Days of Our Lives star reveals his secret Parkinson’s diagnosis inspired storyline

Days of Our Lives star James Reynolds, who has played Abe Carver for 45 years, has revealed he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease — and it is being written into the long-running soap.

While speaking to Entertainment Tonight, the 80-year-old actor said that he received the diagnosis years ago, but initially planned on masking his symptoms on the set of the series.

However, there came a point where Reynolds could no longer hide the tremors and balance issues that come with the progressive, neurodegenerative movement disorder.

“Well, it kind of goes back to when I thought I was hiding it,” the Daytime Emmy-winning actor told ET in the interview released Tuesday. “The writers also wanted to incorporate because it was obvious. It was obvious. And we play life here.”

Reynolds — who is the longest-running Black actor in a single series in TV history — went on to say that his character “overcomes a lot” and “deals with a lot of things with humor as well as understanding.”

He continued: “And there are many other characters who have gone through real-life issues that then are mirrored on the show. And this is an issue that it is going to be mirrored on the show and there’s nothing any of us can really do about it.”

Fans of the series have picked up on signs pointing to Reynolds’ character’s health journey in recent episodes, with Carver having shaky hands and illegible handwriting.

The actor said that before he opened up about his diagnosis, he would start shaking and then apologize for it. “I thought I was hiding it but I wasn’t. You play that game with yourself,” he said.

Reynolds said that the disease presents with a variety of symptoms.

“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,” he told the outlet.

He said that he would get hallucinations that manifested as “really horrible dreams” that caused him to thrash in his sleep and fall out of bed. “I realized just a few weeks ago, that was an early symptom of Parkinson’s.”

Reynolds said that after years of keeping his diagnosis between him and his family, he decided to speak publicly about it because “there are certain things that eventually you just can’t hide, the tremor being one, but that could be a hundred things, the imbalance being another. That could also be a lot of things.”

He added that, although it can be difficult to “motivate” himself at times, his fellow Days of Our Lives cast members have been “super, super extraordinarily helpful and supportive” throughout his health journey.

His co-star, Jackée Harry, joined him during Tuesday’s interview and said she has done “lots of research” to be able to support him behind the scenes, adding: “You need a village.”