Exclusive: DAYS’s Greg Rikaart On Mastering The ‘Musicality’ Of Leo’s Dialogue
When it comes to executing tongue-twisting dialogue on Days of our Lives, Greg Rikaart is in a class of his own as Leo Stark. “I always say there’s a musicality to the way Leo is written,” shares Rikaart, noting that making it flow is all about “finding the rhythm of a scene. Leo’s also written so specifically, which certainly helps. I give Richard [Bloore, DAYS’s costume designer] a lot of credit, too, because in my life I don’t dress like Leo. But once I put his clothes on, I start to feel like him, and it all sort of comes together.”
Challenge Accepted
Nevertheless, mastering the scripted material, which is always very wordy and fast-paced, can be a challenging task. How does Rikaart tackle getting it all out effortlessly? “Well, it’s my favorite challenge of this job that I’ve been working at for over 20 years,” he begins. “To still be challenged this long into it is something I’m so grateful for, because it’s never boring and I don’t ever wing it. Like I said, there is such a specificity and a musicality to it that a lot of my preparation isn’t just memorizing the words, it’s kind of finding those beats. So in the tongue-twister of it all — and I do louse it up sometimes — I can sort of find the beats where I can take a breath and figure out the way to get from non sequitur point A to non sequitur point B, etc. But I love the challenge. I like having all the words.”
Of course, what also helps is what Rikaart describes as his “really good capacity for a short-term memory. There are days where I have a lot to say, and I’ll go home and I’ll share with [my husband] Robert and [our son] Monte. I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I had this scene today….’ And I can’t remember a word of what I said! But I have it for when I need it. I think maybe that’s the trick. It’s just compartmentalizing it for the moment that I need it, and then literally just putting it in the trash bin, especially because of the pace. It’s not like we’re shooting one show in seven or eight days; there’s so much content that you have no choice but to kind of let some of it out.”
Leo’s speedy speech pattern is fairly uncommon on daytime but would fit right in on several beloved prime-time shows, such as The West Wing and Gilmore Girls, the latter of which Rikaart appeared on in the role of Kid No. 4 in a 2000 episode titled “Rory’s Birthday Party.” “One of my first jobs was on that show,” he recalls. “I just had one or two lines.” And he’s noticed a similar style of dialogue delivery in one of his own recent TV binges. “I’ve been streaming Moonlighting,” he notes. “It’s the same thing, the two of them” — series leads Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd — “just go back and forth overlapping dialogue. That show was super fast-paced, too.”
Fast Talker: Rikaart as Leo on DAYS opposite Deidre Hall as Hattie (l.) and Judi Evans as Bonnie.
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