“Oh, my gosh, I had such a great first day!” Sweeney enthuses. “It was sweet and it was so crazy.”
Coming Home: “I was with [son] Ben at a chess tournament over the weekend before I went back. It was a national event, and I had booked the ticket before I was approached by DAYS to come back. So then when they asked to start on the 15th [of May], I was like, ‘Well, I can start on the 15th, but I don’t land until 10 o’clock in the morning.’ So, I took Ben to school and then got cleaned up and came to set, and it was really fun. Richard [Bloore], the costume designer, had planned out an outfit he really felt was like, ‘Sami’s back.’ It was really cool to see that everyone had really considered how they wanted Sami to make her splash back into Salem. I got my old parking space back, which is a little thing, but it made me feel like, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s like no time has passed! I just pulled into my old parking spot.’ But it’s out with the old and in with the new, because the lot isn’t NBC anymore. It looks completely different and it’s been remodeled, and it looks beautiful. At the old commissary, I was asking, ‘Is this still a restaurant? Can I still get food here?’ You feel like a new kid on the block.”
Casting Call: “The first actor I saw when I got there was Drake [Hogestyn, John], and it was so wonderful to see him and to give him a hug. Of course, Drake loves a good medical story, so he was excited to hear about my knee [she tore her ACL in December 2016 and had surgery] and hear the whole story. [Sighs] It was so good to see him again. And then I saw Judi Evans [Adrienne/Bonnie] and Mary Beth [Evans, Kayla]. It’s funny; I couldn’t even get to set on time. They called me to set, and of course, I was already moving slowly, but so many people stopped me to say hello, it was really cool. And then I got to the set finally, where it felt like home.”
Jitter Bug: “In the makeup room, I said, ‘I’m really nervous and what if I can’t remember my lines?’ But it just was great. It was so wonderful to be there with Drake, and I had great Sami scenes with John. Everyone clapped for me after my first scene and said, ‘Sami’s back.’ They were excited to see me and it was really, really fun, and there were just a lot of emotions.”
Action Packed: “Some things were exactly the same, and it was just like riding a bike, and some things are new and a little bit different. I never even would have guessed that it was humanly possible, but they move even faster than when I was there last. It’s the silliest little thing, but they used to count down in the scenes, ‘Five, four, three …’ and now they just say, ‘Action,’ which is what they do at GENERAL HOSPITAL [where she directs], but it definitely threw me for a loop. The stage manager, Stuart [Howard], said, ‘Action,’ and I finally was like, ‘Wait! What? Why is that happening here? You can’t just do it one way for 22 years and then just change it on me! I needed to be prepared [laughs]!’ ”
House Beautiful: “I did some scenes where I walk into the DiMera mansion again, and I had so many real-life feelings of walking into this set, this stage, that I have so many memories from. I did some really tough scenes in that set. I walked in and there’s the picture on the wall and some new furniture that you make note of, but the chessboard is there and it just brought back so many memories and feelings. It just was a really incredible thing, and then to get to play that as Sami made what I was feeling really special. And then it was fun! Thaao [Penghlis, Andre] was there, and then I got to do some fun scenes with Billy [Flynn, Chad] and Marci [Miller, Abigail] and it was just great. It was a fun combination of old and new people to work with, and they were really nice to me because I was super-nervous. I really put pressure on myself that I wanted it to be as good to them as they wanted it to be, and so I think that was part of what made me nervous. And then just getting into the scenes and facing down Chad and Andre, I just all of a sudden got my old Sami groove back.”
Room With A View: “I got to borrow Lauren Koslow’s [Kate] dressing room, so I had a sort of a nostalgic moment to myself of all the years I spent running lines and hanging out with Lauren in there and looking at her David Bowie posters.”
Pleased To Meet You: “I hadn’t met Marci before. She was really sweet and so nice and lovely, and it was really fun to get a vibe from her and run lines and get used to each other. I had directed Christopher [Sean, Paul], but I hadn’t acted opposite him, so that was fun.”
Injury Report: “I knew from the beginning that it was going to frustrate me to deal with being restrained by my knee. Sami is such a physical, expressive character. I was trying to be really careful off camera with it in saving stuff for the scene and strategizing how to minimize it so you don’t notice. Everyone was super-helpful, it was really sweet. Billy was helping me get scripts and people were letting me sit in between takes and being really considerate, so it was really wonderful to feel so supported. Everyone really knew how frustrating it was for me that I can’t stand feeling limited that way in my real life, never mind acting. I was concerned that that would be in the way. And it wasn’t, it worked out okay.” w
