Chandler Massey talks to Greg In Hollywood about Will’s coming out moment on “Days of Our Lives”



Had a nice chat with Days of Our Lives star Chandler Massey yesterday after the episode aired in which his character of Will Horton comes to terms with the fact that he is gay.

“I did feel relief personally,” Chandler said of shooting the touching scene with Deidre Hall who plays his grandmother, Marlena.

“Will has been had so much angst and conflict for so long. Once we finally filmed those scenes where Will comes out and is okay with it, for some reason, I felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders as well. It was a lot of fun.”

It was perfect that his scene partner would be Miss Hall since she and Chandler clearly have an on-screen chemistry that appears so natural and real.

“The vast majority of it is Deidre,” he says modestly. “She’s amazing. I just hope to keep up with her in the scenes.”

But they do work together as a team to make the Will-Marlena scenes memorable.

“We do get along very well off set as well, we have the same relationship off screen,” Chandler says. “She really helps me. She’s a pro and I’m new to [the soap opera] genre, and that relationship carries over in our scenes. We also do work a lot on our stuff – I work with her off-screen on our scenes more than with any other actors.”

While Will continues to come out to various family members in the coming weeks and months, it is not the only focus of his life. His job as assistant to former stepdad EJ will also take center stage.

“The next few months is a lot about Will and his relationship with EJ and how it evolves,” Chandler says, “It’s him learning basically how to run a business and how to blackmail people. [The gay plotline] is still interwoven but not at the forefront. But it’s still there, it’s who Will is.”

Since Will is going to be involved a lot with EJ (played by James Scott), I did have to ask Chandler about what appears to be a bit of a sexual undercurrent between the two characters.

“Some of it is in the writing,” he explains. “The relationship between Will and EJ is mentor-mentee and lends itself to those intimate scenes. But really it’s the fact that James Scott is British and everything he says to Will seems to have underlying sexual undertones.”



So what about Will’s love life? He passionately kissed a guy named Neil (played by Jesse Kristofferson) last month and we know that Kristofferson is set to return for at least three more episodes. Will also seemed to share a surprisingly intimate moment with his pal Sonny (Freddie Smith) recently at the coffee house.

Chandler says there will be more kissing for Will in the future but “I wouldn’t say his next kiss will be with Neil.”

Hmmm.

The kiss with Neil, the first time Will had ever kissed a guy, was very aggressive and anything but romantic.

The next one, whoever it is with, will be far different Chandler says.

“The first one was appropriate for that point where Will was in coming to terms with things. Now that he’s out, it’s not so much of a release of all those emotions as a romantic moment.”