Exclusive: Judi Evans Feared DAYS Was Killing Her Off — Again!
Bonnie’s fall down an elevator shaft on Days of our Lives came as a surprise story twist for actress Judi Evans, who plays the character — and when she first read it in the script, Evans admits, she feared she was being killed off the soap.
Déjà Vu, Take Two
“I was concerned, because it was right before a break [in DAYS’s production schedule],” recounts Evans. “I was like, ‘Oh. They’re killing me off.’ ” It’s a DAYS fate the actress had experienced once before, when the demise of her other Salem alter ego, Adrienne Johnson Kiriakis, was scripted as part of the show’s 2019-20 time jump storyline.
Understandably, Evans had an emotional reaction to what she believed was evidence that she would be leaving the show — but she didn’t seek clarification from the show’s higher-ups. The actress explains, “I learned never to ask what’s happening, because the one time I did, they were killing my character [Adrienne] off. So I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ I was panicked. I cried a little. I was so worried. I was freaking out, because you never know, and I was too terrified to ask. It took a while to get that next script to find out I didn’t die.”
Upon returning to the set to film the fallout of the story, no pun intended, Evans was prepared for an intense makeup job that would reflect the cuts, bruises and swelling Bonnie would have endured as a result of her accident. “Natalie Thimm does my makeup on the show, and it was incredible,” raves Evans. “She did an amazing job, and she did it in about 20 minutes. It was like watching a speed painter! And she had to match it for a few days as the story played out.”
Thimm’s handiwork brought an extra level of realism to Evans’s portrayal of the severely injured Bonnie. “It helped so so much,” says the actress, noting that looking at her battered face in the mirror made her “feel” Bonnie’s pain. “It was interesting, because I also kept trying to use what happened after I got into my own accident back in May of 2020. I fell off a horse. It was a pretty bad accident. I broke my collarbone and seven ribs, chipped a couple of vertebrae, and had a truncated lung. I had different injuries, but it was like… All you want is, ‘Please, somebody give me some drugs.’ ”
Evans says she remembers “begging, ‘Please, do something.’ But [the EMTs] couldn’t give me painkillers in the ambulance ride, and they were going so slow. I was like, ‘Do something.’ And they said, ‘We can’t until we get to the hospital.’ So I went back to that [place as Bonnie] where you’re in pain and your blood is on fire. You can’t think straight at that moment. I mean, my accident was probably not as painful as going down an elevator shaft face-first, but, yeah, that hurt a little.”
Evans shares that her on-screen family members – namely, her TV husband, Wally Kurth (Justin), and stepson, Robert Scott Wilson (Alex) – were taken aback by her gruesome makeup job the first time they came face to face with her. “I had to go out to the set early, because they had to put all the splints and the bandages on,” explains Evan. “The prop department had to hook me up with all that other stuff. So when Wally and Rob walked in, Wally was like, ‘Jesus! What happened?’ It was pretty funny.”
The actress actually drove home with her bruises still on after work one day. “I was speeding, hoping I got pulled over,” says Evans with a laugh. “I had a good one for the cop. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I was going to say something like, ‘Oh, my face hurts.’ I’d look out the window and see other drivers look back at me and be like, ‘Oh!’ It was funny.”
Nothing, however, beat the reaction Evans got from her husband, Michael Luciano. “I came home from work and I kind of surprised him,” grins Evans. “I was like, ‘I had an accident on the way home.’ He said, ‘What the f–k?! What the…?’ Then he was like, ‘Wait. You worked today, didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ But he thought it was real for five seconds, because [the bruises] looked so good. He laughed — after he did stomp away for a second. We play pranks on each other a lot, so I got him back for a bunch of stuff he already did to me.”
Meanwhile, fans can expect a miraculously speedy recovery from Bonnie, though Evans will continue to sport bruises on air for a few more episodes. “Bonnie eats and drinks a lot of dairy. That’s all I’ve got to say,” winks Evans of how Bonnie managed to avoid a slew of broken bones in such a terrible fall. “She heals very fast. She’s kind of a magical character — or it’s something in the Salem water!”
It’s No Accident: Evans, in full makeup as a bruised Bonnie, pictured with Deidre Hall (Hattie).
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