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DAYS OF OUR LIVES

Brandon Barash Opens up About Killing Jake and Resurrecting Stefan on DAYS

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Viewers were shocked when Jake was suddenly shot and killed on DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and his heart was transplanted into Stefan’s body to bring him back to life. But portrayer Brandon Barash admitted that he had been seeing the writing on the wall for a while now.

“I felt like Jake kind of lost his way,” he admitted to Soap Opera Digest. “His storyline just kind of stopped. I took that as they either didn’t know what to do with him anymore or they were going to get rid of me or get rid of the character.”

Barash joined the cast of DAYS back in March 2019 as Stefan DiMera and though he proved popular, that character was killed off in October of that year as originally planned. He then resurfaced as Stefan’s previously-unknown twin, Jake, in April 2020, but in August 2022, Jake met an equally violent end. But with Jake’s heart going to his brother, Stefan is back in action and Barash couldn’t be happier.

DAYS Stefan Li Rolf
Li tried to keep Stefan from rejoining the land of the living!XJJohnson/jpistudios.com

“It’s been easier than I thought,” the actor said of moving from playing Jake back to Stefan again. “Yet it’s been a lot more deliberate than I had initially imagined. Playing Jake made me learn a lot more about Stefan than I knew when I was there in the first place. It’s almost like seeing an old friend after a long time and really sitting down with that person and listening to them. It’s been a joy to play him again. It really has been.”

As a performer, it’s also been exciting for Barash to step back into Stefan’s shoes and play a very different character than Jake. “Stefan is very slow and methodical,” he explained. “Jake bounces around from scene to scene, person to person, and just rolls with the punches. Stefan definitely does not. He’s very deliberate. Stefan is a very still being. He doesn’t waste energy anywhere. That was really fun to discover.”

So stay tuned to DAYS and watch as Barash re-establishes Stefan in Salem… and if Li can prevent him from reuniting with Gabi!

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