In her guest appearance on the hit MAX series Hacks, Deidre Hall brought something from the set of Days of Our Lives to spice things up. Having worked in the high-speed shooting schedule of daytime serials for several decades, she was also happy to enjoy the show’s leisurely pace.
The DAYS and Hacks Schedules Worked
Hall, who plays Marlena on DAYS, was ecstatic when Regina Downs, the mother of Hacks showrunner and creator Paul Downs, suggested she guest star in a season three episode, which aired on March 23. “It was her idea, how sweet and how lovely to have someone so supportive to play,” she told Soaps recently. She explained the DAYS connection that sent everyone over the moon: “I was doing the wardrobe fitting, and they said, ‘You’ll be in the kitchen. You’ll be cooking, and here’s an apron.’ I said, ‘Well, I have an apron that I could bring in.’ So, I brought the Brady’s Pub apron, and they went crazy. So, there it was!” (Learn how the Brady Pub was nearly bombed!)
Legendary silver screen star Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) also appeared in the episode, and Hall got into fangirl mode when he was on set, remarking that she was, “a little bit overwhelmed by his presence…he’s such an idol of mine!” When her and Lloyd’s characters first meet in the episode, the actors were allowed to improv a flirtatious scene, and she further praised him to People, saying, “I was obviously awed by Christopher Lloyd, as everyone is, and he was just as fun and kind and generous as a person could be, and we found some little things in our story to sort of heighten our relationship, and that was fun.” (Find out which soap star was almost in BTTF.)
The Shoot Reminded Hall of Her Early Primetime Days
Hall also recalled to People how working on Hacks was like visiting her past. “It was a bit of a flashback for me. I had done scripted television, nighttime television, many, many, many, many, many, many years ago,” she recollected, further adding, “and I remember there’s a lot of sitting around, there are reverse shots, there are close-ups, there intercuts, there’s inserts — I mean, there’s a whole thing that they have to do in a scene that Days of Our Lives does on the fly.”
Having a trailer assigned to her that was nearly as large as her own home, she also gushed about the food on set, noting, “They catered an extraordinary lunch that was two full tents of grilled steaks, and then another tent of a salad, desserts, all kinds of [dishes] — it was amazing…As I said to Paul, ‘We would’ve had this whole [DAYS episode] shot before we booked for lunch.’”