Stepping back into Bo Brady’s shoes takes some effort for Peter Reckell; particularly when he gets a script with a shirtless scene in the mix. “I told them when I was, like, 40, ‘Hey, if I have to do a scene without my shirt, please tell me a month or two in advance,’ ” recounts Reckell. “Especially back then, when you had these young guys on the show who would come in and just looked like statues.”
Nevertheless, there was no advance notice this time around. “They didn’t tell me that I was going to be shirtless,” says the actor, admitting that getting back into camera-ready shape “was work. Believe me.”
That “work” consisted “mostly of shoveling snow,” notes Reckell, who currently resides in Alaska. “And there was a little bit more time in the gym, too. I just wanted to get in shape, because you never know what’s going to happen when you’re on the show. It occurred to me, when I was on the bench press or something, I was thinking, ‘You know what? I never go to the gym unless I’m working.’ ”
Reckell, who resurrected Bo on DAYS: BEYOND SALEM 2 in 2022, had no clue whether or not he’d be continuing the story. “It’s so strange. They say, ‘We have to wait until it airs and see what the response is,’ ” he relays. “They’ve done that every time. So everything was kind of up in the air.” But Reckell was definitely open to another story arc as Bo. “It’s perfect for my lifestyle right now,” he explains. “I get to go down, play, and then come back to my life. It’s kind of fun going back and seeing everybody. I just love the people there.”
Fans, in turn, love Bo, which was evident by their response to the character resurfacing and reuniting with Hope in the afterlife. “It was crazy,” contends Reckell. “DAYS fans have always been very vocal. It surprised me so much. Usually in entertainment, you’re out of the public eye for a minute and a half and they forget about you. To be gone for eight years or so and come back and have that response? It just floored me. Then I think about it and go, ‘I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the DAYS OF OUR LIVES audience.’ ”
Reuniting with Kristian Alfonso (Hope) for BEYOND SALEM and now again on DAYS has been a true joy for Reckell. “Each time, it’s been like we had a weekend apart and then we’re back together working,” he says. “The chemistry is just there. It’s not something we have to work on. As viewers saw with the heaven stuff, we look in each other’s eyes and it just works. It was kind of amazing how quickly we got back into the swing of things. It was effortless.” Reckell’s last and current DAYS stint has also had him sharing the screen with Miranda Wilson (Megan). “She’s doing such a great job,” he praises. “Working with her on set I’ve been like, ‘Whoa! You’re scaring me. You are creepy.’ We’re having a good time together.”
The actor reports that the excitement surrounding his return to DAYS caught the attention of daughter Loden, 15. “It was funny because this time, with all the hoopla going on, I had to put a Facebook page up since there are so many impostors out there,” explains Reckell. “It got quite a bit of response. Kelly [Moneymaker, Reckell’s wife] was working on it. I wasn’t there, and Loden looked over her shoulder and said, ‘He’s got how many likes?’ It hit Loden. She had a little proud moment of her dad.”
Fatherhood is the role Reckell has been playing full-time since leaving DAYS in 2012. “I’ve been a dad with all those dad responsibilities,” he says. “Kelly’s been really busy. She’s turned into a documentary filmmaker. So I’m the stay-at-home parent taking Loden to her basketball games. And now she’s a climber, so I take her to the climbing gym. We share a lot together. We have a little city ski hill, which is five minutes away from us. So we’ll jump in a car and go skiing.”
Yet, reacclimating to actor mode was relatively easy, despite being “kind of nervous because it had been so long,” he confesses. “It did take me a minute, but the environment was the same. You just had to do things a little bit quicker. You had to come in really prepared, because it’s one go through and then you’re taping it. That was a little bit more intense. But as far as the whole process … props, cameramen, everybody was just so happy to see me, and I was happy to see them and catch up. So it was a pretty positive environment and circumstance.”
Reckell is definitely up for giving it a go again, if and when the opportunity arises. “I would love to be back and do some fun stuff,” he admits with a smile. “That’s who I am. I’m an actor. It’s fun to get out there and do some real work.”
