“Days of Our Lives” star James Reynolds has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
The actor opened up to Entertainment Tonight, in an interview published Tuesday, about his health struggles being written into his character Abe Carver’s storyline.
While the 80-year-old “thought [he] was hiding it,” his “shaking all over the place” was “obvious” to the soap opera’s writers.
“Sometimes I’d get a little unbalanced and have to make a quick adjustment. You’re playing that game,” he said of navigating Parkinson’s disease, which the World Health Organization defines as “a brain condition that causes problems with movement, mental health, sleep, pain and other health issues.”
Reynolds noted, “There are many other characters who have gone through real-life issues that then are mirrored on the show. This is an issue that is going to be mirrored on the show and there is nothing any of us can really do about it.”
Although the Daytime Emmy winner did not specify when he received his diagnosis, he explained that it came after he experienced body “tremor[s] that wouldn’t go away” — sometimes falling out of bed — and being “out of breath.”
He added, “I find something different every day, and I realized just a couple weeks ago that I may have had this as long as 15 to 20 years ago.”
Reynolds confessed that it’s “difficult to motivate [him]self at times.”
After keeping the diagnosis “quiet for quite awhile, a few years,” in order to “guard” himself and his family, Reynolds decided to go public because his symptoms have become increasingly hard to mask.
He stressed that he is still able to do “many of the things” he used to do.
“You can still work,” Reynolds continued. “You can live your life. You can participate with your family. You can raise your children.
“You don’t have to be lost. You can arm yourself. You can fight back.”
Reynolds, notably, is the longest-running Black actor in a single series in all of TV history.
He started playing Carver in 1981 and has only taken two brief breaks over the years in 1991 and 2003, during which he appeared as a recurring character.
His co-star Jackée Harry joined him for Tuesday’s interview, saying she does “lots of research” to support him.
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