Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI
After four years, two characters and countless schemes, Emily O’Brien is saying goodbye to Days of Our Lives, at least for now. “This is the announcement I made, actually, when I left,” she tells Soap Opera Digest. “I was in tears, and I faced everybody on stage and looked at the cameras. Then I just told everyone how incredibly lucky I am.
“I wasn’t supposed to be on the show for as long as I was,” she adds. In fact, the actress thought that after being written off The Young and the Restless as Jana Hawkes in 2011, she didn’t think daytime would be “accessible” to her again. But “I not only got to play one amazing role, but I played two amazing roles.”
O’Brien started her stay in Salem back in 2020 when she was cast as Gwen Rizczech, the grown daughter that Jack Deveraux never knew that he had. The conniver earned the ire of fans by messing with his marriage to Jennifer and, worse, accidentally killing Laura Horton!
Things got Days of Our Lives’ levels of weird, though, last fall after Jen Lilley came back as Theresa Donovan for Victor Kiriakis’ funeral. She was told that there would be an arc for her to play out. And although there really was an arc, it didn’t wind up being Lilley who played it. As Gwen left Salem, O’Brien was tasked with picking up where Lilley had left off as Theresa.
Despite being written off twice, the Emmy nominee is likely to be invited back, Soaps.com hears. And as she marvels to Digest, if she is, she’ll have two characters that she could be playing. “It’s incredible!”
