’s being presented as a semi-redeemed character, he shouldn’t be allowed torture good people but there’s no reason why he couldn’t get a little bit of revenge on Orpheus or Clyde. That’s the kind of thing that could get him into trouble! 

Oh, and one more thing! The storyline I’ve always wanted to do is – Remember the whole thing when Xander and Sarah got together and he gave her Dr. Rolff’s diary to save Will? I’ve always thought it’d be really cool if in order to cure somebody, Sarah used Rolff’s research and kind of gets pulled into the dark side of dark medicine and magic, like necromancy. Whatever is that Rolff does! Then it kind of darkens her a little bit, you know. As long as she thought she was doing it for like good, solid, soap medical reasons. 

But as long as they put the pages in front of me, I’ll keep saying them. I’m happy. 

TV Source: Other than Xander who got married on 4/20, you play another baddie known as Ticker in Green Rush, a thriller about an attack on a cannabis farm that you also co-wrote! Can you tell us a bit about the film, the writing process and what it was like going full villain, outside of daytime? 

It’s been a little bit tricky. You know, it’s hard to get financing for independent movies and that’s only getting harder and harder, especially for ones that aren’t horror films or have somebody famous in them that’s doing it as a favor to the filmmakers. My buddies and I had almost gotten multiple projects at different budget levels off the ground multiple times over the years and we just got to a point of frustration, especially our director Jared. He basically said let’s just do something. If we can just put something together that we can show people what we can do, whether it’s a short film or short. Just something done very high quality like something of a calling card. 

I was lucky enough that I was pretty busy – I don’t think I was on contract but I was busy on DAYS. It was right around the time I was first working with Leo. I think that was when we were putting it together. We had toyed with this idea of a Scottish gangster, a Scottish criminal – well, really a Scottish debt collector. Someone who reminded us of people from our neighborhoods growing up. These quite nasty debt collectors that fill in the gaps where poor people can’t get loans and go to these criminals then if they don’t pay back, they get hurt. Very nasty people do this for a living. 

We thought it would be nice to take this charming, funny and really vicious character and put him amongst typical American characters. We toyed with that for a while until our director’s friend took him up to his body’s place in Northern California to see his large legal weed farm. He was kind of blown away by how it all worked, not just how it looked. A big problem they have, the whole premise of the film is based on how  cannabis is illegal on a federal level but legal in California. Which is fine within the state. But in state to state commerce, if you move it in any direction without it being illegal. Plus, you can’t put the money that you earn from it into federally insured Banks. So there’s all these weed farms all over California and I guess, other states too that essentially have to bury all the money they’re making in a hole in the ground. There’s nowhere to put it.

So it seemed like a fun premise for a home invasion thriller that will be relatively inexpensive and just go for it. So we wrote the script very quickly, only because we did it as kind of team enterprise. And like I said, some of the elements had already been worked out in terms of characters and it was more about finding them a place to all meet. 

But I have to say the experience of it was the best thing I’ve done since I very first started as an actor. The pure experience of doing it. I’d had all this bottled-up. I get to let loose a lot as Xander, especially early on but this is still within the standards of what you can do on daytime. 

So to let rip and be this sexually ambiguous, equal opportunity creditor. Who was like, sleazing and threatening and menacing literally everybody gets his hands on. But doing it all with this little twinkle in his eye, where he was enjoying himself. If I can pull off this Xander flavored character in an R-rated project, it would be really cool. And I’m really proud of how it came out. He’s nasty, horrible, horrible, vicious character but I think he’s enjoyable. He’s an enjoyable, hateable villain.

TV Source: What can you tease about what to expect next for Xander? 

Well, you know, he’s absolutely devastated in the aftermath of yet another failed  April wedding.

He already did the big drunken spiral the first time that he lost Sarah. So now he gets to try to rebuild himself in the aftermath of this heartbreak. But now we’ve got tons of romance coming from… well, just cross your fingers and hope that Sarah starts to recover from what was apparently an unrecoverable brain injury. Maybe there is some hope that she’ll be more like her old self sooner, rather than later. 

As much as the wedding was some chickens coming home to roost for Gwen. You know, like the comeuppance for a lot of the things that she’d set in motion. It also was for Xander in the sense that what she did to him is very similar to what he did to Sarah. So there’s a certain amount of comeuppance there too. And so now, there is an outstanding issue between Xander and Sarah that has to be reconciled before they can get back together. So the fans can look forward to that being worked out in a slightly different way than they might expect. 

I remember when we got the script, Linsey was kind of mad about it but I wasn’t. I said you’ll see, we need to earn this. We can’t just run back into each other’s arms. 

So like I always say, expect it’ll be the usual mix of treats and torture.

Days of our Lives airs weekdays on NBC. Episodes are also available on Peacock TV.

The post ‘Days of Our Lives’ Star Paul Telfer Goes In Depth on Playing Salem’s Most Charming Psychopath appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

For over four decades, actress Karen Malina White has graced our television screens and brought joy to audiences around the world. Today we sat down and discussed her return to television with the Disney+ reboot of the hit animated series, The Proud Family with The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder! We also learned more about her upcoming Netflix series Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story, her independent projects, and what advice she has for aspiring actors.

It’s been two years since The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder was announced to the public, when did you first hear that the show was returning? What was your reaction and what made this feel like the right time to come back? 

I think I heard, maybe, in 2019 and I was just so excited. I mean, fans have been asking for it for quite a few years now. It was great to hear that we were coming back. Originally, I didn’t realize what kind of cult favorite the show was going to turn out to be. I remember I think it was in maybe around 2017/2018, I was at University of Texas and working with some students, and introducing myself and as I was running down my resume they were unimpressed. 

It wasn’t until I said I was the voice of Dijonay onThe Proud Family that the whole class was just like, “Oh!”  None of the other stuff mattered. But when I said I was fromThe Proud Family, the class just roared and I was like, “Oh, wow, that was very surprising!” But at that time, they had all grown up on The Proud Family so that was just very pivotal to their upbringing. So it’s so good to be back.

The character of Dijonay Jones is so important to so many people for different reasons, what do you think it is about her that fans have connected to? 

She’s that best friend that tells it like it is. She’s that friend that kind of gets caught up and self-absorbed in her own stuff. She’s a little bit of a gossip, has fun, she’s smart, and likes herself, because she knows who she is. So she’s just one of those fun best friends that everybody has and a lot of people can see themselves reflected in. 

With all of the love, sometimes comes haters too. She doesn’t always get the best rap either among fans, sometimes Dijonay is called a bad friend. Do you think Dijonay is a good friend to Penny?

I think she is. Dijonay looks at Penny as a family member. We love them in spite of themselves and spite of their flaws or their tendencies. I think at the end of the day, no matter what they go through, they truly love each other and support each other. They’re best friends, they are those girlfriends that through thick and thin of it, all the love is there and that’s undeniable. 

What is the biggest difference from the original show to Louder and Prouder? What’s the difference between Dijonay on the original show to now?

I think the difference is that it’s a different time for teenagers. You know, certainly the characters have grown up. We’ll see them a little older and we’ll see them dealing with different things like social media, and how that affects how they feel about themselves. We’ll see them getting into boys and just all of the things that teenagers are dealing with today. So I think that’s going to be the main difference for sure.

I loved all the songs, so there’s going to be some new fresh songs coming this year. Just this year we have, like we did 20 years ago, an unbelievable guest cast, and so it’s so exciting. We have Lizzo coming, and I was so excited about that.

Obviously the world is a much different place since you were in the recording studio for the original, what’s the biggest difference from a “production” standpoint from the original to now?

It’s very similar to how it was done previously. We essentially go into the booth and record our own lines. During the first iteration, every once in a while when we did some group stuff, cheering or singing, we would be in the booth together, but this time we had to keep things safe, so everything was done individually. 

In Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story you play Shirley Hughes, the mother of one of Dahmer’s victims. What kind of research did you have to do to prepare for this real life role? Was it difficult stepping into those shoes? 

I watched a lot of the videos from the trial on YouTube. I also read some articles about Shirley and her son, Anthony. She was very vocal before, during, and after the trial. So I had a plethora of information about her and her family. I also had the wonderful opportunity to work with award winning director, Paris Barclay and David McMillan, our beautiful writer of the story. 

So it was great that we’ve seen many stories about Jeffrey Dahmer, but this one is special. Ryan Murphy really wanted to focus on the victims, which were over 90% Black and brown young men. And so it’s really good to hear about these young men and who they really were. We get to see them live these real well-rounded family lives, before they became victims of Jeffrey Dahmer. 

Was it difficult stepping into Shirley’s shoes considering everything she went through? How do you separate those feelings as an actress? 

Because we filmed this last year, we were still a year into the pandemic, a year since the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. So I think emotionally, I was already in that space. The fact that so many people are dying in this country from COVID; there was already a heaviness in my spirit from all of those things going on about social injustice. So I was able to use some of that and be able to channel some of that heaviness into it. 

Certainly as a Black woman who has a brother, and I have nephews and great nephews, it’s hard not to worry about them out in the world. So as always, I was able to bring that to the role as well.

Anthony Hughes was hearing impaired. He was not a hearing person. So just to really try to understand how Shirley felt, always that angst about whether her son would be OK in this world, a hearing world, and a young Black man on top of that. So I could imagine the kind of angst that she lived her life with.  I was very honored to have been able to tell her story.

What do you hope viewers get out of seeing this story retold?

First and foremost, the chance to see the young men whose lives were taken, the possibility of their lives, hopefully get to spotlight on who they were. Hopefully this somehow brings attention to how we can do things differently.

You know, certainly there must have been a lot of mental illness, but certainly we look at things that the police did or didn’t do and how because Jeffrey Dahmer was white, maybe they treated him differently. So I think it’s again, another angle. When the police let him go, he was able to kill one more person. So it gives us another look at how we’re policing our communities and how we’re treating Black and brown victims. So I hope it produces some change.

Switching gears, let’s talk about your work on the Tyler Perry and BET+ series Bruh. Can you tell our audience a little bit about your character? 

So this comes on the third season, and I play the mother to Candice Renée’s character. I’m a typical mother and mother-in-law who just doesn’t mind her own business when she should. She’s a houseguest who you can’t seem to get rid of. She overstays her welcome.

So it’s very exciting, it’s fun. I just so enjoyed working with Tyler Perry. It’s my first time! He just has this generous heart. It’s just wonderful being on his studio, where he’s just honored so many of those that came before us. He hires all these young people of color and giving them the training and opportunity. So it was just a joy. It was a treat, and he treated me like royalty. I had such a fun time.

Tyler Perry Studios are known to be absolute MACHINES, what was it like working on such a fast paced set? 

Well, first I was scared. You hear all the stories about how he shoots so fast and so I was quite nervous. But because I’ve done theater for so long, and I continued to do theater, I use some of those skills. Those kicked in right away because in theater you don’t get to do it over. You don’t get a second take. So those skills served me well working with Tyler, because yes, he moves fast. He shot the whole season in five days. It was like, what? But he’s spoiled me now because you go to another set and it takes 12 hours to shoot a half a page.

What is it about Tyler Perry’s content that you think audiences just can’t get enough of? 

I think it’s… People love to see themselves, they love to see their friends and family that aren’t often depicted on television. It’s just always very inspiring, very encouraging and very uplifting just to see yourself on TV. 

I remember one of my favorite movies, Paper Moon, there was a little Black girl named P.J. Johnson. I think her name was. I’ve never seen her again, but when I saw that movie, I was like, “That’s me.”

Just seeing myself, a dark-skinned young woman, I think that just kind of gave me a light bulb like oh, maybe I could be an actress. There’s nothing like seeing and having that representation and what it does to little Black and brown girls. 

Right before the start of the pandemic as we know it, you stared and tipped your hat behind the scenes on the original project – The Crack’d Nutz Experiment – how did that project come about?

Oh gosh, that was a group of friends. Most of us went to Howard University. We just decided to get together, and let’s just do some sketch comedy. We would sit and write the sketches and we perform them and film some of them. We created it because of the Fringe Festival out here in L.A., Hollywood. So that was kind of the impetus for us creating that group. It was all Howard folks, except one guy. But we had such a ball. It was a blast. And yeah, it was fun times.

Is there a certain type of role that you haven’t had the opportunity to play that you’d like to explore in the future? 

I really want to be a romantic comedy star. I want to be a rom-com star. I think that the niche of an older Black woman as a rom0com star has not been, you know, paved. I think that’s my lane and I want to fill it. But I think I have to write it myself.

What advice would you have for aspiring voice actors and actors in general looking to break into the community? 

I think you know this, the way the industry works now, I think everybody has an opportunity. We all have phones and we all have all the technology to create our own content. I advise people who are interested to just do it. You can’t wait for the phone to ring or somebody, you know…

I mean, look at Issa Rae. She started out creating her own content then got a series on HBO. So I think it has to be that mentality. You build it and somebody will come and find you. So use every tool and just start creating your own content and creating those characters and develop your audience and then the networks will come.

You can catch Karen on The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, now streaming on Disney+ with new episodes releasing every Wednesday! Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story will be released on Netflix later this year.

The post Getting Louder and Prouder — An Exclusive Interview with “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” Star, Karen Malina White appeared first on TV Source Magazine. TV Source Magazine - TV News, Spoilers, Recaps, Interviews

TV Source Magazine sat down with the actress to discuss everything Chanel, from her love life (#Challie vs. #Janel) to her fashion, the star breaks down this dream role come true. But Bowns doesn’t stop there as we discuss her efforts to give back to the community that raised her and other future business endeavors. 

We know that you originally auditioned for Chanel, didn’t get it but of course got called back once the role was vacated by Precious Way. What was it like getting a second shot at DAYS? What was the transition like into the role of Chanel?

So it was actually crazy because when they reached out, they sent me an audition for the role. So I would say I screen tested in November and then my birthday came around  on March 24th and they sent another audition and I read the character breakdown and I was like, this sounds like the character they already saw me for. It sounds really similar. So I was shooting at the time – on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel- in New York. and so I was really busy all day and they were like, We need this tape ASAP. So I called my manager and I was like, they already saw me do this, so like, tell them to just use my tape. I’m not auditioning, you know? My manager was like, “You know what? I agree”, and I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, am I going to sound bougie? Am I going to sound crazy?”  She was like, “No, no, you’re right.”  And so I said, “OK”. And so she told them that.  Then they said,  we are recasting the same role and she doesn’t need to audition again, we’re prepared to offer it to her. So then the next day, they sent over the deal. 

I got started about a week later, I had to start a little bit later than they wanted me to start because I was still doing the other show. So when I came in I think they needed to get 13 episodes done right before they went on a hiatus. So I was going to have to basically come in and shoot those episodes in a week. Which, yeah, I did. It was crazy because I had never had to take on that amount of material that quickly. I was on the plane learning lines, calling friends like, Hey, can I? Can I pay you ten dollars an hour to run lines? Because I have no money yet?  You know, and just kind of just trying to get it done. And so, yeah, it was just really, really fast.  When I came in for my first week, I didn’t even know anyone’s names because I couldn’t I couldn’t memorize anything else.  So yeah, that was pretty much it.

Do you still get starstruck every time you work with Jackée Harry or Marla Gibbs? Have they shared any showbiz advice with you? *

I would say definitely, I definitely still get star struck for sure, especially whenever Marla comes on because she is just an icon. They’re both icons, really. ButI get to see Jackée more and play with her more. . But Marla was so funny because she’s actually a big fan of the show. So she knows everything that’s going on, so she’ll come on and she calls you by your character and she talks to you about your storyline. And she’s just so beautiful and so sweet. Then, Jackée,  she respects the craft so much, and she’s such a professional that it is just such a pleasure to work with her and to learn from her. And it’s always interesting because I get the scripts and I run the lines. And, you know, sometimes when you start to know people, you can know how they’re going to deliver the lines. But Jackée is such a, you know, wild, spontaneous actor that I never know what to expect. So it’s fun because it keeps me on my toes because I know it  won’t be anything like what I thought it was going to be.

You work with the younger cast a lot and of course those two iconic actresses, but who else would you like to share scenes with from Salem? *

Oh yeah. I haven’t worked with Drake Hogestyn (John Black) yet, which is like, I want to work with him. He’s an icon. He’s like at the top for me because I think I’ve almost worked with mostly everybody else for the most part.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of Twitter ship names, butI’m going to refer to them as Challie and Janel. Did the support of Challie and Janel coming so quickly surprise you? The chemistry is so natural between both of them that it’s hard to know which one to choose. Myself included. One week, we like Challie. The next week, we love Janel. Was that support surprising to you at all?

Yes, definitely. Because I didn’t know I had heard of super couples and soap operas, but I never realized how big that the ships were like. I  didn’t even realize because sometimes people tag me in things, and so I’ll see them that way. But one day I got curious and I just typed hashtag Janelle or hashtag Challie and then I saw so much stuff and I was like, Wow, it’s amazing, actually. But yes, it definitely surprised me. Definitely.

There was a scene between Chanel and Paulina where Chanel admitted that while she had romantic feelings for Allie, it was Johnny who she was truly in love with. Is that still the case or are Chanel’s feelings between the two more even?

Oh, I would say that it’s kind of a constant evolution. I think that Chanel is very much in the moment, and I think that she loves both of them. But I think her concept of long term is kind of, or the idea of whatever long term is, is kind of far out for her. So it’s just like, what is being reciprocated, what feels good at the time? That’s the interesting thing because like you would think with that, that it’s not real or it’s not genuine, but I feel like for her, it is, but it’s just that she just has this ability to just be in the moment with whoever she’s in that moment with.

Chanel has come to Salem and become very much the voice of the audience in a lot of ways and they have written some very funny lines for you. “White people are crazy” is probably our favorite. How do you approach your character being the funny, current young woman that she is?

That’s my mom’s favorite too! She’s like, Yeah, make sure you put that in your interview reel.

Well, it’s interesting because for the most part, the way that she feels about things and the things that she says is aligned with me.So that makes it easier for me to be in Salem and to have that perspective. Because sometimes you get far out stuff. Chanel, for the most part, gets to exist in a place of truth and, you know, relatability.

So we need Chanel style secrets! The clothes and the hair, they’re always on point for Chanel. Can you tell us more about Chanel style? Is it evolving? Would you say that it’s changed since she came in or will it change going forward?

So Richard Bloore the costume designer and head of wardrobe, when I first came in, he had a conversation with me. He pulled a bunch of clothes and he asked me, “What do you like? What don’t you like?” For me, I like colors. On brown skin colors pop so I like colors. Then also, Chanel is bold and has a very bold personality, and she also is named Chanel,  so I think those are two hints that she has to be a fashionista.

With those two things, I go, “OK.” Me, Raven. Naturally, I like solid colors. You know, I like simple but stylish that is what I would say I lean towards. But with Chanel, it gives me permission to be a little bit more wild in the wardrobe choices because I see Chanel as new money. So new money is real loud. So we’re going to wear all of the colors. She’s going to be like, if it had a brand name, it’d be all the way across the chest. Like, that’s very much her. So that’s kind of where we come from collectively. We always try to find things that look like they’re high fashion, but like the loudest of high fashion.

As a longtime viewer of Days of Our Lives,  when I think back on their history of diversity  we’ve always had the Carver family but I can’t honestly say that they’ve ever been a fully fledged family. It’s been a couple of people here and there, and that’s it. So how do you feel being part of such a major moment in Days as a core member of the show’s first true fully fledged black family unit? And what can we expect from the messiness that is the Carver/Price family?

So I would say that, with the Carver family, I think, in a lot of ways they have paved the way for us to come in, and from Lani and Eli having the first black marriage on Days of our Lives and just all the interracial stuff that they’ve done in the past that was pretty much before its time, in a way. I feel like I’m adding to that and contributing to the groundwork that they’ve already laid. It just feels like a privilege, and I feel honored to be able to contribute to the representation, because representation matters.

I love that they keep adding and expanding our family. I think it’s necessary and I also love that the way that they write is like us. I don’t feel like it’s an idea of what a black woman is or a young blackperson is. I feel like it’s pretty much on point for the most part, and if there’s ever any issues, there’s always an open dialogue in which we can contribute in that way. But I do feel like whenever I see it, I’m like, “Oh yeah, this sounds like Jackée.” “Oh  Yeah, this sounds like, me.” So I like that we’re not just, you know sometimes in mainstream media they will put black people there just as decoration or to fill a quota. That’s not what they’re doing here. We have strong voices, we have clear voices and we have voices that are true to to our DNA.

Hopefully, we’ll get some more moments between Chanel and Lani because one of my favorite relationships between sisters was actually on the Young and the Restless back in the 90s, and we haven’t really had that since.  Can we expect some more sisterly scenes between the two?

Oh yes. Some more scenes coming. Chanel looks up to Lani and in a lot of ways they’ve always both yearned for that sister relationship because it was something that they were both deprived of because of Paulina. But yeah, they’re both yearning for a relationship and it does manifest.

We loved seeing Chanel as a part of a Very Salem Christmas on Peacock. What was it like participating in something that was a little bit more lighthearted than the main show?

It was really fun. I’ve always wanted to do a Christmas movie. I say it all the time, so it just kind of came out of left field and they were like, “Oh, we’re going to make a Christmas movie.” 

All of us playing with people that we don’t usually play with was also fun. Like them, putting me with Tripp was hilarious. So that was just fun, and then just me and Lucas like making a joke out of it and milking it and just we had to have fun. So we just had a great time. We shot the whole movie in I think four days. Yeah, I heard that. It was long days, longer than our days ever are on Days,  But  yeah, it was just really, really so much fun.

How did it feel winning the Soap Opera Digest Outstanding Newcomer award alongside Carson Boatman?

I’ve always read the soap digest. I’ve read it for years, even when I was a kid, I would always pick them up because they were always the small ones, you know, and I would pick them up and look at them. So just ever being in the soap digest is still surreal for me, just in general. Then winning, that really caught me by surprise.  It was amazing.

Your hometown, and your family, clearly mean a lot to you. We’ve seen San Diego celebrate you, your family’s big viewing party for your Days debut. What has it been like for them to see your career grow this way?

I think it’s one of those things where everyone is so proud and they all feel like they’re here and they’re part of it and they have been throughout my whole entire journey, they’ve all been so supportive. I’ve done a lot of plays around the city and I always had a lot of friends and family drive up from San Diego to pay money to come and see me being in a hole in the wall production of something.  I’ve sacrificed a lot. I’ve missed a lot of birthday parties, baby showers, weddings. I miss a lot of those things because I’ve been out here on my grind and I was always afraid that I was going to ruin those relationships or jeopardize those relationships. But really, there’s just so much love that everyone’s so understanding and it’s just so beautiful. I just have such a beautiful, strong support system.

Speaking of your hometown, we’d love to hear more about your giving back efforts, namely the cheerleading program that you began. Is that still running?

Unfortunately, not anymore. But I started a cheerleading program for inner city youth in South Central. I worked for ICF, which is Inner City Education Foundation, so I worked there as a tutor, and then I went from tutoring to coaching cheerleading at four of their schools.

I want to figure out how to get back into doing that because I really loved that. But the timing is hard because there’s a very specific window that you can do that in and it’s hard to juggle with other opportunities. 

Speaking of other ventures, you have a new Tea business coming out with your sister called Peace Potions. Is it safe to say that you’re not a coffee person like I am?

Oh no, I hate coffee. I hate it. Hate it. I like the smell. It smells beautiful. Like when you wake up and someone’s brewing coffee, I love that smell. But I don’t like the taste. I don’t like chocolate either, and they taste the same to me.

My mom. She loves coffee. It’s a little ritual for her. So like, sometimes I’ll tell her to give me like we’ll say a fourth of the cup with coffee and then the other three fourths filled with cream. Cream with coffee. I can do that. As long as I can just only get a hint of it, then it is fine.

But I love tea, all kinds of tea.  But mostly I like black tea, which is the most similar to coffee. You know, black tea with a little cream. So my sister and I, we have a tea company that we do together that is called Peace Potions. We curate different herbs and blends.

When I think about life goals and I think about happiness,  I truly mean peace. It’s above happiness for me. I think that peace is more important. I think that we have to remember to make peace a priority in our lives. So that’s kind of what the tea company is for me, because whenever I sit down and I have my tea, and I’m sure people feel this way with their coffee, but that’s like a moment for you to just get centered. It’s time for you to figure out what you’re going to do and you should feel at peace. When you’re having your little little moment, your little tea moment or coffee moment.

So we also loved seeing you on HBO’s Insecure as Sharice, being the scene stealer that you always are. What was it like being able to be a part of a black led production?

It was incredible.  I am such a big fan of Issa Rae. I’m such a big fan of hers and I was disappointed I didn’t get to meet her. But Yvonne Orji,  I worked with her for a few days and she was second on the call sheet. She was really just a really generous actress and really present and really made me feel like I was a part of the family, even though I was only there for a short time. That whole entire set. When you talk about, you know, black being black or being black and being a woman, you go on that set and everybody is of color. There’s so many women in positions of power and it, the whole set, really feels like a party. 

For our last question, do you have any words of advice for aspiring young actors, especially young black actors like yourself getting into this industry? 

Don’t let anyone else limit your beliefs or stand in the way of your dreams. Because everybody sees things through their own limitations and you can’t let other people’s limitations limit you. Because there’s no limits.

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