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For folks who’ve watched Friday’s episode, they surely know already that Theresa’s back in Salem to surprise Tate and Brady. And yup, Emily O’Brien has returned to the Days of Our Lives role! Tate’s mom served her time for that little Konstantin, letter forging snafu, so naturally she’s going to head back to check on her boys. And her return couldn’t come at a more explosive time for them!
But if we were surprised to find out back during Days of Days that O’Brien was bringing the blonde troublemaker back, so was her portrayer. “No, no,” she makes clear, she never expected to slip the wig back on. “We shot this last summer — I think July — and I’d gotten a call in maybe April, May, somewhere around there, ‘Are you interested in coming back? There’s something we wanna have you come in for as Theresa.’
“They told me it was only gonna be however long it was gonna be in the storyline around it. So I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and there I was, back in the wig, back in the heels, back in Salem.”
And back in the middle of a whole mess of trouble. Brady’s got one huge headache between Kristen, Rachel and Ava. And Tate’s stuck between Sophia’s pregnancy and Amy’s stringent requirements for giving their child up for adoption, and his floundering relationship with Holly as she grows closer to Doug.
But If you think Theresa’s coming out of prison having softened on the Holly/Tate relationship, think again.
“I don’t think she would ever ease up on that,” O’Brien makes clear. “No, she has always put her foot down about what she thinks of Holly, and how serious she is about making sure that they do not have any sort of romantic relationship again.” But, she chuckles, “there’s only so much you can do when you’re in prison, right?”
Brady, O’Brien says, has been keeping Theresa mostly up-to-date on Tate’s problems, but there was still a surprise or two waiting for her! “Obviously,” O’Brien notes, “Sophia was pregnant, so she just assumes, ‘All right, he’s moved on from Holly to Sophia.’”
Newsflash: He hasn’t. Though even if he had, the current situation doesn’t seem like it would have been much of an improvement. As O’Brien laughs, “Now you’ve got this huge other factor, which is fatherhood. So I don’t know what’s better!”
But for all of Theresa’s problems, she has always fiercely loved and supported her son. So this return isn’t about making things worse for Tate, but to support him, “and to sort of give her blessing about giving up the baby for adoption.” If only Amy could get on board like that…
As for one of the other surprises? Theresa gets some life-changing news while she’s in town — that doesn’t have anything to do with becoming a grandmother! That certainly makes sense as we know the blonde schemer isn’t sticking around and O’Brien will be back this summer as Gwen once again. (Of that return, O’Brien just says the storyline that lured her back as Gwen, “was very intriguing. That was what I was very receptive to. But I can’t tell you what that story is!”)
Still, even if this first visit was abbreviated, O’Brien says it was just like coming home.
“I was gone for almost a year, I think,” O’Brien shares of her return, “and you walk in and it’s as if nothing has changed. You still hear the blow dryers going and everyone’s talking in the makeup room. It’s like riding a bike. You go back in and you’re in it again, back in the family.”
She does admit that her first couple days back she was, understandably, nervous! “It really is like a muscle when you’re rehearsing that much and saying that much dialogue,” the actress explains. “It took me a second, so I was making a couple of mistakes in the beginning. And then you just sort of go, ‘Oh yeah, this is how it goes. This is fun.’ You just let go and it’s like no time has even passed.”
As John’s farewell storyline kicks off, take a look at our photo gallery below of how it will change life for virtually everyone in Salem.
