DOOL Was Taping John’s Funeral While Drake Hogestyn Was Dying: ‘There Was Literally Zero Acting Going On’
If you’ve already seen today’s episode of Days of Our Lives (recapped here), you may have difficulty reading this article through your tears.
We had trouble typing it the same way. But we were interested in our sister site Variety’s report that the three episodes that make up John Black’s funeral were taped before Drake Hogestyn passed away.
Executive producer Ken Corday got the go-ahead from the actor to move forward with the sadly inevitable twist.
“He understood that this is a story fans would want to be told,” Eric Martsolf shared with the website. “But knowing that this man was on the planet, and we were literally taping his funeral and his death, that was hard.”
Hogestyn drew his last breath the weekend after the episodes were taped.
And his castmate’s awareness that he would soon take his final bow greatly informed their performances — to the point that they weren’t really performances, Martsolf said.
“There was literally zero acting going on during those three days. Everyone was holding hands to the point where our hands were getting white.”
Martha Madison (Belle) added that, in a way, getting the whole gang together to pay their respects was “a beautiful release… None of us were able to really see him or be with him towards the end. This was our opportunity to do it as a family.”
Find out why Sami is MIA at the services here, and scroll through photos from John’s funeral below.
