DAYS'S DEIDRE HALL ON POSSESSION STORY

For Deidre Hall, revisiting the possession tale came as a surprise. “When I heard about it the first time, I was called upstairs and I was told, ‘You know how all of these things have been happening, with the Christmas presents and the tree being burned?

Well, it was you,’ ” the actress recalls of the first story in 1994/95. “This time, I had a low level of concern because I adore Ron’s [Carlivati, head writer] writing and I think he’s wildly imaginative and daring in his writing, so my concern was, ‘Oh, we’ve sort of been here...’ But then you see that chilling moment where Doug is first possessed and I love the way it’s being done. So my concern was more about repeating a storyline, but the way he’s telling it is so rich, it’s so great. I’m having so much fun with it.”

But the actress admits she never expected to be tangling with the devil again. “I didn’t, and I’ve often said because it was such a startling moment when it happened over 25 years ago, possession is going to be on my tombstone,” Hall muses. “No matter where I go, that’s what I hear: ‘Oh, possession. I saw when you were possessed.’ And I’ve done a number of quite amazing storylines, not the least of which is working with my identical twin [Andrea Hall, who played Samantha and Hattie], that really got people in a deep place. Whether they were home watching with the grandmother while she was babysitting or they were in a college dorm, boy, they remember that. We brought in a younger demographic at that point, which, who knew they would want to watch it, but they did.”