2010

Going Shirtless

"The funny montages that people put together of me on youtube... It’s cripply embarrassing. It’s lots of scenes of me taking my shirt off. If it’s appropriate, then I feel it’s fine. If it’s inappropriate, I feel it’s not. There was one scene when I started where I was going out to get the mail. I bumped into Austin (Peck, Austin), and we had a long conversation almost rubbing nipples with each other.

It was completely pointless."

"The nice thing about being a bad guy is that nobody really wants to sleep with you. So there aren’t a lot of shirts coming off for EJ."

Shot by Sami

"For 14 years or whatever, Sami was a raging bitch. Then, the last year or so, she’s all sweetness and nice? The work [Alison Sweeney] has done with it has been great. If I had the choice of which Sami was going to be on the screen, it wouldn’t be the homemaker. It would be the home wrecker every time. She’s more compelling to watch. More interesting. To see her picking up a gun and shooting EJ in the head? It’s like, 'Yay! Good for you. Old Sami is back.'"

“I had to shave my head. I insisted upon it. Whenever you do story lines where people have leukemia or brain cancer or whatever it is, and you see them in the hospital with a patch stuck on the side of their head, it’s ridiculous... Pathetic. It doesn’t matter how good an actor you are. I can’t act that I had brain surgery unless I’ve got no hair. So I absolutely was insistent on that.”

2011

Mayor for a Day

"The way I played it is that running for mayor was sort of beneath EJ. He's really doing it to try and clean up the DiMera name, which is an important thing to do... If you look at the biggest crooks in America, most of them are politicians, so it's a natural extension of him. He sees this as a stepping stone. He doesn't want to be mayor of a little town in God knows where. He'd like to be governor."

Aversion to Twitter

"If you call my cell phone, my voice mail says, 'Hi. It's James. Please, leave me a message, but note that I do not check my messages every day and not at all on weekends.' That's my voice mail... I check my email once a week. Do you know how often I would tweet? Never. Never! Plus, my life isn't that interesting."

2012

Succumbing to Twitter

"Yes, it's true, I have finally joined Twitter, I look forward to sharing something, exciting projects I'm involved with. PS, I'm terrified."

"Whole foods has Xmas deco up?! It's f*#!ing November 9th! #bahhumbug #notverywholesome #whatwouldjesusthink"

2013

EJ and Sami

"I've never had so much fun being part of a storyline than being part of the EJ and Sami storyline. It's just amazing. It goes into all these different places. It stays on its feet. I get to work with [Alison] everyday, which is a privilege... I get so excited when I come into work every day."

"It's wonderful to be able to work with an actress who is there for you on every single level. I mean that in the sense that she can play... I'm not always the easiest person to work with, and she plays the game perfectly. It doesn't matter what kind of ball I hit over the net. She will whack it back."