Peter Porte returns to Days of our Lives today as Dimitri von Leuschner, and his timing couldn’t be soapier: He reappears just as his ex, Leo Stark (Greg Rikaart), has tied the knot with Javi Hernandez (Al Calderon).
For Porte, who last appeared in 2023, the call to come back was both unexpected and meaningful. “I was so pleased,” he enthuses. “I love working on this show. I get to work with my friends. It’s such a legacy. I mean, we just celebrated our 60th anniversary, which is crazy in this town, so I was very disappointed to leave. But these things happen. Contracts come to an end, storylines come to an end, but I was always hoping that they would bring me back. I thought the fact that they put me in supermax prison and not killed me was a good sign.”
That hope was quietly fueled in the months after his exit, as Dimitri’s name was being mentioned in the story. “I kept a lot of friends on the show, and they would text me and say, ‘Dimitri just came back up in a script. You’re around, we’re talking about you,’” he recalls. “And I thought, ‘This would be fun.’ And then suddenly I get a phone call from Marnie [Saitta], who is the head of casting, and she said, ‘We’re bringing you back in a big way. It’s such a fun storyline. Not only do you come back to Salem, but you happen to come back and crash Leo’s wedding.’ I said, ‘What a a perfect way to return on a soap opera.’ And I also have long ’80s soap opera hair, which is even more fun.”
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Beyond the splashy plot twist, Porte appreciated the chance to reconnect with his Salem pals, this time under very different circumstances. “It was wonderful, because when I was last on the show, we were still experiencing COVID protocols and for the most part I had never seen anyone’s face,” he explains. “I’d never seen most of our crews’ smile, and we were quarantined in a way that you couldn’t really socialize in the halls. So, when I came back, it was a very different environment. I was way more social. You got to meet everyone. You got to talk. We also had great new leadership, and they created a really amazing work environment, so it was a very exciting time to be coming back. It was a very positive return.”
Onscreen, Dimitri’s return is layered with mystery and emotional stakes, as the character reveals what has really been happening with him over the past year or so, which is a vastly different story than anyone knew. “Dimitri has been trapped in a gilded prison for the last year,” explains the actor. “He doesn’t know what’s going on on the outside. All he knows is that he needs to do everything he can to get back to Leo, the one true love of his life, and he’s giddy at the opportunity of finally getting to see him. That everything has sort of moved on while he’s been trapped in time for this last year is very confusing to him. All that’s kept him alive all this time is the love for this man, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get him back.”
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Those emotions are especially resonant in scenes opposite Rikaart and Emily O’Brien (Gwen Rizczech), with whom Porte quickly discovered an easy rhythm. “It was so natural, so organic,” he notes. “Whenever the three of us got together, we just played, and we had so much fun on set. We rehearse as much as we can and try to mine as many funny, little instances as we possibly can. I really hope and do believe that that’s going to show in the final edit and hopefully will be what the fans will get to watch in the coming months.”
Away from the drama in Salem, Porte used his hiatus to explore new creative outlets, including a return to the stage after a long break. “I hadn’t done a play in 10 years,” he says. “I’m in development with two new original pieces over at Hallmark, and hopefully we’ll see something happen. These things take so long to develop, but I’m feeling very positive about those two.”
He also put his focus on home improvement. “I love home restoration, and my husband and I purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills that’s now over 100 years old,” Porte reports. “It’s the only house on the hill, and it’s where Patrick Swayze first lived. And over the course of the last two years, we have completely renovated it and designed it, and I really love how it turned out. It was an intense process, but very satisfying. We finally had it photographed and hopefully published very soon.”
But now, Dimitri’s next chapter — and evolution — remain front and center, and Porte hints it will challenge both the character and the audience’s expectations. “I think there’s a lot of internal, personal, emotional growth,” he reports. “I think he has to come to terms with not always getting what he wants in the way he thinks he should have it. He’s a tough character because he is the product of a lineage of villains, so when he starts to change, the world around him might not accept that change, and that’s really tough for him in this season.”
And at the heart of it all is his still-burning love for Leo. “No one can imagine going through the torture that Dimitri has gone through,” Porte points out. “So to manage all of that along with the man that you love not reciprocating it all of a sudden after going through hell and back to get to him and then finding some way to accept and forgive all that is, I think, his biggest emotional journey.”
Days of our Lives, Weekdays, Peacock
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
