Love him or hate him – and there are a ton of fans who outright hate him – Leo Stark always brings the funny, and DAYS is all the better for having a boffo and game for anything thespian like Greg Rikaart in their back pocket. He’s earned this Performer of the Week award.
Greg Rikaart – Performer of the Week
Leo loves to put on a show – the more theatrical the better. So, when he felt seen but not heard, disrespected, and railroaded, he launched into a diatribe-cum-defense that Atticus Finch would applaud.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I, Leo Chalamet Stark, stand before you today, an innocent man wrongfully accused of this heinous crime. There are people in this town, vicious, vindictive people, who want to see me take the fall for something that I did not do. But I am not guilty. I am not wicked. And they will never, EVER, bring me down!”
The speech itself was dynamite. The supplementary back and forth between Rikaart and co-star Brandon Beemer – which included, amongst other things, Beemer’s deadpan ponderance, “Your middle name is Chalamet?” – a hilarious bonus.
Finally spent, Leo demanded a lawyer…and he got one in the guise of lanky and lithe Sloan Peterson (Jessica Serfaty). While his legal counsel went to work making mincemeat out of the case against his alter-ego, Rikaart pimped and peacocked behind her; a delightful sight to behold.
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When it appeared that the walls were closing in on Leo – and that an arrest was imminent – Rikaart tabled the shtick and got serious, but only for the amount of time it took Leo to announce he could identify Abigail Deveraux DiMera’s (Marci Miller) true killer.
Afterwards, Rikaart went right back to firing out snappy retorts – “Ooh! It is getting hot in here is it not? All this crosstalk, I feel just like Rosalind Russell.” – and purposefully misconstruing perfectly innocents demands, like how he stood up and readied to *ahem* present himself when Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering) told him to, “Out with it.”
In the aftermath of throwing his supposed bestie under the bus, Leo worried that she’d do away with him just as she’d done with Abby. Here’s hoping that that’s an unfounded concern, and that Leo, and by extension his portrayer, Greg Rikaart, will be around for some time yet.
Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Salem, check out all the latest that’s been posted on DAYS spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.
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