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John Oliver will make his Days of Our Lives debut on August 11 as Salem’s water commissioner, Devlin St. John, TV Insider can confirm exclusively.
Jackée Harry, who plays Paulina Price, was thrilled to discover she would be sharing scenes with the special guest star. “I was gagging,” she recalls. “I was agog.”
The Last Week Tonight with John Oliver host’s latest soap run comes after he made his acting ambitions known on his HBO series in March 2026, using the platform to express his interest in appearing on a daytime drama.
“When John Oliver said, ‘Call me soaps, I’m available and willing to travel. I want to be part of that world,’ our world, we had to heed the call!” said Days’ executive producer Ken Corday after the news of Oliver’s casting was announced.
Oliver also scored a role on General Hospital, playing the mysterious Z, director of the World Security Bureau (WSB). He appeared in Port Charles last month at the explosive conclusion of the Ross Cullum (Andrew Hawkes)-Jenz Sidwell (Carlo Rota) scheme that put Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy) in danger and revealed Cassius Faison’s (Ryan Paevey) true identity. Oliver shared scenes with McCoy, Laura Wright (Carly Spencer) and Paevey during his three-episode stint.
So, when Oliver arrived in Burbank to shoot Days, he was already familiar with the pace and demands of daytime. Still, Harry was impressed by how quickly he adapted to the show’s famously fast-moving environment.
“Nobody comes to soap opera saying, ‘Oh, it’s just easy,’ or ‘It’s no big thing,’ ” points out Harry, who got her daytime start in 1983 playing Lily Mason on Another World. “But it’s difficult because you kinda gotta be told what to do when you first get here, no matter how good an actor you are. It’s a different kind of schedule, different kind of environment, and we’re kind of on it over here. You gotta come in, you gotta keep up. But he was ready. He was not unprepared at all. So, he was on it.”
Their scenes involve Oliver’s character visiting Paulina, who is the mayor of Salem. “He is the water commissioner and coming to her with some scheme,” previews Harry. “He is trying to get one over on the city of Salem and she is not having it. And then he’s onto the next victim.”
Harry and Oliver quickly found a rhythm while working together. “I was first up with him, so I was ready,” she relays. “I looked up and saw him — and we were all here at 6:30, 7 in the morning — and he was lovely, and he was prepared. He’s a very smart man. I do improvisational and so does he, which was good.”
She quips that she had one piece of advice for her new acting partner. “ ‘Just don’t stand in my light,’ ” she chuckles. “No, no. He was really lovely. It was easy.”
Harry describes the scenes as “Quick, fast. I wish there was more, I wish we had improved a little bit more, but he had to work with other people. I had him warmed up for everybody else, let’s just say that [laughs].”
Welcoming special guests and familiar faces is something Harry has come to enjoy during her time on the soap. The actress, who first joined Days in 2021, appreciates the warm atmosphere that comes with seeing longtime favorites return to Salem.
“I love when the old stars come back that have been around for years,” she shares. “It makes them feel good, because it’s like a family, so they love it, too. Harry Hamlin‘s wife, Lisa Rinna [Billie Reed, with whom Harry worked on the Days spin-off Beyond Salem], was great. She was something, boy, seeing her in action. She was spectacular. Great taste.”
Harry’s continued run on the soap is something she never expected when she returned to the genre five years ago.
“I don’t think that way,” she shrugs. “I just go with the flow. I really do. I don’t have an arc; I’ve been around too long. But I have common sense. I like to work. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Sounds corny, but I just want to have a steady career and do good parts and do good work. I come from New York. That’s really all we want. The fame stuff, that’s nice. It has its perks, but it’s just nice to be working and not have that angst. But we’re a team of actors, we have a good group, and we support each other.”
And Harry has certainly enjoyed her time in Salem. “Oh, they treat me like a goddess,” she raves. “I get great treatment. Debbi Morgan [ex-Angie Hubbard, All My Children] — we’re great friends from way back, over 45 years — she said, ‘They treat you good, Jack?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘I thought so. I could tell. ‘Cause if you’re unhappy, people know it. They do. You can’t fake it.’ ”
While she has loved the stories she’s gotten to play so far, Harry also has a few ideas for where Paulina could go next. “I’d like to be the femme fatale,” she says. “Maybe it would be a dream sequence — I’d just kill a couple of people. And we love Abe [Carver, James Reynolds] so much, but maybe a younger man, creeping around. But not too young! I like being a role model.”
https://www.tvinsider.com/1280446/days-of-our-lives-jackee-harry-john-oliver-photos/
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Jackée Harry on John Oliver’s ‘Days of Our Lives’ Debut: ‘I Was Gagging’...
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