Where would soaps be without zany buttinski characters? Days of our Lives doesn’t have to answer that because Julie Dove is reprising her role as meddling Connie. Soap Hub spoke to Dove about her latest visit to Salem.
Julie Dove: Fly Away Home
“I am living my childhood dream from when I was 13,” Dove tells Soap Hub. The actress reveals that she found solace in watching soaps after her dad passed away. “What brought me to [Hollywood] was soaps.”
A few years ago, Dove shot her first episode of DAYS. She’d worked previously as a background artist on other daytime dramas, but DAYS gave her a whole new opportunity after she was cast as Connie. “I worked with Marci [Miller, ex-Abigail] and Billy [Flynn, Chad]…it was great. It was really fun,” Dove says. She remembers a line or two being cut, but Flynn noted that the scene would make more sense if Connie’s remarks were kept in. “So they were put back in!” Dove enthuses.
Alas, the entire scene was cut from the show, but when head writer Ron Carlivati learned of Dove’s enthusiasm for daytime, he had the scenes put up on the show’s YouTube channel. You can see the scene below where an irate Connie tosses coffee on Chad. She suspected Chad of cheating on Abigail. “You can see my hand was shaking!” she says.
What’s Dove’s take on her Salem alter-ego? “I can say that Connie is a bit of a busybody,” the performer previews. “She makes it her business to know what’s going on with everyone. She’s dropping in to stir up some trouble and let some people know that she knows what’s going on!”
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Comedy Influences
As a longtime viewer of soaps, Dove says she has a fondness for comedic characters like All My Children‘s Phoebe Wallingford and Opal Gardner, and especially the late, great Arleen Sorkin, who played Calliope Jones Bradford. “I think Calliope was far more innocent than Connie is,” Dove says. “Arleen is a huge, huge inspiration to me.”
Dove remembers Hope’s 18th birthday, which means she’s been watching DAYS for over 40 years. “The world was simpler,” she suggests. She also remembers Bo (Peter Reckell) bursting into the bride’s ready room to stop Hope (Kristian Alfonso) from marrying Larry Welch (Andrew Masset). “I’m here to take my woman!” Dove recalls Bo saying.
Dove brings a professional attitude to the set, but the fangirl in her has a few questions, like what park did Bo and Hope go to after they sped off on the policeman’s motorcycle that Bo “borrowed.” And was the church that Hope and Bo got married in back in 1985 in England (where the ceremony was set)– or was it shot in Hollywood?
The actress credits DAYS casting director Marnie Saitta with helping her dig into Connie’s motivation during her reading for the part. “She’s so good about working with actors,” Dove says. “She said to me, ‘Connie’s been cheated on…bring that out when you [confront] Chad.'”
Soap Hub hears that Dove’s Connie will be making future appearances in DAYS. “The episode coming up on [Tuesday, February 20] is my fourth episode, but the third one that will air,” she clarifies.
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