Family Man

Brandon Barash is having a ball playing DAYS’s Stefan, but his favorite role is being a dad.

- Janet Di Lauro

The situation was less than ideal. Brandon Barash was summoned to take over the role of Stefan DiMera on DAYS mid-storyline. For Barash, it meant not only replacing another actor, but an actor he knew well — Tyler Christopher. “It was definitely precarious, especially when you have feelings for somebody,” says Barash. “He and I have been friends for a long time, since my GH days [where Barash played Johnny and Christopher played Nikolas]. Not once did I want him or anyone to think, ‘Hey, I’m trying to take your job.’ In my mind, and through my discussion with the producers, I was just going to be there for about a month. Then, obviously, that changed.”

Barash, who began airing last March, has been on the scene ever since. While he acknowledges that there was “pressure of getting the approval of the audience” as a replacement, it wasn’t something he concerned himself with. “You just have to let that go,” contends Barash. “For me, it’s more about doing honest work. If you do honest work, everything else will work out.”

The actor hit the ground running after a crash course of getting up to speed on Stefan during the short time between receiving the job offer and starting it. “It was very fast, about 72 hours,” reveals Barash. “I met with Albert Alarr [co-executive producer]. He filled me in on things and gave me six scripts to read. I was working a day or two after that.”

Barash concedes “there were jitters,” since he’d spent the last few years doing prime-time, including a recurring role on MAJOR CRIMES, and had to reacclimate to the faster-paced daytime drill. “I didn’t want to hold up production. I didn’t want to go up [on] lines,” he says. “That didn’t happen. After my first scene, I was like, ‘Oh yeah. I remember this.’ It was pretty easy.”