There's no better time to celebrate the everlasting love between Days of our Lives' Steve and Kayla Johnson than on Valentine's Day, especially because the fan favorite Salemites are tying the knot in a super romantic wedding this week. In celebration of the very special event, the characters' portrayers, Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans, spoke with Soap Central about the intimate vows they helped construct and the power of the couple's history. And just for fun, we got them to spill details about how and why they sometimes fight like a real-life married couple while on set!
soapcentral.com: There's no better time to talk about a wedding than the day before Valentine's Day!
Mary Beth Evans: Well, due to a preemption, I think actually our wedding is the show's Valentine's Day, but it airs on the 15th and 16th. That was a little bit of a glitch, but still, we felt it was Valentine's Day, and we were excited that it was Valentine's Day.
soapcentral.com: And really, if you're keeping track of how and when people celebrate, it's more like love week.
Mary Beth: Yeah! I'm picking up my husband's Valentine's Day present today, so I do believe it's an all-week event.
soapcentral.com: So, do you both celebrate Valentine's Day in real life?
Stephen Nichols: Oh, yes! Gosh, it's one of my favorite days.
Mary Beth: Of course! My husband always gives me a present, and it always comes with a card with lots of mushy love stuff with a self-portrait. He always draws a self-portrait.
Stephen: He draws it?!
Mary Beth: It's like a twig figure.
Stephen: Is it naked?
Mary Beth: No, we don't do naked pictures! Stephen! [Laughs]
soapcentral.com: How about Steve and Kayla: What is the most romantic thing your character has received from the other over the years?
Mary Beth: Well, yellow roses have always been a big deal. Did you start that, Stephen?
Stephen: I think.
Mary Beth: I'm sure Stephen started that. And even now, if there's anything coming up where there are flowers involved, he always goes to the prop guys and says, "Listen, you guys know these are to be yellow roses, right?"
Stephen: I insist on it.
Mary Beth: We're pretty committed to the history, at least the parts that we can control.
Stephen: Let's see, romantic? Didn't I give you a picture recently of us kissing from a long time ago? It was sort of a conversation about what we had been through in the past, and that I'd never forget those moments. That was pretty romantic.
Mary Beth: That was really romantic.
soapcentral.com: It's so special that these characters have such a long history and they can dig into their past in that way and allow the viewers to relive the moments.
Mary Beth: It's amazing when they can do a flashback that's 6,000 shows back. It's amazing. I mean, what situation is ever like that? It's crazy.
soapcentral.com: What makes this wedding between Steve and Kayla so special?
Stephen: Mary Beth and I were in agreement from the very beginning that this was really about us and what we were saying to one another. It was not about anything else. And yes, having our daughter show up was definitely a plus, but the wedding itself, the focus of it, was just what we were saying to each other.
Mary Beth: It's very intimate.
Stephen: It's a culmination of all these years and all this time waiting and all the struggle and heartache we've caused each other -- well, mostly me!
Mary Beth: Isn't that the way it usually is? Men! [Laughs] No, we were able to say what was really in our hearts and dig a little deeper and not just say, "Oh, you're nice." We got to really say things that we felt from our hearts. We know these characters, we've been on this journey, and we care about these characters, so it was really important to us. I think we're a little bit older, a little more seasoned, and have all this history, which makes it even more important to have that kind of intimacy. And to have all of our family surrounding us. It just felt very loving, and it was a really nice moment.
Stephen: I just thought of something. It reminded me so much of my daughter's wedding. Everyone who was there said, "It was the best wedding I've ever been to," and it was all about what they said to each other. They were saying things like, "I choose you because you keep me healthy." And it was just the sweetest thing. And they really worked on and spent time on their vows and what they wanted to say to each other.
Mary Beth: Much nicer than when somebody just says, "Repeat after me."
soapcentral.com: So, did you two actually have a say in the vows that were said? Or did you leave it completely up to the show's writers to get the correct sentiments?
Stephen: They gave us a nice skeleton to work with, and then we tweaked it to suit what we felt we should be saying to each other, considering the history of these characters.
Mary Beth: We gave it a lot of thought.
Stephen: And we were very grateful and happy that they allowed us to do that.
soapcentral.com: Real life couples have their ups and downs, so just for fun, are there ever days when in real life, you two get on each other's nerves?
Stephen: Oh, sure! I get on Mary Beth's nerves probably at least several times a day. [Laughs] And she's always right! I'm always doing something that's irritating.
Mary Beth: Nah! I can't think of what that would be. I'm a pretty cheery person.
Stephen: The only thing that irritates me about Mary Beth is...
Mary Beth: Oh, my gosh, here it comes! This is like The Newlywed Game!
Stephen: She gets really distracted sometimes when we're running lines, and she's trying to do three or four different things, and I'm like, "Come on, baby! Let's get into this scene!"
Mary Beth: Yep! Kassie DePaiva [ex-Eve Donovan] would say it was like, "Squirrel!" I'm very distracted. But Stephen, he sometimes gets blue or grumpy or this or that, and I'm a really happy person, so I try to get him out of that as quickly as possible.
Stephen: I always tell everybody, when she's not here and I have to be here without her at work, [my mood] always goes down.
Mary Beth: It's not good.
Stephen: She helps me out of it.
soapcentral.com: Weddings are usually a nice change of pace for soap couples -- a brief hiatus from the ever-present drama. But the peace usually doesn't last long. Will it be the same for Patch and Kayla?
Stephen: We don't think so. We have a new writer [former General Hospital and One Life to Live head writer Ron Carlivati], and we don't know what he's writing yet. We haven't seen any scripts. But we hear he's a great writer, and we're looking forward to some new, fun material.
Mary Beth: But we're five months out from that wedding, because we shot that five months ago, and we're still happy. So I know there's at least five months ahead of us being happy for the viewers. We have a moment of being happy, which is nice... But we're just excited, and we hope people tune in and watch it and enjoy it with us, because we've been really excited and anticipating this for months, so we hope we bring what everyone wanted to see, because we feel like we did, but...
Stephen: This is one show that I've really been looking forward to. It was such a great day. We felt so good.
What do you think about Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans' Soap Central interview? What do you think about DAYS writing Steve and Kayla's wedding as a small, intimate affair? What do you hope for the couple's future? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
