Days Flashes Back

Days_Allison: How has it been playing these Santo and Colleen?

James Scott: It is more rewarding and more frustrating. It's rewarding when you get it right, but there's a lot more that has to go into the character. You have to understand so much more of the dialogue than you have to being EJ. EJ is just a variation of me, and Santo is a completely different person. In that sense, it's more challenging, but when it actually comes together, it is therefore very rewarding.

Alison Sweeney: I think it's really fun to take on something so totally different and something, like James said, very challenging and a completely different character. The interesting thing for me was not just that she's a different character but that she's from a small town in Ireland in the fifties. The women's movement has come so far since the fifties; it was such a different time period, and that really had to be taken into consideration along with any normal acting choice. How restrained people were back then, especially women. You have to really interpret that. So it was a really big challenge, but I've enjoyed it. It's been fun to do something so different.

James Scott: It's actually really nice, as well, because sometimes soap opera can lean on a lot of crutches and one of the crutches is moving things along very quickly. One of the things about doing something in this setting is that because of the different social etiquette at the time, even when it came to the laws of attraction, you have to tell the story in a different way. I think it lends itself to be much more interesting and romantic.

Days_Allison: What's been the most challenging part of playing these roles?

James Scott: The dialogue. The dialect. To say the accent is one thing; to act with it is difficult. I find it to be a considerable challenge to be sincere and not to think about the words when there's so much emphasis on getting it right and it's such a long process to have to go through. It's difficult. Mastering an accent is difficult. It's funny because I can do quite a few accents, but this is not one that I have. The others that I have I've been doing for years. It takes a long time to move it forward.

Alison Sweeney: I would definitely say the hardest part for me has been learning this accent. When they asked us to play these roles and I realized that Colleen was from a small town in Ireland and I was going to have to do this accent, utter terror ripped through my body! The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself on television with some shoddy accent. The most important part of an accent is accomplishing it, learning it, so that you can let it go, so that you can just do the lines. It's like memorizing your dialogue. If you're trying to remember your line in the middle of a scene, you're not acting. You're thinking about what your next line is. The accent is the exact same premise. You have to be able to completely forget what your line is and forget about the accent and to be able to do both instinctively because then you can really be in the moment of the performance. That's obviously the goal of what we do.

Days_Allison: What else have you done to make Santo and Colleen different than EJ and Sami?

James Scott: It was really just an appreciation of a different set of circumstances. First of all, as we've mentioned before, it's a different time. That in itself makes things different. I did not want to play Santo as someone who is as confident as EJ because I didn't really think that was appropriate. The circumstances really dictated the situation. You're talking about someone who is trying to woo a novice. You cannot be all bravado, spit and sunshine, because it's not going to play. That kind of man would never end up in a relationship with this woman and knowing that's where they do end up, there has to be a certain sincerity and a certain humbleness and a certain honesty in the character. It's those values, and a faith in those values, that would be the only thing I think that would allow Colleen to trust to this.

Alison Sweeney: I think for me a girl who is not only all those things – small town, Irish girl, from the fifties, but also a girl who has given her life to the church - that gives you a very certain set of circumstances to play. She has better posture, she would move more slowly, she would be more reserved than Sami, who I've always played as wearing her heart on her sleeve, with higher emotions. Sami is sort of out there, definitely high energy. The other struggle that James and I talked about is that they are related to each other. Part of the story is that you would want to see a shadow of Sami in Colleen or more to the point, Colleen in Sami. Finding a way to incorporate maybe some of Sami's strengths or some of that Brady strength or sass or whatever you want to call it, but still in a way that would be appropriate for the time period and the kind of woman she is. Again, it has to be completely muted but finding that right moment for a twinkle in the eye or a similar character trait to shine through is a nice way to make the whole story tie together.

Days_Allison: What do you think there is about these characters that is attracting each to the other?

Alison Sweeney: I thought the interesting part of the way they crafted the story is that it is one of love at first sight. He wakes up in her arms and right from that moment they are drawn to each other in a way that neither of them has ever experienced. Even though they come from such separate backgrounds, I think that is the story they're telling. He is this man who would normally never pursue a novice and she is a woman who had chosen a life in the church and yet they cannot stay away from each other. They are so drawn to each other, there is such chemistry or whatever, that they're compelled to end up together.

James Scott: I agree with Alison. It's just one of those circumstances. He opened his eyes and there she was. There were qualities that truly compelled him in her. I think he has an appreciation for the values that are held within the church, but I think he sees so much potential in this woman that the two don't mix. Someone who has all this should not throw it all away for that. I think he is a religious man but understands that you can uphold values and have one life but you don't have to subscribe to the dogma all the way through. It really was love at first sight. If there is love at first sight this would certainly be it. Although he was hit on the head pretty hard! But he's since recovered.

Days_Allison: Do you feel like playing these two characters is breathing new life into Sami and EJ?

Alison Sweeney: I think you walk a really fine line. We'll see where this story takes us. I think because I've been playing Sami for so long, more of my responsibility is to think, Sami is these things, how can I show a little piece of that in Colleen, to show where the history is? It's where Sami gets it, sort of. I do think that as this story develops and as Sami learns about her great-aunt's past, it will affect Sami. Do I think that Colleen is reincarnated in Sami? I don't think that is necessarily the story that they're telling, so much so that Sami may believe that or that may become part of what Sami gets preoccupied with thinking about.

James Scott: I think that if there's a crossover, I'd like to think that EJ and Santo share a certain charm. In EJ's case, to a certain degree it's all that he uses to get what he wants and in Santo's case, I think it's rather genuine. It's interesting how in different circumstances, different things come through. I'm so familiar with one character, a little bit of EJ may come through in Santo. It just seems to be the way it works. It was actually more of a point I made from the beginning to make sure that they were very, very different.

Days_Allison: Right now this seems like a very sweet story, these fairly innocent people meeting and falling in love. Do you find it surprising that this is the beginning of the Brady-DiMera feud?

Alison Sweeney: It's crazy to think that, since I think Colleen's future in the church seems to be the biggest barrier to them. And Santo's wife, until she dies, is a barrier, too. It seems so crazy that a man, as James is pointing out, like Santo, who is so charming and sincere and kind, could set his children on the future children of the Bradys. We'll have to see where that takes us. It is interesting, though, in the mystery side of it, to know that it ends with her death. I like that there's a mystery to it. Every scene you wonder: is that what kills her?

James Scott: One can only assume that if Santo orders his children to continue a vendetta against the Bradys, that he in fact lived that vendetta himself for those years. He therefore has become a man who one can only assume is somewhat like Stefano. Somebody who has a tremendous ability to cause suffering and pain and is really somebody who is an absolute contradiction of the character we see today. What exactly is it going to be that propels him to that, for generations, is going to be interesting to see.