Days of our Lives actor James Reynolds is ready to share his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis with the world — and bring it to the small screen.
“There are many other characters who have gone through real-life issues that are then mirrored on the show, and this is an issue that is going to be mirrored on the show,” Reynolds, 80, shared with Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, November 10. “There’s nothing any of us can really do about it.”
Before sharing his diagnosis with the cast of Peacock’s soap opera, Reynolds found himself apologizing for having shaky hands or losing his balance while filming.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Parkinson’s disease is an incurable movement disorder of the nervous system that worsens over time. Symptoms may include poor posture and balance, loss of automatic movements and rhythmic shaking in the hands or fingers.
“With Parkinson’s, I realize something different every day. When I first went and got it diagnosed, I had the tremor that didn’t want to go away. A little bit off balance,” Reynolds recalled. “I realized just a couple of weeks ago that I may have had this 15 or 20 years ago because you get the hallucinations. My wife would say, ‘You were hitting me last night in bed.’ I was having these really horrible dreams, and I didn’t know there was a physical component. Sometimes I’d fall out of bed.”
Reynolds said he has been inundated with support from his extended Days family, including his TV wife, Jackée Harry.
“I respect this man because he’s been around a long time,” she shared with Entertainment Tonight. “He’s done stellar work, and he’s always together.”
As Days tackles a Parkinson’s disease story line beginning on Wednesday, November 11, Reynolds has no regrets bringing his health situation to the small screen.
“It kind of goes back to when I thought I was hiding it,” he shared. “The writers also wanted to incorporate it because it was obvious, and we play life here.”
He continued, “I feel like the value of Abe as a character who overcomes a lot, has a tremendous amount of strength, deals with a lot of things with humor as well as understanding, and then I realized I’m shaking all over the place. What am I doing?”
As for his prognosis, Reynolds remains hopeful that he will be filming in Salem for a long time to come. He also hopes his story will raise even more awareness about a disease that affects an estimated 1.1 million people in the United States alone.
“There’s a lot of research going on out there,” he shared, “and we certainly hope in the future that this becomes less of a burden that it is to people and maybe a cure in the future.”
Days of our Lives streams on Peacock weekdays.
