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Lindsay Arnold may be fresh to the industry but to her steadily growing number of fans, she seems an old pro on screen in her breakout role as Allie Horton on Days of Our Lives.
TV Source Magazine took time to get to know the rising actress who openly expresses her love for her craft, for the soap genre, and its fans – even if the feeling of having said fans is one she’s still getting used to.
Time flew by getting to know the thoughtful newcomer but as we all confessed to being ramblers, we know there’ll be much more to talk about next time. Especially since Allie never has it very easy.
TV SOURCE | Having been airing on the show since June 2020, what’s been your favorite part of working on DAYS? What was it like coming into an institution like a fifty-plus year old soap opera?
Lindsay Arnold: I mean, I’d say my favorite part about working there is just the people that I’ve met. Because it really is like a family and everyone is so welcoming and we’re all really, really close.
I moved out here from New York and I moved out here during a pandemic, so they’ve really become like my family out here in L.A. I’ve met so many of my closest friends from DAYS. So that’s definitely been my favorite part, and I think it helped with joining such a long running show to having really friendly people working there because it was really nerve-wracking for the first couple of months.
But having people like Deidre Hall, who’s this major person who’s been on it forever, being super welcoming and helping me with any questions I had. Or working with Ali Sweeney early on and her just being so supportive, and really reassuring me that my work was so good. It was just really lucky.
I think in that sense, it made that transition a lot easier having such welcoming people.
TV SOURCE | What would you say your dream story is for Allie?
I would really love to see Allie… I feel like what she wants is definitely to settle down with someone and I feel like, I just really want to do a wedding. I really want to get married on the show, mainly because I want to pick a wedding dress. I want to try out all the pretty dresses.
So I would love for Allie to have a wedding moment. Just a little, you know.
I was talking to Ali Sweeney, and she was telling me about all the times she’s been married on the show. That it’s just so much fun. She was like, “I had so many pretty dresses. Let me show you!”
I need my wedding moment.
TV SOURCE | We can’t even count the number of weddings that Sammy has had off the top of my head. That’s something I have Wikipedia for.
Yeah, she told me the number and I thought she was kidding. She was like, “No, no, I’m serious. But they weren’t all successful! Some of them are just ceremonies that don’t usually end in an actual marriage.”
TV SOURCE | But luckily for Allie though, she has two viable options.
That’s the thing. She has options. It’s not like she’s out here dry because she has a couple of different people. So I feel like it could be fun. I love that. I just think a big soap wedding is one of the things, you know? Like when Rob [Scott Wilson] and Victoria [Konefal] had their wedding on the show and everything blew up, after that I was like, “I want to be blown up at my wedding.”
TV SOURCE | Who has been your favorite person to work with and who is the person you want to work with more?
I always love working with Ali Sweeney. I really, always love working with her. When she’s on set because she’s not there all the time, but when she is, we always just have a little catch up and we really do have a sweet, mother-daughter dynamic in regular life too. She’s just a very safe, sweet person that I always love being around.
Same with Ari Zucker. Honestly, Ari was probably my biggest support system when I first joined because almost all my scenes were with her and she walked me through any questions I had. I felt she held my hand through that process. I had most of my early emotional scenes with her.
I think just being around her energy, which is so just sweet and pure, made me feel safe enough to really get there in emotional scenes when I might have been too nervous if I was working with somebody else who I wasn’t as comfortable with. Or maybe someone who wasn’t as just naturally supportive of everyone because she’s kind of the hype woman of everyone on the show. She’s just the best.
I think those two women were really comforting for me, and I think someone that I would like to work with more… Well, I’m trying to think. I always say I feel like I got lucky because I really worked with everybody.
But oh, you know! I haven’t really worked with Paul [Telfer] that much, and I haven’t worked with Linsey Godfrey that much. Our paths have just never really intersected that often. It would be really fun to work with one of them.
TV SOURCE | What was it like being brought into a storyline so iconic like The Possession? Now that it’s carrying over to Allie’s generation with Johnny’s possession, what do you hope fans take out of this new take on the devil?
It’s been so fun, and it’s funny because I don’t think… I’m not sure I was alive during the first possession storyline, so that was funny. I remember talking to Drake [Hogestyn] and he was telling me about the first one. Then he goes, “Were you even alive?”
I maybe remember hearing about it. I went back and watched those, and now I’m watching it happen again. Johnny getting to be involved is so fun. I just think it’s a really fun storyline. The contacts that they wear and the levitating I hope that the fans are just having fun with it.
I feel like maybe when they first did the story, with Marlena, it was a little bit scarier, a little bit more – I want to say, what’s the word? A little bit more unheard of, a little bit more taboo, maybe. Now since it’s been done before, I feel like it’s not as out there as the first time. Now people know the storyline, they have a bit of context with Marlena’s relationship with the devil.
For me, it’s just been fun, and I hope that everyone who’s been watching it has enjoyed watching the devil get passed down generations.
TV SOURCE | Your character is the child of two incredibly iconic characters on DAYS (Lucas & Sami), tell us what it’s like getting to work alongside so many veterans in the soap industry. Even all of Allie’s grandparents are iconic!
I found out that I got the role on a Thursday and I was on set working on Monday. And I didn’t know who I was until the day before… Maybe I started working on Tuesday. But anyway, I went to set, they told me who I was, and my storyline the day before I started. I think it was really top secret.
My audition process was super quick and I was also moving across the country that weekend. So… OK, I don’t have a ton of time to do research, and I didn’t even know who I should be researching because I didn’t really know who I was. So for me it was kind of like, in the beginning, as I met people, they would fill me in.
So again, Ari and Greg Vaughn, I worked with them so much in the beginning and they were so sweet and they told me everything because they both know everyone. They’ve been there for a long time. So I got a great history rundown from them as quickly as they could.
Then actually later when Carson [Boatman] joined, I remember they kind of wrote up a little history sheet for both of us, which was helpful. But I liked that as I met everybody, I asked them to explain our relationship, explain their character’s history because I felt like it was just an added bonus to get the character’s history from those specific actors who’ve played them for years.
Then just developing those relationships from there. Luckily, I really worked with everybody in my first three months. So over that time, I got to slowly put together all of that information. But there’s always stuff that I learn like, I just learned how many weddings Sami has had. There’s always new things that I’m picking up on as I just have more conversations with people.
TV SOURCE | Allie came onto DAYS as a bit of a wild child but has gone through a lot of life altering moments from sexual abuse to an unexpected pregnancy and so on. How would you describe your character’s journey and where would you like to see her end up?
I mean, her journey has been obviously just – traumatic, incredibly taxing, and exhausting. I think that’s the biggest thing, it’s when I think about that sexual assault storyline and the exhaustion that it took for me to get there emotionally every day, to open that door to all of the emotions that come with something like that. It’s just an exhausting thing to experience something like that.
And having a child, going through pregnancy, carrying the child, then the physical act of giving birth – Everything is just exhausting and draining. What I want for Allie is for her to find peace. I want her to be at her little bakery, make scones, love her baby and have a partner. And maybe, I don’t know, pick up some hobbies? I want her to have time to read, I want her to take Henry to the park, I just want her to be.
I feel like she had that wild, college experience and then unfortunately, she had to grow up really, really fast because she went through these intense, very adult situations. Now she kind of has been forced to really become like a grown up.
I just want her to be able to find a great mixture of peace and fun. But I think where she’s at is settled down. I think she wants that for herself, as well as just finding that peace and safety in her life because she didn’t have that for two years.
TV SOURCE | Do you think it’s important that the show hasn’t given a label to Allie’s sexual identity? Can we expect Allie to discuss her sexuality with Will when he returns?
I love it because especially with my generation, with a lot of my friends, sexuality is not as rigid and it’s not as labeled as maybe it has been in the past. So for me, that was really honest and reflective of what we see in young adults. For people Allie’s age, there is less of a push to find a specific label that you fall into or anything like that. I really like that they’re exploring this idea of just really liking who you like and not really having any sort of say in who you’re going to fall for. I think it’s so important. I think it’s maybe something that hasn’t been super represented, and I think it also leaves a lot of space to follow Allie as she further unpacks her sexuality to maybe see if there is a label that she fits into. I think it’s just a really great starting point for her to go through all the different stages of figuring out who she is and what her sexuality is.
I love that they’ve kind of started from this place of, “I really don’t know and I really am not even sure that I care.” It’s awesome.
TV SOURCE | Do you hope that maybe we’ll get to see some scenes of Allie going to her big brother Will for advice?
Yeah, definitely. I love Allie and Will’s relationship, I love Chandler [Massey], I love working with Chandler, so I think it’s always great when we get to have scenes. Especially if we could have some scenes incorporating that conversation, I think he’d be the perfect person for her to talk to about it. I definitely hope that she does go to him. I can’t wait.
TV SOURCE | In your eyes, is Allie genuinely in love with Tripp or does she see him as the safe choice? It’s clear to us that Chanel is where her heart is.
So through my eyes, through Lindsay’s eyes, I think Allie does love Tripp. I think that love is a very safe love. It comes from that feeling of being safe, so she does love him, but I think it’s the love that you could have with a friend, like a really good friend.
My thing about Allie and Tripp is they’re really just… a trauma bond. They went through a really traumatic experience together. She told him she loved him after they saw his dead brother who assaulted her, come back from the dead. You know what I mean?
Their relationship really came from a lot of trauma that they went through together, and I think when you go through something like that with someone, it’s really, really hard to let them go even if you know, that maybe you should. I think Allie does love him, but I think it’s because she’s been through so much with him, and he’s always there to protect her. It is kind of coming from a place of her really loving that security that Tripp gives her.
Yeah, poor Tripp.
TV SOURCE | Soaps haven’t seen very many same sex couples, let alone a couple with two women, let alone an interracial same-sex couple. Do you know that you’re making history in a lot of ways with Chanel / Allie? What can we expect as these two grow closer and Allie’s defenses come down?
I think it’s so funny, too, because we shoot so far ahead. I remember the scenes where Allie goes and comforts Chanel after the engagement break-up, and we get that love scene between them. I remember shooting and feeling like, “Oh, this is really sick., This is really cool that we’re doing this.” But then you kind of forget about it as you just do everything else that we’re doing because we’re always, you know, there’s just always so many storylines happening. But yeah, I remember when that came out, there was a lot of love. I got a lot of love on Twitter, and that’s mainly where I interact with people.
It felt really… I think I realized that this is a pretty special moment to be a part of, and I feel very happy that I got to be one of the two people to portray this moment. I’m really happy to see all of these people loving it. I’m sure there are people who didn’t love it, but I don’t care to see any of those.
I was also getting some really funny edits and memes that day. When that episode aired, I was just in a great mood. I’m really glad that I got to be a part of this because it’s just not one of those things that you really realize in the moment because it’s another day at work.
But then when you see the response, it’s like, “Oh, yeah, no, this was a moment.”
TV SOURCE | What can you tease about what’s coming next?
Let me see. Let me try and think of a good hint that won’t get me in trouble.
Chanel and Allie are always – regardless of their relationship status, whether they’re friends, whether they’re more – they have an undeniable connection with each other and they deeply, deeply love each other. I think that’s at the foundation of their relationship in general, the reason that they’re best friends, it’s the reason that they sometimes… you know, when she’s upset.
But there’s just a deep love between them that is hard to navigate, and I think it’s just at the core of their friendship, that deep, deep love. They really just love each other.
TV SOURCE | The Challie fans are dying to know! How tall are you really? Chanel and Allie’s height difference was the talk of Twitter a few months back.
Oh my gosh, I saw that and I was laughing because I was talking to Raven about it asking if Lindsay is just insanely tall or is it that Raven is just really short? It’s kind of a mix.
But because of those scenes where we were at Paulina’s apartment and she was really upset, I was in four inch heels and Raven was barefoot. I literally felt like a giant leaning down to hug her because of it. My height is 5’6” and I think Rave is 5’2” maybe. So we do have a bit of a height difference, but especially when I’m in heels and I’m 5’11” and then she’s still 5’2”.
So, to end the questions and end the confusion, I’m 5’6” and she’s 5’2”. So we’re kind of neither. I’m not super tall and she’s not crazy short, but it was the heels-barefoot combo that really messed everyone up.
TV SOURCE | DAYS fans have loved you from your introduction to the show, what’s it been like being welcomed into the super fan-driven world of soaps?
It’s been pretty interesting. DAYS is sort of the first thing that I’ve ever really done. So just in general, having people be a fan of you is a weird experience. It’s very strange. But I feel lucky because I have gotten a great response. As you said, from pretty much day one, I felt really welcomed. It’s fun to see. Sometimes I lurk. I don’t tend to lurk too much, but after a scene comes out or something happens, I want to see what people are saying. I mainly go on Twitter because people are really funny on there – amongst other things, but mainly, I just find the funny ones.
I love how invested people get. People really will fight for their ship, especially when it comes to Challie versus… What are Allie and Tripp? Tallie. People will go really hard. Guys, it’s not some sort of war, but they’re really out here with strong opinions and feelings.
I always think it’s so cool to see that and to know that you’re part of a story that’s igniting that much emotion in someone, they need to talk about it with other people. It’s been fun watching all of those interactions. Especially during the assault storyline, I was getting a lot of sweet messages and just like a lot of kind words, which meant a lot to me at that time.
It’s been weird art times but it’s been mostly sweet. I mean, listen, I was a One Direction girl, I was a hardcore One Direction fan so I know how nasty it can get because when I was 14, I was a part of it. Whenever I see it, I’m just like, “Guys, go off!”
TV SOURCE | Carson Boatman told us that the vibe on set between the younger cast members definitely is akin to siblings and family. How do you all keep your amazing chemistry on screen alive? Do you hang out often?
Yeah, I think again, we got lucky that we all have amazing chemistry, we just all get along so well. We do hang out quite a lot. I just hung out with Carson yesterday. When off set, we see each other, maybe weekly but we’re seeing each other every day too on set.
Lucas Adams is big on hosting. Lucas will have us over at his place and we’ll play games, we’ll hang out, we’ll have dinner. We definitely hang out a good amount. It also helps that we’re just genuinely all friends. Raven and I will go out to dinner. We even went out to dinner one night to a really fancy, nice restaurant. I was like coming from work and was in jeans and maybe a blazer or something, then Raven was in heels because she went home and changed. It kind of felt like we’re playing our characters a bit at this romantic dinner. But we’re definitely just so lucky in the sense that we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.
Carson and I have talked about it all the time but we’re really like siblings. We tease each other like siblings. We just know each other. We all really have that great friendly family kind of bond.
TV SOURCE | Outside of soaps, what kind of acting challenge would you like to tackle next?
The biggest thing that I would love to do is an on-location movie or series. It must be so challenging to be away from everybody that you know and be in a foreign country or a different city, just working for months on end. It’s something that I would really, really love to do. I feel like that just adds a whole different level of getting into your character because you’re away from everybody that you know and you are meeting all these new people. It’s definitely something that I want to try
TV SOURCE | Do you have any words of advice for aspiring young actors like yourself? In other words, any words of advice for the Lindsay Arnolds who just started their acting journey?
I would say don’t just put too much pressure on it and on yourself. I think with this industry, you just have to just focus on the acting, focus on how much you love the work, the art,the craft, because the rest of it is completely out of your control.
The only thing that you have any control over is your own performance. If you put pressure on it and you don’t have fun with it, then there’s really no point and you’re going to drive yourself crazy, which I did for years. My biggest advice would just be to focus on your love for the arts and don’t focus on what you can’t control, like how people are going to receive it, or if you’re going to get the role or not.
Because after you’ve done your audition, after you’ve sent in your work, there’s literally nothing you can do about it. Just do it, let it go, it’s not up to you anymore. It’s just a freeing way to think in general.
Days of our Lives airs weekdays on NBC. Episodes are also available on Peacock.
