DAYS’ Eric Martsolf Talks Kristen/Brady, Daytime Emmy Nom, John Aniston

Eric Martsolf already has a Daytime Emmy for playing Days of our Lives’ Brady Black. He won the Supporting Actor statuette in 2014. Now, Soap Hub has talked to the fan-favorite about his nomination in the Outstanding Lead Actor category.

Eric Martsolf Shares His Joy Over Being Nominated

There’s going to be quite the contingent from Salem showing up at the Daytime Emmys on Friday. The show has nominees in the major acting categories including Martsolf’s nod for his role as Brady.

Soap Hub: Congratulations on your nomination. How did you learn the good news?
Eric Martsolf: Thank you. I was in my dressing room. I was working. I heard a little shriek across the hall from Ari Zucker’s [Nicole Walker] dressing room. It was her and the joy she was feeling over being nominated. Then, I got a call from Lia [Maiuri, Director, Communications, DAYS]. She let me know what was going down. I had no idea when the nominations were being announced.

Soap Hub: They do always sneak up.
Eric Martsolf: Yeah. Now that my boys [Mason and Chase] are 16 and starting to drive, I’m thinking more about things like that. I was genuinely surprised, to be honest.

Soap Hub: Why did you decide to go into the Lead category this year?
Eric Martsolf: It was a bit hypocritical of me to go for Lead Actor. I truly believe soaps are a team sport. I’m vocal about us supporting one another no matter who has more storyline. If you don’t have a great family of actors, the show doesn’t work. I was coaxed by some friends at DAYS in production, my fellow actors to dive into the deep end. They said, ‘See how it goes.’ One of my sons said, ‘Dad, what are you waiting for? How old do you have to be for Lead?’ I thought, ‘Well, I’ll show him.’ You’ve got to jump into that pool sometime.

Soap Hub: What’s on your reel?
Eric Martsolf: I submitted the breakup scene with Brady and Kristen [DiMera, Stacy Haiduk]. I was so happy to hear about Stacy being nominated, too, because she submitted the same scenes. It was a teamwork kind of moment to circle back to what I was saying about a family of great actors. Stacy and I have developed a comfortability with each other. There’s no restrictions. We ‘get’ one another and we have similar energy. We take the time to construct and deconstruct. We know those scenes were a big moment in the Brady/Kristen saga. Brady told her he can’t be her partner because of what she does, the way she loves.

Soap Hub: DAYS does a great job of creating these flawed people who do terrible things but viewers still care about them.
Eric Martsolf: Viewers see us as a part of their family. They love to see fallible people. Nobody wants to watch perfection when you have a giant pile of laundry to deal with, your kids are throwing pie on the wall, and your dog just went to the bathroom on your favorite rug. You want to see conflict and people arise out of that conflict.

Soap Hub: The last few years, the Daytime Emmys have been scaled down because of COVID. Now, the show’s going to be live and on CBS. Two hours. It’ll be a big to-do. The best part is you’ll be going to the show with a lot of friends — Ari, Stacy, James [Reynolds, Abe], others.
Eric Martsolf: It is. And I love it when good things happen to good people. All the names you rattled off are all good people. I love when that happens. It doesn’t always in our world. The ones from DAYS who got these noms have earned them. We’re all genuinely happy for one another. The whole COVID thing has been an uphill battle. We need to formulate chemistry, but we can’t be near each other as much. We would hang out in each other’s rooms and have lunch together.

Soap Hub: We don’t know who’s going to win but we know John Aniston (Victor Kiriakis) is being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. How great is that?
Eric Martsolf: It’s so well-deserved. That man is a big deal in our neck of the woods. When he’s working and spreading his presence throughout the hallways, people take note. He loves what he does. I don’t see him retiring at any time. He’s always said, ‘Eric, why wouldn’t I be an actor? It beats working.’

When you have kids in our makeup room complaining about having too many lines to learn or too early a call time, there’s nothing better than watching the rolling eyes of John Aniston. ‘Ah, they don’t know how good they have it. This is a dream walk through heaven.’ I don’t believe that John’s ever worked a day in his life [because he loves what he does]. I’ve had so many memorable scenes with him. He’ll keep you rooted in the scene while he throws a one-liner from his chair that’ll level you.

The 49th Annual Daytime Emmys are set to air Friday, June 24 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. Soap Hub will have live coverage on our social media sites listed below. Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Salem, check out all the latest that’s been posted on DAYS spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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