Robert Scott Wilson, who plays Alexander, may not have imagined he’d still be at Days of our Lives after starting his career on the show as Ben a decade ago. The Peacock series, however, knew it had a winner on its hands. Wilson talks to Soap Hub about how time flies when you’re having fun.
Terrific 10
In the hands of a less charismatic actor, Ben Weston would have gone off to jail after being convicted of murder, but DAYS saw someone they wanted to keep in Wilson. It’s ironic that he first played Ben because Wilson thought that he was being considered for a totally different role on the show.
The actor had recently wrapped up on the online version of All My Children as Pete Cortlandt. “I was home in Boston around Christmas time. DAYS had presented this audition to me,” Wilson recalls. But before he could even go on camera to test for the part, he had already won it — just not the role he thought. “Marnie Saitta, the show’s casting director, who is also from Boston, was there when I got the offer. I met with her,” Wilson says. “I had it in my head that I was going to be playing Chad DiMera. She handed me a stack of sky-high scripts and said you’re playing Ben. I said who’s Ben? The show wanted to do something else with it. I didn’t know what to expect. I did my two-year deal.”
Killer Moves
As Wilson’s deal was nearing its end, the show made Ben a serial killer; he offed people with a necktie, which earned him the nickname “The Necktie Killer.” Ben went off to prison after committing multiple murders. “We have stunt coordinators on set,” Wilson says regarding safety so that no one got hurt as Ben was killing them. “Billy [Flynn, Chad] and I had a fight scene that went on for a while. Some of the killing scenes happened off-camera. I knew the vicious one with Will [then Guy Wilson] was not going to be forgotten. Ben was killing off a legacy character, but if he was going to do it, then I had to really go for it.
“The stunt people always walk us through everything to make sure everyone is safe under these imaginary circumstances,” the actor says. However, about a year and a half after becoming incarcerated, Ben returned to announce that Will, one of his victims, indeed was alive. That ushered the actor back onto the canvas and through therapy, medication, Marlena’s seal of approval, and gobs of fan support, Ben was redeemed and woven back onto the canvas.
Sinn-fully Delicious
Once word got out that Wilson was coming back, fans were speculating Ben and Ciara (Victoria Konefal) would emerge as a show supercouple not unlike other mega-popular duos on the show had done over the years, especially in the 1980s. “It was immediate,” Wilson recalls. “It was like wildfire. I have had a taste of that [as Alexander and Stephanie, played by Abigail Klein] a little bit. I think people who watch daytime — things catch their eye. They see chemistry. Sometimes, you have to work to create it. Sometimes you don’t and you just go with it. If you do both, that’s the real deal.”
Check back with Soap Hub for Part Two of our interview with Wilson where he explores more of his journey as both Ben Weston and his current character, Alexander Kiriakis.
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