John Oliver has officially made it to Salem, and Days of Our Lives went unusually far to make sure viewers did not have to wait until next year to see him. The Last Week Tonight host begins a three-episode guest arc on the Peacock soap on August 11.
Oliver plays Devlin St. John, Salem’s chief water inspector, whose work puts him into scenes with Julie Williams, Paulina Price and EJ DiMera. His transformation includes an aggressively formal hairstyle that did not come out of the Days wardrobe department. Oliver brought the wig to the set himself.
Getting him onto the show quickly required more than finding a guest role. Because Days of Our Lives normally tapes close to a year ahead, producers revisited material that had already been produced and found places where Devlin could be inserted, executive producer Ken Corday explained to Vulture.
The cameo continues a soap-opera campaign Oliver launched on Last Week Tonight in March, when he publicly asked daytime dramas to give him a juicy role. He has now landed two: his Days stint follows a three-episode appearance on General Hospital in July.
‘Days’ Had to Find a Way Around Its Unusual Production Schedule
Corday said Oliver filmed material for three episodes over just two days and had roughly 60 pages to handle. “He had about 60 pages that he’s in, and he knew it cold,” the executive producer told Vulture.
Rather than wait for the normal production cycle to catch up, the writing team searched through already-taped storylines for places where a new character could be added without disrupting material completed much earlier. “We didn’t want until next year for these shows to air, so we lifted (already produced) shows and put him in,” Corday said.
The production then had to make Oliver’s newly filmed scenes match episodes that had been shot months before. New music was also added as the team integrated his material into those existing episodes.
Oliver’s team had input on his dialogue as well. Corday said the show’s writers retained control of the storyline, but Oliver and one of his producers helped adjust his lines to better fit his rapid delivery. “John and his producer had a lot of input in making the words fit the way he talks,” Corday said. “He’s very machine-gun in how he speaks, so that took a little work.”
The Wig Was Oliver’s Idea and So Were Some Classic Soap Clichés
Oliver took an unusually active role in creating Devlin’s appearance. The wig came from Oliver himself before the Days hair-and-makeup department adjusted it for filming.
During an Access Hollywood interview from the set, he joked, “Devlin St. John is writing checks that my regular hair can’t cash, however, this,” pointing to the wig, “cashes it in for me.”
He also wanted the kind of exaggerated moments traditionally associated with daytime soaps. Dan Feuerriegel, who plays EJ DiMera, said Oliver requested a ridiculous character name and wanted to slap someone or be slapped.
“Everything you would think cliché in a soap, we did,” Feuerriegel said. “I got slapped, I slapped.” Advance footage from the show delivers on that request, with Oliver and Feuerriegel exchanging slaps.
His Second Soap Role Arrives Just a Month After ‘General Hospital’
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Oliver’s road to Salem began when he asked soaps to cast him during a March episode of Last Week Tonight. General Hospital responded first, giving him a three-episode July arc as Z, a high-ranking figure in the World Security Bureau. Entertainment Weekly confirms that Oliver appears in the August 11, 12 and 14 episodes, streaming on Peacock.