Patrika Darbo has brought her character Nancy back to Salem on Days of Our Lives for a short visit. Although a manipulator at first, she eventually tried to be a good mother despite her tumultuous relationship with daughter Joy. Darbo appeared on the show from 1998 to 2003 and then returned every so often. She was last in Salem in 2022 when she almost married the villainous Clyde.
Family, Not Just Castmates
Whenever DAYS calls, Darbo enthusiastically answers and shows up for more adventures playing Nancy. This time, she’s bringing a grown-up Joy (played by newcomer AlexAnn Hopkins) with her because the young woman is auditioning for the soap-within-a-soap, Body & Soul. Because she lives near the studio, Darbo had previously ridden her bicycle to work and fondly recalled a time when Kristian Alfonso (Hope) helped her with her helmet.
Darbo has kept in touch with several castmates over the years, further cementing her connection to the show. She explained, “I see Eric [Martsolf, Brady]. I just did a weekend event with Greg Vaughan [Eric] raising money for Camp Dream in Georgia. And Kristian and I talk all the time,” she recently told Soap Opera Digest. ” By keeping in touch with her castmates, Darbo fully illustrates how soap opera cast members are more like family than co-workers, noting that, “I keep in touch with people as much as I can. Everybody’s got a busy life, but there’s a bond there because we’re still family in some aspect of it.”
She’s Only a Phone Call Away
In talking about her relationship with Alfonso, she further added that they’ll message one another, have lunch together, and even bump into each other often. The character Joy was born because Nancy’s other daughter Chloe (Nadia Bjorlin) needed a bone marrow donor. Joy still harbors resentment, feeling that the only reason she exists is to save Chloe, so you can expect there to be a lot of mother/daughter drama.
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Darbo also discussed a few others that she keeps in touch with, remarking, “I haven’t seen much of Nadia since she moved to North Carolina, but she’s coming out here to do a fan event on November 1st, which I’m also doing with her and Emily [O’Brien, ex-Gwen/ex-Theresa] and Stacy [Haiduk, Kristen] and a couple [of] other people.”
And with a three-decade accumulation of fans, who are now like family to her, Darbo stated that coming back to Salem is always something she’s more than happy to do. “If DAYS called, I’d go again. If I’m available, I’m there in a heartbeat.”
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