John Oliver wanted a slap in his Days of Our Lives cameo, EP says
The Days of Our Lives team is spilling on John Oliver’s oddball cameo pitch — and the memorable role he hoped to play.
Everything about John Oliver’s stop in Salem was built to his delightfully weird specs. In August, he popped up on Days of Our Lives as Devlin St. John — the town’s nerdy water inspector — instantly tangled in secrets and, yes, on the receiving end of a proper soap-opera slap. Executive producer Ken Corday said he moved within a day of Oliver making his wish public to craft a storyline around it.
“He wanted to be slapped, or someone slaps him. He wanted to be someone’s long-lost something and a dramatic close-up of his face,” Corday told Variety.
Oliver didn’t treat it like a late-night bit once he got to set. Corday said he arrived as a serious actor and kept pace with a show that cranks through roughly nine episodes a week, showing up with his lines nailed before cameras rolled.
“He is not the John Oliver you see on his talk show,” Corday added.
Devlin shared screen time with longtime Salem fixtures and even butted heads at City Hall with Mayor Paulina Price. Among the actors Oliver worked with:
- Jackée Harry — Mayor Paulina Price
- Susan Seaforth Hayes
- Daniel Feuerriegel
- Maggie Carney
Back at his day job
Oliver kept the corporate-needling energy alive on a recent Last Week Tonight, joking that if repeated failures counted as “good news,” that would be excellent for DC movies — a wink at the superhero brand that shares a parent company with his HBO show. He flashed a collage of DC posters to drive the joke home.
Days of Our Lives now streams weekdays on Peacock ; Oliver’s episodes aired in August.