It’s always fun when a villain returns to a soap, especially a wacky one. Fans have enjoyed Louise Sorel’s character, Vivian Alamain, popping in a few times in the last few years on Days of Our Lives because she’s always got some crazy scheme going on. Now, Sorel opened up about one of Vivian’s most iconic moments, which was more disturbing than funny, and how that came to be.
To Jig, or Not to Jig
As if Vivian wasn’t nutty enough to begin with, in 1993, when she was under the influence of some herbs, she had her nemesis Carly (Crystal Chappell) buried alive in a coffin that was outfitted with oxygen, lights, and a walkie-talkie. She eventually came to her senses and told Lawrence (Michael Sabatino) about it, and he quickly rescued Carly.
“I was very grateful for that and that they allowed it to happen,” Sorel told Soap Opera Digest regarding an improvised action Vivian had after having her enemy buried. She explained that the script called for Vivian to dance a jig on Carly’s grave, but the actress had other ideas. She told the producer, “Excuse me, Vivian doesn’t jig. I don’t jig.” When asked what she wanted to do instead, she took her lunch break to mull it over.
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She Put the Fun in Funeral
Sorel came up with a unique idea inspired by a scene from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and modified it for her own purposes. She stated, “I was by myself, nobody was there, and I came up with this ridiculous thing thinking of Ophelia,” Hamlet’s girlfriend. In the play, he tells her, “I loved you not.” So Sorel explained what she did with her inspiration: “I did this sort of walk around the grave saying, ‘She loves me. She loves me not.’ I don’t know where that came from.”
Unaware of what Sorel had planned, the director ordered the cameras to hold a wide-angled position to capture all of the action. In the horrific scene, Vivian walks around Carly’s grave, pulling petals from a bouquet of flowers, saying over and over, “She loves me. She loves me not,” and then falls down on top of it, crying. Sorel explained that she was able to pull off the terrifying sequence because she pushed to use her own creativity, remarking, “And they did let me do it. I was very grateful for that and that they allowed it to happen.”
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