Up In Smoke

Olivia Rose Keegan opens up about her fiery exit from DAYS

- Janet Di Lauro

Saying good-bye to Claire and DAYS “was difficult,” admits her portrayer, Olivia Rose Keegan. “I started when I had just turned 15 and was just a child. I grew up with the people there. They’re my family. I have so much love for everyone working at DAYS and for Claire. It was the greatest three-and-a-half years ever.”

Among the things Keegan loved most about her run on the soap was her “crazy journey” from flower child to pyromaniac. “Claire started out as this really sweet, innocent, guitar-playing girl who was so happy,” points out Keegan, calling her alter ego’s eventual unraveling “an actor’s dream. I got to play a thousand characters in one. I am so grateful for my last storyline and last six months on the show. It was so challenging. I’m so glad that they trusted me with that material and gave me something I could really dig my nails into. My exit storyline was the most fun I had on the show the whole time I was there.”

In fact, Keegan cites her last couple of days on the show — “taking Ciara to the cabin and trying to set her on fire, again” — as her top Salem highlight. “That was really special,” she notes. “Obviously, it was sad to shoot. And it was emotionally demanding and bittersweet because Victoria [Konefal, Ciara] and I are best friends. I’m glad we got to spend the last couple of days filming together. That sad, bittersweet energy of my leaving the show definitely had a positive effect on the emotional demands of those scenes.”