‘Days of Our Lives’: Melissa Reeves Returning as Jennifer Horton

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Fan favorite actress Melissa Reeves is back filming at Days of our Lives for scenes that will air in November.

Reeves, who joined the soap as Jennifer Horton in 1985 and last appeared as the character in 2021, will celebrate Thanksgiving in Salem and take part in the on-air memorial to late actor Bill Hayes (ex-Doug Williams), who passed away in January. “I heard about Bill, which was just devastating for all of us,” Reeves recalls. “I was like, ‘I wonder if they’re going to do tribute shows.’ Matt [Ashford, Jack Deveraux] and I always keep in touch and Matt said, ‘Would you ever think about going back?’ And I said, ‘Matt, I think about Days all the time.’ Days of our Lives was where I grew up and spent my life, really, from 18 until now. So it always has a place in my heart and it always will for me and for my family. So I said, ‘Matt, you know if they called, I would say yes, but I haven’t heard anything.’ ”

Reeves did get the call to return, but had one concern: she would be slighting Daytime Emmy-winner Cady McClain, who assumed the role of Jennifer in Reeves’s absence. “My one thing was, ‘I’m not taking this away from Cady. If this is Cady’s thing and she loves being here and she really loves playing this part, I don’t want to take it away from her. I’m so good either way,’ ” Reeves explains. “I’m a huge fan of Cady’s. I even Instagram messaged her, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so grateful you’re playing my part! I’m honored.’ But it worked out.”

Melissa Reeves and Matthew Ashford on Days of Our Lives the 1980s (Gary Null/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank)

Reeves, who has been renovating a ranch in Tennessee with her husband Scott Reeves for the past few years, had to get her head back in the acting game once again. “I came in a day early,” she says of her return to Los Angeles. “I just needed a day to be here and wrap my brain around going to work again and being on set again. It’s been a couple of years. People make that joke, it’s like riding a bike, but that’s what it feels like. I feel prepared and I was laughing to Scott, ‘Honey, I have to put on some high-heeled shoes and walk around this house and get my calf muscles used to it again.’ I have not worn high heels in so many years. On the farm, I wear muck boots all day.”

Reeves was most excited about catching up with the cast and crew. “That’s my favorite,” she smiles. “It’s literally like when you don’t see your family and then you have a family reunion. I thought, ‘I have to focus on the storyline because it’s serious but at the same time, I hope they don’t give me too many lines because I want to visit with everyone and find out what’s going on in their lives.’ You could text people that but there’s nothing like seeing them in person.”

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The actress says she’s honored to be part of the tribute to Hayes, one of the actors with whom she shared a close connection. “Of course I cried because he’s such an incredible man, but what an incredible legacy he has left behind as a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as a husband,” she praises. “That’s what you want to leave behind when you go, people speaking so well of you. Someone has a video of it somewhere but when we were filming the 50^th anniversary show [in 2015], Bill Hayes gave me dance lessons in between takes and I would give anything for those videos. That’s one of my sweetest memories of him, him teaching me how to ballroom dance in between scenes and I will never forget it.”

Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes (NBC/courtesy Everett Collection)

For Reeves, the opportunity to return to the show she first joined as a teenager, means a lot. “It’s an honor to be part of Days of our Lives history,” she remarks. “As you get older, you realize how incredible this show has been and how it’s been a staple in so many people’s homes. I mean, who can say that they’ve been a part of any job for that many years and a boss that says, ‘It’s always your home.’ Ken Corday (executive producer) has said that so many times. He has been so good to me and my family. And Ron (Carlivati, head writer) has, too.”

And she would be open to a more permanent stay. “I joined this show at 18 years old and that became my family because I didn’t have a healthy family,” she reflects. “I think throughout your life, that’s always what you’re striving to have, this closeness and this community together and I always feel that when I’m there. I told Matt, ‘I would even come back full time but the problem is, I don’t have a place to stay anymore.’ I always had family in Los Angeles but all the Reeveses have moved to Tennessee!”

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