from daytime royalty
daytimeroyaltyonline.com/topic/8554800/1/LA Examiner Drake and Deidre interviews; Lots of spoilers!
www.examiner.com/tv-insider-in-los-angeles/drake-hogestyn-deidre-hall-tease-their-triumphant-days-of-our-lives-returnDrake Hogestyn & Deidre Hall tease their triumphant ‘Days of our Lives’ returnDanielle Turchiano
The television event of the decade is almost upon us. You can accuse us of being a bit melodramatic, but Days of our Lives is a soap opera, so in a way that might go with the territory. But we don’t think it’s an overreaction of any kind; after all, the greatest supercouple in all of daytime will be moving back in. Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn have already begun work on their brand new scenes in NBC’s last standing soap opera in Los Angeles, and last night we got to catch up with both of the powerhouse actors to find out what we can expect when we see them again on our screens.
“We’re introduced as a dedication to the Horton Square,” Hall shared with us. “It took endless hours, but only because we have every major contract player on the set. It’s thrilling to the eyes. Everywhere you look, you see someone that you know and you’ve missed.”
Basically the Horton Square set is a massive piece that will live for the immediate future on stages two and four over on the Burbank NBC lot where the show tapes everyday. It is a fashion complex that consists of many working storefronts so characters can congregate outside on the fake streets and then cameras can follow them inside to the individual establishments. And of course since the Horton family is basically the forefathers of Salem, the new shopping area is dedicated to them.
It truly is a perfect homecoming for these characters, and these actors, therefore. Hogestyn said that it took him nearly three hours to get from his parking space to his dressing room (the same dressing room he occupied for years when he was last on the show, by the way) because everyone from security guards to crew kept stopping him to welcome him back and catch up momentarily. The crew even wanted to move his old weights set back into his dressing room for him, but Hogestyn told them to hold off because he “felt like any minute someone was going to tap me on my shoulder. It just felt like I would wake up from a dream-- like I shouldn’t really be here.”
Both actors said they’re thrilled to be back, to help breathe life into what Hall is calling “Days 2.0.”
“It’s not sci-fi; it’s not silly; it’s solid human drama,” Hall promised. “It’s everything that you loved twenty, fifteen years ago, and now we’re going to do it modern day.”
Hogestyn reiterated Hall’s sentiment that Days of our Lives has truly returned to the character driven drama, and he assured us that not only is the John Black that returns the good guy we loved so much, but that he and Marlena are happy and solid in their relationship. And yes, there will even be some love scenes, though Hogestyn joked that he couldn’t imagine who would want to see someone his age performing such a scene. Hmm, we could think of quite a few people…
“The John Black that they will see is the John Black that they have known. It’s not the half-baked, emotionally void John Black, which was a fun character to play,” Hogestyn admitted.
“He didn’t have any emotions, so he couldn’t possibly hurt your feelings. Anything that wasn’t socially correct was something that he would say because Stefano screwed up. If Stefano had had some more time, it would have worked, but he was trying to get me to kill Colleen Brady right away,” Hogestyn laughed. “But no, the John Black that you’ll see now is the John Black you came to know and love-- the protector, the lover, the person who stands for truth, justice, and the American way. And because of the storyline that’s unfolding, it’s going to take the two of them, the strength of the two of them. [Even though] right away he becomes the heroic person-- not in the physical sense but in a protective sense of what is going to be best for the family and everybody else, even though it could not be good for him. And then through the love of the couple-- ‘I’m in it for the long haul; hold my hand; here we go’.”
So basically true love reflected back to us, even through hardships, just like when the show was at its peak not all that many years ago. And let’s face it, without a few hardships it wouldn’t be as addictive, right?
“An event unfolds. Let’s just say certain people are waiting for him to land on American soil,” Hogestyn teased. “There have been some misappropriations of things, and he’s got a problem. The storyline that’s written-- it moves forward so quickly, and it’s such an umbrella. There are a lot of other actors that fall in, and everyone is painted black and white, black and white, black and white. That’s what they’re doing right now: redefining the characters, who they are, and where they stand with each other.”
Days of our Lives airs on NBC every weekday at 1pm in Los Angeles.
