Fan favorite Days of our Lives actor Thaao Penghlis -- who has been playing the roles of Tony DiMera and Andre DiMera on-again, off-again since 1981 -- recently did a podcast appearance that has taken the daytime world by storm.
During his episode of Mission: Impodible -- A Mission: Impossible TV Podcast (which celebrated his 1988-1990 role as Nicholas Black on the Mission: Impossible series), the actor let it slip that DAYS has recast the role of E.J. DiMera! But that wasn't the only revealing thing that Penghlis offered up during his near hour-long chat on the podcast.
When asked about the experience of switching back and forth between Tony and Andre, the actor shared that it's "not something that I relish." However, he might soon be faced with the challenge again, because he thinks that DAYS' current head writer, Ron Carlivati, will probably bring Andre back to the fold!
"Now that I'm just playing Tony, I have a feeling they're going to bring Andre back someday... because with this writer, I think he likes duality," Penghlis mused, referring to Carlivati storylines such as the Abby/Gabby (Marci Miller/Kate Mansi) dissociative identity disorder tale, Kristen (Stacy Haiduk) parading as Nicole (Arianne Zucker) with the help of a mask and a voice box, and the current story in which Kristen has stolen Sarah's (Linsey Godfrey) identity in much the same way.
Fans will have to wait and see if Carlivati indeed does have plans to bring Andre back to the canvas, and if so, how he would explain away the character's 2018 death -- which, as Penghlis notes, happened because he tried to give Andre a softer side.
"I started to make Andre a nicer guy, I thought, 'He needs to find his heart,' and so, I used Abigail as a way of showing my heart," Penghlis explains. "Only that writer thought, 'Oh, well, that's her closest ally. We'll kill him, because that'll affect her most!' So, where I thought to go for a change and make myself nicer, it created my death."
He continues, "I've died seven times! Don't tell me who or what, but I have, and it just gets to the point where you say, 'Can I just walk up those stairs and don't come down for a few months or something?' Or for a year? You know? But it's a trick. It works for a few shows and then, so what?"
Penghlis isn't able to change decisions like characters' deaths, but he does say that he has a trick when he's faced with other storyline moments that he doesn't agree with.
"There are some days where you go in and say, 'Uhhh, I can't play this this way.' So, I will change the attitude," he shares. "I don't change dialogue so much, because I don't think that's respectful to the writer. But I do love finding things about the character I didn't do before or I didn't know about."
To listen to Thaao Penghlis' full episode of Mission: Impodible, click here.
Do you agree with Penghlis about the inevitability of Andre DiMera's return to DAYS? Would you like to see the character back in Salem? Why or why not? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
