Ryan Gosling Calls Marlena’s Devil Possession on Days of Our Lives ‘An Incredible Acting Class’
Movie star Ryan Gosling is in the midst of a global press tour for his latest box office smash, Project Hail Mary, which grossed $80 million in its opening weekend. While discussing the film as a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor opened up about how his childhood fanship of Days of Our Lives influenced him as a performer and gave a special shout-out to the show’s iconic leading lady, Deidre Hall (Marlena).
The Devil’s in the Details
During his conversation with host Josh Horowitz, Gosling shared that as an adolescent, “TV was my best friend. All the channels were my friends … I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up; I had TV.”
The actor continued, “I used to pretend to be sick so I could stay home and watch Regis and Kelly.I loved Regis and Kelly and I loved Days of Our Lives.” Horowitz replied, “I can’t support you there, but okay.” “Really?” challenged Gosling, and Horowitz allowed, “I just never got into it. Maybe it was great.”
Gosling made it clear that he had genuine respect for the genre of daytime drama and for its talented performers. “Days of Our Lives — well, just soap opera actors in general, they they do not get the love they deserve,” he declared, noting how much material cast members had to “memorize the night before, like 10 pages of dialogue, they get one take, and it’s impossible scenarios.”
To illustrate his point, Gosling brought up the infamous 1994-95 DAYS storyline that saw Marlena possessed by the devil. “Like when Marlena, Deidre Hall, right, Deidre Hall gets possessed,” Gosling marveled. “This is right around when X Files was a big deal, right? Suddenly everything got supernatural. She was possessed by the devil. So she, Deidre Hall, has to suddenly — after playing, you know, a normal person, then she’s gotta have this [sudden shift in her character]. Or it’s like somebody’s dead and now they’re back [or] they’re a different actor and they come out of the shower, you know — that was Bo, by the way, [with] Bo and Hope, he came out as a new Bo,” the Oscar-nominated actor added, referencing to the Bo switcheroo that took place between Robert Kelker-Kelly and Peter Reckell in 1995, when original Bo Reckell replaced his own successor, Kelker-Kelly.
“I have to say, it was an incredible acting class,” professed Gosling. “I loved it. What’s amazing is, I remember that, thinking like, ‘God, Deidre Hall is a great actress because she’s having to act possessed right now! That just seems like a lot to ask of her.'”
Gosling, who was 14 when Marlena’s possession tale began, shared that he stopped watching the show around the time of that storyline, but he caught some scenes again back when the devil returned to Salem in 2021. “And just recently, [DAYS] was on TV and she’s possessed again!” Horowitz asked, “Has she been possessed for 30 years?” “No,” Gosling clarified. “I think it’s just like, somehow, my life keeps passing, like keeps crossing the path with when Deidre Hall is possessed!”
In Project Hail Mary, an adaptation of the best-selling sci-fi thriller, Gosling plays the lead role of Ryland Grace, a schoolteacher who regains consciousness on an interstellar spacecraft with no memory of how he got there, a riff on another classic trope of soap operas, amnesia!
Check out the full interview below.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.