Days of Our Lives’s Eric Martsolf Says Brady’s Parenting ‘Honors’ John Black (EXCL)
As the real-life father of 19-year-old twins, Chase and Mason, Eric Martsolf (Brady) has a lot to pull from emotionally for the Days of our Lives storyline in which his character’s teenage son, Tate, is dealing with his ex-girlfriend Sophia’s surprise pregnancy.
A Pregnant Pause
“I’ve been able to extrapolate my own experiences and just stick them right into the puzzle,” shares Martsolf. “It’s actually… I don’t want to say easy, but it is certainly easy to have those feelings accessible. I laugh about it sometimes, because I’ll look at Leo Howard, who plays Tate, and I’m like, ‘I just had this conversation with my son three days ago.’ So it’s really interesting. I still don’t think of myself as this dad. I think of myself as a dad with kids, but you blink and all of a sudden you’re a father to a young man, a young adult. It just creeps up on you, and that’s what happened to Brady. I mean, in the soap world, we do it pretty quickly. They’ll go from your kid is 8 to your kid is 18! ‘Ready? Go.’ Luckily, I was in a place in my life where I completely got it.”
The DAYS plot has gotten pretty fiery as the soap explores two different parental points of view. While Sophia’s mother, Amy, believes the two teens should wed for the sake of their baby-to-be, Brady supports his son’s opposition to getting married. It’s provided a great back-and-forth, and Martsolf has enjoyed his scenes opposite Shi Ne Nielson.
“Shi Ne is a terrific actress in her own right,” notes Martsolf. “She came in just that stern stubborn parent: ‘This is the way it’s going to be.’ And you had Brady on the other hand going, ‘Excuse me. No.’ It’s like two Leos going at it with claws out. It’s not a fight. It’s just a very stern, ‘Excuse me. No.’ It’s a great way to set up battle between those two camps, and both positions are justified and completely understandable. So there’s frustration on that front too.”
The drama surrounding Tate has been intense since DAYS decided to age Brady and Theresa’s son back in 2023. “My gosh, they just have thrown this character into the fire, and there’s so much drama going on as the dad having to deal with it,” observes Martsolf. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s a crazy parental roller coaster I’ve been on.”
Brady will remain firmly in Tate’s camp supporting his son’s position as the plot continues. “They’ve played it really wise in the sense that Brady doesn’t force his opinions and his morals on his son,” notes Martsolf. “He guides him, but he allows Tate to make his own decisions at the end of the day. And that’s something I balance with my sons as well. You can’t be too overbearing. You can’t be a helicopter parent. You can only guide the horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink it. And that’s exactly how he’s playing it, which was always reminiscent of the way Drake [Hogestyn, ex-John] played it with me. He’d always have that reassuring hand on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey kid, I trust you to make the right decision.’ He’d always leave you with your own thoughts. So you were able to make your own decision, but your father’s voice was always there.”
Martsolf is proud to have Brady follow in John Black’s footsteps. “It’s beautiful,” reflects the actor. “There have been moments in the script where I can just hear John Black talking to his son Brady, and now Brady’s talking to his son Tate the same way. It’s the way it should be. It honors him.”
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