One of daytime’s most iconic couples—together—on our Soapbox?! It’s an Instinct first! Yes, Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso (or maybe better known as Bo and Hope of Days of our Lives fame) sat down together for their Soapbox to talk about all the huge changes going on in Salem. And it turns out that in real life, these two are just like their married on-screen characters: playfully interrupting one another, finishing each other’s sentences, practically canoodling! (We’d probably throw up a little if we weren’t so starstruck by this soap royalty!) With more than 25 years of experience playing their respective characters, Kristian and Peter sure had plenty to say, including their thoughts on the new gay story line for Days, returning faves and why we all need soaps more than ever.
It’s about time we had a gay character! It’s about time, right?! Admittedly, we, as the show, were a little bit behind on that, so it’s nice that we’ve finally caught up to where we should be. Some have called Days conservative, and sure, we’ve thought of it as the “conservative soap,” at times. Risqué in some ways, but conservative in others. Classy, if you will. But in all seriousness, we haven’t been as diversified as we have needed to be. But we think this [character] is wonderful and everyone is embracing the idea, and they are writing a fantastic story for it! And they should—it deserves it. And the actors in that arena are astounding.
The energy on the set right now, just in general, with all of the changes of the new writers and the returning cast, is so exciting! And we’re so excited because it brings it back to what we’re familiar with from when we started the show, and that is family.
The thing about it is that we’ve had a regime change recently, and we’ve been excited as actors, tech people—everybody’s been looking forward to that. But then to see that Days of our Lives head Ken Corday, NBC, Sony is behind us 1,000 percent—who would imagine that they would put so much money into the show in a medium that is kind of dying? That says a lot! And to have that energy now, we see it out into the audience and they’re getting as excited about Days of our Lives as we are. And that is a great thing!
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What’s also really wonderful is that our new head writers were actually here 10 years ago. So Marlene McPherson and Darrell Ray Thomas, Jr. are really familiar with the characters, the personalities. Every regime has been really great for us and our characters, but sometimes you just need some change. But here we are—we’re in the 12th hour and we need some revitalization, which is what they’re doing. We’re raising the bar.
A lot of people immediately were tweeting and responding to the initial promo that ran [in late summer] showing some of the returning characters, like John and Marlena, Carrie and Austin. And what a lot of the fans were chatting and tweeting back and forth about was that they hadn’t watched the show in years and they were coming back because they were interested and excited again. That gets us excited for them!
Because, at the end of the day, daytime television is a part of American culture. And things are so crazy with the economy and the world, to be able to come home and watch something that is familiar and has been part of your life, it’s what we need right now. Forget your problems for an hour!
Now that you’ve heard about the story, meet the man playing Salem’s gay hunk! Head over to our Web Exclusives page for our exclusive chat with Freddie Smith, and be sure to catch Days of our Lives weekdays on NBC
Comments (1)
... written by Mandy,
October 31, 2011
You have described them so well, that is exactly what they are like. Thank you for the article.
