Alison Sweeney is a household name to any fan of daytime television. You don't have to be a Days of our Lives fan to appreciate the fact that she signed a contract with the show when she was barely old enough to drive and now, 22 years later, she has finally decided to put her character of Sami Brady to rest, for now. While Sweeney actually filmed her final scenes last spring, her character was still onscreen until this past week when Sami and her kids left Salem for the bright lights of Hollywood. Fans of the actress are crushed to see her leave and as it turns out, the fan in Sweeney is going to miss Sami a lot too.
Sweeney took to her Facebook page to reach out to her fans directly in a heartfelt letter saying (in part),
"We've been through a lot together, haven't we? As many of you may know, when I first found out I was auditioning for Days (in September of 1992), I flipped out!! It was quite literally a dream come true for me because I'd been a mildly obsessed Days of our Lives fan for several years. A die-hard Jack & Jennifer fan, I so desperately wanted Hope to not be dead in that vat of acid, I loved her sassy spunk and bad-boy lover. I could go on and on... the point is, I've never forgotten what it felt like to tune in every day, anxious to find out what was going to happen to my favorite character. Yelling at my screen at Stefano, crying when Isabella died in John's - wait, Roman's (???) - arms, grinning ear-to-ear when Frankie & Eve sang Heart & Soul on the train. (why were they on a train??) What I'm trying to say, is that I took that fan experience into every storyline I was involved with over the last two decades. I always felt the audience watching at home. It has always mattered to me to tell the story as best as I possibly could.
No question - I am #teamSami. I have always rooted for her... to finally stop putting her foot in her mouth, being her own worst enemy, eternally needing her parents approval, oh, this list could go on and on. It's impossible to miss Sami's faults. But I loved her more for them. And I loved playing her faults and her character flaws as much I loved playing the scenes when she persevered! And now it's been only 5 months since I've stopped getting scripts in the mail, and I MISS HER. I miss Sami, her insecurities and her agendas. I miss my friends in the cast and crew who are as close as family to me. And now that you've shared with my Sami's final goodbyes, I will miss all of you."
Sweeney is currently working behind-the-scenes as a director and she also is the host of The Biggest Loser, but how long do you think that it'll take her to bring Sami back to Salem? No one is ever truly dead in soaps and in this case, they didn't even bother pretending to kill her character off. It's pretty obvious that Sweeney needed a breather to spend time with her family and also work on some other things, but she'll be heading back to Days' eventually, don't you think? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
