DAYS Exclusive: Raven Bowens on the EJ Whodunit and the New, Darker Johnny

Collateral Damage: Raven Bowens’s Chanel is confused about the change in her husband Johnny (Carson Boatman).

EJ’s shooting has a massive impact on one of Salem’s most solid couples: Chanel and Johnny. As the whodunit mystery begins, Chanel can’t help but wonder if her husband might have actually pulled the trigger on his own father. Raven Bowens (Chanel) opened up to Soap Opera Digest about the Days of Our Lives plot and how it affects her character’s marriage, and shares her thoughts on going head-to-head with actor Dan Feuerriegel, who portrays EJ.

Soap Opera Digest: Are you a fan of murder mysteries?

Raven Bowens: Yes. I love whodunit storylines. They’re fun. This is the first one that I’ve gotten to be a part of.

Digest: Chanel even got to confront EJ before he was shot, making her a suspect.

Bowens: I love when I get to do scenes with Dan where I’m yelling at him or telling him off. It’s so funny, because our height difference is so massive. I really feel like this little Chihuahua barking at him. And I’m always the one going off on him. Those scenes were really funny, because I was like, “Girl, he can squash you with his pinkie.” I love that Chanel isn’t afraid of EJ. She stands up to him and speaks her mind quite often.

Digest: How do you rise to the occasion, no pun intended, when you have to be more forceful opposite him?

Bowens: Sometimes I’m self-conscious about being small, and I feel like my voice is small. When you come at somebody like EJ, you want to be as powerful as you can be, so it [doesn’t look] comical. I try to ground myself and be as still as possible and as direct as possible. I try to command my voice as much as I can. I’m a person that when I get emotional, my voice goes up. It goes high and it gets thinner, and that’s not power. So I try to ground it and be like, “All right, you have this emotion and you have this anger, but it’s more powerful if you make sure that, vocally, it’s as strong as you can make it.”

Digest: How does Dan respond to that?

Bowens: Dan’s a good scene partner, because he plays it whether you give it or not. He’s in the moment, and he’s always like, “Well, that happened during rehearsal take.” And I’m like, “Yeah. I scared him.” That’s all I want, is to scare Dan [laughs].

Digest: Chanel chastised EJ for her and Johnny’s adoption plans falling through. Explain why has this upset her so much.

Bowens: Well, she and Johnny had the miscarriage last year. Chanel had her heart set on the first baby and had [to suffer the] heartbreak of that loss. When she wanted to try to get pregnant again right away, the doctor said it wasn’t safe yet, that the same thing could happen again. So when the opportunity [to adopt Sophia and Tate’s baby] came along, she was like, “We were prepared for this emotionally and mentally. This is just the perfect situation. It’s a second chance now.” Chanel fell in love with the idea again, and then it didn’t happen. This time it’s even worse. It feels like [becoming a mother] is impossible and maybe is never going to happen for her. It’s devastating, because she’s always wanted to be a mother.

Digest: EJ did say he was sorry that the adoption fell through, but did Chanel really believe him?

Bowens: No. She thinks EJ is evil. She’s seen what he’s done to other people. And now with the truth about Johnny’s conception coming out and learning that news about EJ [raping Sami]… Chanel was a lot more forgiving of EJ before. But once she found that out and saw how distraught it made Johnny, EJ just became disgusting to her. She thinks that there isn’t anything that he is incapable of.

Digest: How worried is Chanel about Johnny?

Bowens: Johnny is devastated by all this. It’s changed his viewpoint on life. After finding out that he was conceived in such a dirty way, he’s started feeling like his whole life is a lie. He’s questioning everything. It also makes him question parenthood and whether or not he’s ready to be a parent, even though he was all for it before. Now he’s kind of like, “I don’t know, because my example of a father did this.” He’s afraid of following in his father’s footsteps, and it sends him on this spiral that changes how he’s relating to Chanel. EJ is to blame for everything, especially to Chanel.

Digest: What are Chanel’s thoughts about whether Johnny can recover from this?

Bowens: She doesn’t know how he’s going to come back from this, because he’s struggling. He’s not sleeping. He’s not eating. He’s not communicating with her the way that he usually communicates with her. He’s not coming home all of the time. He’s changed. He’s so deeply changed, and she doesn’t really know who he’s becoming. Chanel can see how much this is affecting him. Johnny is in a dark place. Chanel’s wondering whether or not he’ll be able to come out of that dark place.

Digest: Adding to that darkness was Johnny’s reaction when he learned EJ has been shot. Namely, he told Chanel that his father got what he deserved.

Bowens: That scares Chanel, because that is not the Johnny that she knows. She’s used to the Johnny that is this sweet loving man. Yes, he has issues with his father and his family members, but at the same time he’s not EJ. So when he says that, it’s like, “Oh. That’s a remark that EJ would make.” It’s very unfamiliar to her, and I think that’s kind of where they are at this time. Johnny is becoming a lot more unfamiliar to Chanel.

Digest: Is Chanel worried that Johnny might have actually shot his father, knowing the animosity that he feels toward him right now?

Bowens: Initially she thinks there’s absolutely no way he shot his father. He wouldn’t shoot his father, and if he did, he would tell her. But once she starts realizing that he is not communicating with her in the same way, at some point she does start to question whether or not he could be capable of something like that.

Digest: How scared does that make Chanel, even thinking that Johnny might have gone in that direction?

Bowens: Honestly, I think that Chanel probably would’ve been okay if he shot EJ, if he would’ve told her he did it, if he opened up about it. But it’s like, “If you’re going to do that and not tell me, then you could be dangerous.”