How has Xander changed from his early days in Salem? “A lot and also not very much. He’s changed a lot, but at the same time he’s still that same insecure, ostracized, can’t get out of his own way, own worst enemy. Over the years, he has shown a little bit of growth and has been through experiences that have expanded who he actually is and who he’s capable of being, but he still tends to revert back to these core qualities of insecurity and being a self-sabotager in a lot of ways. I think it is time for the weight of the various relationships he’s had and the experiences that he’s had to finally shift him toward maturity. By the time all the stuff that I’ve shot recently airs, I do feel that the audience will be ready to receive a more considerate and mature Xander.”
Who is Xander’s role model? “For the longest time his most overt role model would have been Victor, but he really wasn’t in his life growing up. It was more the idea of Victor, which is different from the man, different from the person. In terms of a real role model, the bigger influences in his life are actually women. He learns a lot more from his interactions with Maggie and obviously his time with Sarah and even with Gwen and now Chloe.”
What are Xander’s strengths and weaknesses? “He’s incredibly loyal. As far as I know, he’s never cheated in any of his relationships. If he’s in love with somebody, he’s in love with them and would never betray them in that way. He’s loyal to his family, even though he despises most of them. His biggest weakness is his reactionary nature, his self-centered desire to place himself in the middle of things. His relationship with Sarah began, to an extent, because he saw a way to try to help her and Maggie save Will Horton’s life. With Gwen, he had a similar thing. He saw she was in danger from that creepy doctor and sought to involve himself to help, but also to make himself a part of what she was dealing with. There’s an interfering desire. Even when he’s helping someone, he’s making it about him.”
Who is Xander’s best friend? “Jack was his best mate, but Xander ruined it. Even with everything that’s happened, I don’t think there’s anybody else that’s remotely close. I miss Matt [Ashford, Jack]. I’d love for him to be on the canvas more consistently to give Xander a buddy again. The Chloe stuff that we’re doing now has been fun. It’s the first time that Xander’s had a girl buddy.”
Who is his all-time nemesis? “The most clear nemesis would be Eric, although Eric has history with Sarah that can’t be set aside easily. Xander’s incredibly jealous of him. Just the existence of Eric annoys Xander, the fact that he’s the antithesis of him. Beyond Eric, his main nemesis throughout the course of the show is really Victor, who Xander held up as his hero. He conceived him as a role model even though he didn’t know Victor in a loving sense. He’d never been nurtured by Victor. But it was very often Victor who was the final arbiter of Xander’s fate.”
Who is the love of Xander’s life? “If there was a gun to his head, it would have to be Sarah. As much as he was head over heels for Gwen and they were a good match when they were together, ultimately it was what she did to Sarah that made Gwen and Xander untenable moving forward. But who knows if those crazy kids will ever work it out.”
What life events do you think affected Xander the most? “The first time Victor really accepted him, and even called him ‘son’. That was enormous, honestly. I don’t know that the full enormity even came through in the way we did it in the end. Victor wholeheartedly embraced Xander, even though it was just milliseconds before Philip came home and ruined it for him. Or at least Xander allowed that to ruin it for him. Beyond that, it would be the first collapse of Xander and Sarah at their first wedding. That began the long, slow process of him trying to not be a better person, but actually take responsibility and take account of what he had been and what he had done. He needed to have his face rubbed in how much he hurt somebody he loved.”
Would you be friends with Xander? “I mean, he’s fun. He’s kind of charming. I’d play darts with him or have a drink with him. I don’t tend to do so great with super-selfish people. In small doses, they’re fine. As soon as Xander started to talk about his personal history, I’d probably find an excuse to go.”
What were some of your favorite storyline moments? “I love the first mask storyline when Kristen was pretending to be Nicole and we were kidnapping Nicole’s baby. We had the proper latex mask that was done really nicely. Stacy [Haiduk, Kristen] and Ari [Zucker, Nicole] had so much fun playing each other and messing around with all of that. I had so much fun being able to do scenes with both of them. It was the first time for me, as Xander, to get to do a classically crazy, soapy DAYS OF OUR LIVES story.”
Do you have a favorite scene? “It was early on in my first contract. There was a big scene where, basically, Xander realizes that everything he’s done for Victor is still not good enough. I was supposed to run out of the scene during this argument Xander was having with Victor, where he couldn’t bring himself to bite back at him, because he’s still his uncle, his boss and his benefactor. I ran outside, and it was scripted that I was supposed to scream. I mentioned to the director, ‘I don’t know if I’d want to scream where he might hear me. I just don’t want Victor to win that way. Can I do something else?’ He said, ‘Well, what?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Just let me see what I do.’ I ending up doing this silent scream where no noise came out. It was just this full body frustration. It looked kind of cool. I went straight from that to shoot this page-and-a-half monologue of screaming and venting about Victor in the park, where I kick over a trash can and flip over a bench. It was the first time I could really let go and show everybody how loud and scary I can be, if you let me. Then the next day I came into work and one of the ADs came up to me and said, ‘Hey, buddy, you blew the roof off this place yesterday.’ It was so nice. It was a lovely feeling of, ‘All right. I know what I’m doing now. I felt like some shift had happened where they trust me to take chances, and I trust them to let me take chances.’ That was a pivotal favorite in terms of my experience on the show beyond everything else.”
Do you have a favorite wedding? “I really liked the fantasy wedding, the one that happened in our dreams when Sarah was drugged and Xander was drunk. It was very pretty and very beautiful. The vows were lovely, simple and sweet. I really liked Sarah and Xander’s actual wedding, when they finally got married. But my real, real favorite, just because it was so mega and one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of on the show, was the big double wedding with Xander, Gwen, Leo and Craig. That one, when I watched it, I was like, ‘This is really good. I’m really proud of this. This is a fantastic wedding episode.’ ”
Me vs. Him
What are the biggest personality differences between you and Xander? “I don’t think that I’m a criminal. I do think that at his heart he is a criminal. He has criminal tendencies. Even though I’m sympathetic to Xander’s choices, they’re not ones I would make. I’m a bit of a goody two-shoes.”
Who’d win in a fight between you and Xander? “Sometimes they make it out that Xander’s this very dangerous, mercenary guy. Who knows what his past was? Was he in the foreign legion? Was he an assassin? And other times he’s getting beat up by a priest. So who knows? I’d like to think that I could put up a good fight against Xander, but that Xander would cheat and win.”
Who’s better in a crisis? “I’m better in a crisis because my first instinct isn’t to immediately commit a crime to fix the crisis. I am genuinely quite calm in crises when they happen, whereas Xander tends to fly off the handle and follow his first reaction. I tend to be the calm head in the storm.”
Who’s a better spouse/mate? “I guess that’s a question for Carmen [Cusack, Telfer’s wife] and Sarah and Gwen. But I’m going to toot my own horn and say that I’m a much better partner to Carmen than Xander has ever been to any of the women he’s been with. I do try as much as possible to be a supportive, loving, present and honest partner to a fault. Xander is way too comfortable lying to spare the feelings of others.”
Who has a better home? “For a long time it would have been Xander, but recently we’ve really come up in that particular department. We have a house now, and everything’s much nicer, living-wise. Our sweet mansion home is much nicer than the roach motels and brutalist apartments that Xander’s been living in.”
Who’s a better dresser? “Xander dresses way better. I do not. It’s Xander because Richard [Bloore, DAYS costume designer] and our incredible wardrobe team keep him that way. If Paul was on DAYS, they’d be getting constant complaints that he wears the same pair of jeans and the same three T-shirts in circulation all the time. That’s what I’m like in real life. Although I will say that to an extent, we dress the same in that neither of us wears very many clothes. When I’m home, I don’t wear a lot of clothes. And with Xander, it seems that if you leave him by himself for more than 15 seconds he has to take his shirt off. He’s constantly shirtless, and that we kind of have in common.”
