Soap Hub Performer of the Week for Days of our Lives: Eric Martsolf

Kermit the Frog once crooned, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” We’re also going to assume that it’s not easy playing one of daytime TV’s dimmest bulbs. But year after year, Eric Martsolf – the recipient of Soap Hub’s Performer of the Week Award – has dutifully donned the guise of the overly trusting, easily led, forgiveness-filled businessman Brady Black…but every character has their breaking point.

Eric Martsolf — Performer of the Week

Brady spent his initial scenes propped up in a hospital bed listening to Lucas (Bryan Dattilo) list Kristen’s (Stacy Haiduk) litany of sins – hardly riveting, meaty stuff. And yet, Martsolf maintained a masterful control over Brady’s reactions.

He barely raised his voice – and when he did, it wasn’t to defend himself from Lucas’s spiteful wondering if he was reveling in Kristen’s psychotic devotion to him, but rather to try and defend Kristen’s honor.

But despite his chivalry, Brady is no longer under any delusion that Kristen is above reproach. He knows that she’s desperate…and he knows that a desperate Kristen equals a dangerous Kristen. And he also knows that Lucas is right in saying that should some horrendous fate befall Chloe (Nadia Bjorlin) because of Kristen’s actions, he would be equally responsible.

So, off he hobbled to the police station, desperately hoping that he’d be the one to get through to his daughter’s mother. And get through he did…but only after learning that Kristen had been responsible for the accident that injured him, and only after he put forth the argument that, “If you love me, then you’ll tell me where Chloe is, now.”

And then came the moment of reckoning. Kristen wanted to know if Brady still loved her; he answered in the affirmative. But there was far more to it than that. As Brady went on to explain, “I still love you…but I can’t be with you anymore.

“I do love you, but I hate what you do.” He concluded, “What you can’t stop doing.” He’d thought she changed. He wanted to build a life with her. He loved her and cherished her. He excused her attack on Victor (John Aniston). He’d resigned himself to waiting on her release to Statesville. He’d rearranged his whole life and the life of their daughter around HER.

But he’s finally come to two startling conclusions: first, when it comes to Kristen, “Nothing is ever enough,” and he no longer wants to be loved in the only way that Kristen knows how to show it. “It’s too much…I can’t do it anymore.”

Though it is sometimes easy to take Eric Martsolf and his usual wistful, and low-key portrayal for granted, it’s also a huge mistake – something that the actor has been all too happy to prove time and time again. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes.