XJJohnson/jpistudios.com
Johnny DiMera has his hands full with trying to get his marriage back on track on Days of our Lives, but he’s determined to make things right. Step one: He begs Chanel to forgive him for wrongly accusing her of having an affair with Alex. Step two: He asks Joy to keep their one-night stand a secret.
A Messy Love Life
“Johnny’s living with this secret, and it’s killing him,” sets up his portrayer, Carson Boatman. Johnny knows all too well that if Chanel finds out about his fling with Joy, it could destroy their marriage. So, notes the actor, “He’s trying to cover up a lie with another lie, and then he’s covering up that lie with another lie. It just gets so messy.”
But Johnny feels he has no choice in order to preserve his union. Having witnessed Chanel’s reaction to his cheating accusations – she stormed out of Johnny’s surprise party in an emotional huff – he realizes she can never find out what happened between him and Joy. “He’s like, ‘Man, if Chanel’s this mad now, if she finds out that I might have cheated on her, she’s going to be even more mad, to the nth degree,’ ” explains Boatman. “So he feels the only way that he can save his marriage is by continuing to try and keep this a secret.”
Part of how Johnny justifies this to himself is that in his eyes, the tryst with Joy didn’t mean anything to him. “I don’t think Johnny cared one bit to have any type of connection with her,” contends Boatman. “She was just there. He was just lashing out a bit and, in his mind, probably getting even [with Chanel].”
The only woman Johnny truly loves is Chanel, and he’s bound and determined to prove it to her. “Johnny kind of love-showers Chanel out of guilt,” previews Boatman. “He tries to be extra affectionate, extra loving… He’s trying extra hard to make up for what he knows he’s done, but that Chanel doesn’t know that he’s done. He believes that the only way he can stay in and save his marriage is to keep [his tryst with Joy] a secret and let Chanel know how much she means to him. If anything, he loves her now more than ever. It’s like you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. He is almost realizing what it would be like to lose her, and so he loves her as if she could already be lost.”
In the upcoming weeks, Johnny will do everything he can to try to make amends to Chanel and solidify their marriage. “Groveling is the perfect word,” says Boatman, conceding that given how hurt and angry Chanel is, “it takes some time. He kind of has to warm her up again.”
Does Johnny believe he can win his wife back? “He truly doesn’t know,” sighs Boatman, adding that Johnny is “absolutely going to give it his all.”
