AnnaLynne McCord Talks ‘Days of Our Lives’ Abigail Twist: ‘I Was Really Crying’

Stephanie Sloane October 17, 2024, 5:07 pm

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Days of Our Lives episodes airing Friday, October 18, and Monday, October 21.]

A year into filming at Days of our Lives, AnnaLynne McCord admits she wasn’t expecting to feel such a deep connection to the job.

“I was introduced to the world of television through Nip/Tuck [as Eden Lord] and then 90210 [as Naomi Clark], so it was a very different experience,” she explains. “I did not know that you could have the family energy that we have at Days. And I say ‘we’ now because I’m no longer an outsider guest; I’m officially a part of the group. It’s like my old theater days and everybody is just running around, in our dressing rooms, in the hallways finding our costars for the day and running lines, and there’s just a kind of old Hollywood magic to it. It’s been so much fun. It’s what my nine-year-old, little girl self dreamed of doing when I grew up.”

Ever since her debut in June, McCord has been playing a woman pretending to be the presumed dead Abigail Deveraux DiMera, which has presented its own set of challenges. “It was very confusing in the beginning, but I thankfully had Billy [Flynn, Chad DiMera] to kind of lead the dynamic,” she recalls. “There was a conversation of, ‘Would I really be Abigail Devereaux?’ So I had to walk the line a little bit and keep a very neutral energy with her in the beginning because we didn’t know. Then it became clear that I was definitely not going to stay Abigail, and that’s when I let her organically play off of Billy’s energy. He has helped me understand the intricacies of the history of not just the storyline of him and Abigail, but the future potential of storylines. He’s Mr. Sleuth. He likes to have all of his little Sherlock Holmes hypotheses on what’s coming next. He was dead on about a few things about my character that actually helped me with my work.”

“Abigail’s” connection to Clyde Weston (James Read) has been established, and Steve (Stephen Nichols) and Kayla Johnson (Mary Beth Evans) have figured out she’s a fraud. Now, she’s poised to get busted, and on Monday, October 21, the truth about her true identity is revealed: She is Cat Green, daughter of a very much alive Catherina (who wasn’t killed by John Black years ago), and granddaughter of the late Konstantin Meleounis (John Kapelos).

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The scenes between Chad and Cat, McCord previews, are heartbreaking. “Something magical happens when you work with actors who just show up, like the way Billy does,” she explains. “He does it with a really raw emotion because it’s instinctual in process versus beat for beat. I was really crying, like, AnnaLynne was crying. I was like, ‘God, this is so heavy,’ and the body doesn’t know the difference. It’s very real. I’m looking in this man’s eyes and he’s lost the love of his life again, and he’s not angry at first, he’s devastated. And then at the end [of the scenes], I was like, ‘We have to hug and make up because I feel like it just ruined your actual life.’ And he said, ‘It’s not real. We’re acting.’ But it was very emotional and it was genuine emotion. The crew was clapping because they felt it, too.”

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Now, McCord is excited about showing the audience who Cat is. “I got to create Cat out of my own feelings and experience of the process of [her identity] unveiled,” she explains. “So that allowed me a lot more freedom once we figured out who she was and where we were going more with the storyline. Once that big reveal happens and the details start to play out, you do get to really experience Cat and her dynamic with her family and what her siblings mean to her. I felt like there was a lot of seriousness to everything and maybe this character can bring a little lightness and joy. She’s been through a lot and her mother has been through a lot, so she gets to use humor as her outlet and it’s been fun infusing the storyline with that.”

Though this may be the end of the “Abigail” ruse, there is more complication to come with Cat, McCord teases. “I just found out something recently, which I definitely know that I can’t share,” she says with a laugh. “She has even more of a twist to her background and her story in the months to come. So, she continues to unfold and more comes to light about Cat Green, which is really cool.”

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