JPI
After the exit of his leading lady from Days of our Lives, Arianne Zucker (Nicole), it looked like there might be a storyline lull for Dan Feuerriegel, but the actor and his crafty character, EJ DiMera, barely missed a beat. Not only has EJ continued to scheme and manipulate, but within a few weeks, he was smack-dab in the middle of an unexpected plot with Cherie Jimenez (Gabi). Feuerriegel addresses the wild EJ-Gabi twist and what went into filming the twosome’s hate sex.
Soap Opera Digest: Did you see the EJ and Gabi hookup coming?
Dan Feuerriegel: No. I didn’t see it coming when [Cherie Jimenez] came into the fray. Obviously, when we had scenes where we were yelling at each other, I kind of started to suspect, “Maybe they’re doing something here.” But no, for me, it was a nice little out-of-the-blue fun thing to do.
Digest: Did you like the twist?
Feuerriegel: Yeah, I did. When it’s a twist for me, that’s just as entertaining as I feel it is for the audience. So it was a fun, nice thing. They had a few layers in that as well, which is actually kind of cool.
Digest: What are the layers you saw in the way it was scripted?
Feuerriegel: Obviously, Gabi convinces EJ to sleep with her to get back at Stefan. Then she comes back to do it again… There are some weird morals and ethics that EJ has. I thought it was cool. I wasn’t expecting it.
Digest: This was the first hate sex scene that you’ve done on DAYS. Does the fact that it’s not meant to be romantic change the way you approach filming it?
Feuerriegel: I’ve been on other shows where it’s been a lot more graphic. On this show, it’s usually the before and after [that viewers see]. This was before and then a little bit of the after. The difference with this was it was passionate, but there was a little bit more anger behind it. It was a lot more choreographed because they needed to show the audience that it was a different kind of sexual encounter [with] a lot more animosity behind it. We needed to do [play it] a little bit to the camera. So I come in, I do thism then she does this, and we move over here… And we needed to give off the impression that [Gabi] was the one that was in charge. She was the one kind of pulling the strings. So that’s probably the difference. We had to tell a bit more of a specific story within the passionate encounter.
Digest: Did you and Cherie discuss the scene before delving into it?
Feuerriegel: Yeah. I mean, we’d worked with each other enough and spent enough time chatting to be comfortable with each other. We ran through it. It wasn’t really until the day of [filming] where they give you the blocking of what they would like [the scene] to look like on camera, that you go, “Okay, we need to have a chat about this.” I remember going into a room and we sat down and chatted about it. Also, we’re both professionals. We know what to do, we do it, and afterward, you’re like, “Okay, moving on. Good job.” That’s basically what it’s like. You do your acting and then you move onto the next scene. We had four or five or six other scenes to shoot after that.
Digest: Obviously, this EJ-Gabi thing starts out as hate sex, but there’s a thin line between love and hate. Might this develop into something more?
Feuerriegel: As EJ, I don’t think so. At first, it is what it is. It’s like, “All right. We’ll do this one time. We’ll piss [Stefan] off.” Then a few other things start to occur, which do give off the impression that it is going in a particular direction… Dan, the actor, did think it could potentially be going down that direction.
