Actor change

Sometimes an actor wants to leave a soap opera and the writers don't. Maybe the character have a big fanbase and a good storyline coming up. How to solve this? With an actor change of course! In Sweden the most noted actor change was when they changed from Jessica Zandén to Nina Gunke in the role of Rebecka Bovallius. In American and even German soaps it's quite common to change actors for differend characters not just one time, but even  two or three times. Jenny Steinkamp in Alles Was Zählt even got a fourth actor right now, and Juliette Greco, who plays Lena Bergmann in the same series, got replaced by Maria Kempken, but then replaced her again, when she got back from her maternity leave. Nothing weird about that. But what about our gay characters?


Dynasty 1981-1989

Al Corley as Steven Carrington.

Jack Coleman as Steven Carrington.

In Dynasty the gay son of Blake Carrington and Alexis Colby initially was played by Al Corley. Al Corley portaited Steven until the end of the second season in 1982, but then left the series according to wikipedia because he was complaining about Steven's "ever-shifting sexual preferences" and wanting "to do other things". Jack Coleman got to portrait the character instead, and did that until the end. And as a matter of fact, Al Corley has a point. Steven Carrington actually shifted a lot in his sexuality. Sometimes he was gay, sometimes he was straight, like he never was anything else. I guess today we would have called that bisexuality. Maybe that was an unknown concept in the eighties. But Steven Carrington always was my favourite character. I even had a crush on Jack Coleman. This was in the nineties when the series was broadcasted in the afternoons on TV4. Yes I was a faghag even back then.


Verbotene Liebe 1995-

Manu Lubowski as Gero von Sterneck.

Broder B. Hendrix as Gero von Sterneck.

When Verbotene Liebe started in 1995 Manou Lubowski played the character of Gero von Sterneck. About the same time as he leaves the series and the part of Gero get's recasted by Broder B. Hendrix Gero comes out as gay. If that has anything to do with it I don't know. Broder B. Hendrix on his hand stays in the part until 1999. A small fun fact is that the word "broder" meens brother in swedish. So know you know it.


Salatut Elämät 1999-

Niilo Heinonen as Elias Vikstedt in 2010.

Petteri Paavola as Elias Vikstedt in 2011.

The Finnish soap Salatut Elämät did a real Days of our lives in 2011 when they recasted Petteri Paavola as Elias Vikstedt. The year before the child actor Niilo Heinonen played the character and I estimate the character as maybe 9-10 years. When he got back he was about 16. The years went fast for Elias. The funny thing is that his father Sebastian, played by Jarkko Nyman, didn't age a day. But I am not complaining because the Elias storyline is a really good one and according to me just what Salatut Elämät and Finland needs. Then we don't need to be so stingy with time.


Days of Our Lives 1965-

Lots and lots of Will Hortons.

Chandler Massey as Will Horton.

Guy Wilson as Will Horton.

I think that Will Horton has the record of the most actors. No less than seven achtors played has played the part between 1996 and 2014. At first there was the twins Shawn and Taylor Carpenter that played Will between 1996 and 2002. They were replaced by Darian Weiss in 2002 for about a year when Christopher Gerse took over. He got to play the part for four years before Dylan Patton portraited the character in 2009 and 2010. Up til now Will Horton was more of a child/young teenager. In 2010 we could say hello to the lovely Chandler Massey who made Will mor of a grown man and also introduced Will Horton to some snogging with men when he got together with Sonny Kiriakis. So far so good. But early in 2014 Chandler Massey left the series but the couple has a lot of fans and has become a supercouple so the writers didn't want to split them up. I mean, if they changed the actor four times before, why don't do it one more time? Then Guy Wilson stood into the part and I hope that we can keep him. I really liked Chandler Massey but if we can't have him we want to keep Guy Wilson. We already had so many changes, so no more. It's so messy. Chandler Massey on his hand returned to school instead and of that we are very supportive!