As the funeral for one of Days of Our Lives’ most beloved characters, John Black, unfolds this week, fans were quick to notice one glaring omission; his stepdaughter Sami Brady, played by Alison Sweeney, was noticeably absent. Now Sweeney is addressing fans’ concerns and weighing in on whether or not Sami will have the opportunity to pay her respects to the man that raised her.
Sweeney recently spoke to Soaps.com about missing the funeral. “I came back a little bit later because I couldn’t be there for those scenes, they arranged for me to do it a week later, maybe two weeks later. I do come in and have scenes about John, but my timing was a little bit off after all of that.”
The actress went on to explain that “mourning doesn’t always happen [when] everyone gets together on one day. Sometimes, that’s an ongoing thing. Having Sami come back and share those moments with Marlena, like a week later or something, allows us to tell that story.”
Because of the production model Days of Our Lives has, these scenes were filmed last year, thus for the cast and crew, Sweeney explains they are having to relive this loss for a second time. “We knew when we were filming the scenes that it wasn’t going to air [until] six months from now and we’re going to have these feelings all over again and that’s sort of what’s happening, I’m watching these scenes on TV and seeing all the comments on social media. And we’re reliving it, so that’s really hard.”
One of the first stories that the new writing regime at Days of Our Lives decided to tackle was writing out the character of John Black (Drake Hogestyn). Hogestyn had to step away from the role he had inhabited since 1986, for an impressive 4425 episodes, as he courageously fought pancreatic cancer. Hogestyn sadly passed away on September 28, 2024. Speaking of this story, the writers said, “While we wanted John to have a heroic and meaningful exit, we wrote the story with the fervent hope that Drake would be able to return someday. John had already been off for over nine months, and there were only so many missions the man could be on. Realizing he might never come back, while praying he would, we needed to craft an exit that honored John, Drake, and the fans.”
Days of Our Lives is not the only project that Sweeney has in the pipeline. The actress recently premiered part one of her To Barcelona movie series on Hallmark To Barcelona, With Love, and its sequel To Barcelona, Forever will premiere next week. Sweeney also recently launched a podcast “Mi Amor, with Ali Sweeney + Ashley Williams” discussing the creation of these films.
