Days of Our Lives’ Elia Cantu revealed how she has to hold her comedy instincts back while performing in the Arnold/Rafe/EJ storyline.
Arnold Feniger seems to have everyone fooled as he has taken Rafe’s place on Days of Our Lives. The person he’s fooled the most is Jada. He even ruined their wedding day by disseminating fake evidence that she was a corrupt cop that he got from EJ. Elia Cantu opened up about playing opposite Galen Gering, who’s having the time of his life as Arnold, and being caught between him and Dan Feuerriegel’s scheming EJ.
She’s in a Bind
“The stakes are high, tension is high, and it makes for interesting TV,” Cantu told Sopa Opera Digest of Jada’s intense adversarial relationship with EJ. He noted that with regard to the storyline, “I do like it. It makes a good story.” Indeed it does, as we have been witnessing poor Jada suffer from another failed relationship.
With EJ on one side, orchestrating things so that Jada lost her job as police commissioner and was accused of corruption. And Arnold, on the other side, acting not at all like the real Rafe. She has been in a bind. Amidst what sounds like a hilarious comedy of errors, with Jada being supremely duped, Cantu realizes she’s the straight man in the story. She explained that she has to be careful during her scenes, remarking, “I can’t laugh or break character.” 
She’s Having a Blast
Although well-versed in improv, sketch comedy, and impersonations, Cantu remarked that as the straight man, she has to remain restrained, which is “A little challenging and [something] I have to watch.” She admitted that she would rather just break out into comedy and get laughs along with Feuerriegel and Gering but understands her role as being Abbott to their Costello. “Personally, I would love to be kooky. I love comedy,” she stated.
She has been enjoying having more scenes with Feuerriegel and feeling his chemistry as Jada’s nemesis. She also realized that when she’s acting opposite Gering as Arnold, it’s a different way of doing things. “It’s been more in-the-moment and reactionary. I really react off of whatever he gives me.” Cantu revealed that while they may not change the dialogue, the two often improvise their “facial expressions and reactions” and have a blast doing it.
