Days of Our Lives EP Says Drake Hogestyn ‘Signed Off’ on John Black’s Upcoming Death Scene

Days of Our Lives will say a more permanent goodbye to the late Drake Hogestyn’s character, John Black, with upcoming death and funeral scenes that the actor approved before he passed away.

In a new interview with Soap Opera Digest, Days executive producer Ken Corday shared that John’s demise was already filmed before Hogestyn lost his real-life battle to pancreatic cancer in September. Though there’s currently no airdate for John’s death and subsequent funeral, Corday said he “wanted to make sure Drake signed off” on his character’s final storyline, “and he was totally in favor of it.”

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“We were rolling the dice, because it’s difficult to tell a story of someone’s death or a character’s death while the actor is still alive,” Corday explained. “And I made the choice to, ‘OK, let’s tell the story.’ He hadn’t been on [the show] in nine months. We needed a reason [for John’s absence].

“Had Drake, God willing, beaten this, he would’ve come back, and it would’ve been something different,” he continued. “But [the story] had to be told. It was extremely difficult and painful for us to tell it — for the cast, for everybody. Drake was a big part of the show. The consummate actor.”

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Neither Corday nor any of the Days cast members involved with John’s death scene have revealed the circumstances of the character’s farewell, but Stephen Nichols (aka Steve Johnson) said filming those emotional scenes was “the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“And I didn’t, at first, agree with what was going on, because [Drake] was still living,” he revealed, though he warmed up to the storyline when he learned Hogestyn had approved it. “So if it was OK with him, then I felt that I had to do my part.”

Hogestyn’s last on-screen Days appearance came in the soap opera’s Sept. 9 episode, which reportedly was filmed back in February. In the installment, John bestowed some grandfatherly advice upon Tate (Leo Howard), who was still feeling guilty about accidentally telling Holly who really killed her biological father.

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