By Angela Fairley didn’t exactly ease into Beyond the Gates. As Deanna McBride, she arrived in Fairmont Crest grieving her father, furious with her mother, deeply suspicious of Joey Armstrong and carrying enough attitude to make it immediately clear that Vanessa McBride’s daughter had inherited more than a few of her personality traits.
Stepping into an established daytime ensemble, Fairley had to construct a relationship with a dead father before she had even met the actor playing him, embody a daughter whose grief frequently presents as anger, and hold her own opposite veteran performers, including Lauren Buglioli and Jon Lindstrom. Her resemblance to Buglioli helped sell the McBride family connection from the start, but the role required much more than simply looking like she belonged.
Deanna can be grieving in one scene, combative in the next and unexpectedly vulnerable in another. That range has given Fairley plenty to discover in a character who rarely makes the easy choice.
Deanna Came In “Full Force”
From the beginning, Deanna was not a character to approach with restraint.
“The sides revealed, ‘Oh, she coming in full force. She not playing,'” Fairley recalled. “So I knew this is the type of character that is like a force of nature. I have to bring every side of myself to it. We’re not holding back.”
Getting the role did not make the scripts any easier to predict. Even now, they catch her off guard. “When I get sides, I’m still always like, ‘What is she doing? What is she saying? What now?'” she said. “I would be like, ‘Hold on. This is crazy work.'”
One of those moments came when Deanna grabbed Joey’s arm and calmly told him she would prefer it if he stayed. The direction immediately made one thing clear: subtlety was not the assignment. “I said, ‘What?'” she laughed. “She was not playing games.”
The McBride Connection Started With the Audition
Fairley recognized the McBride resemblance before she ever booked the role. A family photo came with her audition material, and one look at Lauren Buglioli was enough for her to understand exactly what the casting team was building.
“When I saw the family photo when I had the audition, I was like, ‘Okay, I will buy into that. I would believe it,'” she said. She even pulled her hair away from her face during the audition to give the casting team a better look at her features. At that point, she was basically helping them connect the dots.
The physical resemblance may have helped sell the casting, but the chemistry is what makes Deanna and Vanessa believable once they start fighting. Their scenes can go from loving to disappointed to ready-for-war without the relationship feeling false.
“Lauren’s obviously so great because I think we’re really in a flow because our characters experience so many different emotions with each other,” Fairley said. “I think we really can know we’re gonna sit down, lock in, and we’re just gonna hit whatever comes.”
The family fit extends beyond Vanessa. Fairley also praised Alex Cheeks, who plays Deanna’s twin brother Donnell, and the dynamic the cast has found together. Whatever chaos follows the McBrides, the family dynamic never feels forced.
Grief, Guilt and the Memorial She Missed
Deanna has been grieving Doug since she arrived, but missing her father’s memorial left her carrying guilt beneath all that anger and heartbreak.
“I believe that I can confirm she does have guilt,” Fairley said. “Deanna absolutely has guilt.”
Music helped her reach that emotional space. Before some of Deanna’s heavier scenes, she listened to Roddy Ricch’s “Survivor’s Remorse,” using the song to tap into the complicated feelings surrounding Deanna still being here while her father is not.
“I always immediately felt like Deanna would have guilt,” Fairley explained. “I know that was deep underneath, whether she had really specifically pinpointed and processed that yet or not, it was definitely there.”
Viewers may eventually hear Deanna put more of that into words. Fairley teased there will be “little sprinkles” of her actually speaking about the guilt, giving viewers another glimpse of how much she is still carrying.
Ghost Doug Needs to Stop Doing PR for Vanessa
By the time Fairley finally met Jason Graham, Doug had already been living in Deanna’s head for quite a while and, by extension, in hers.
“I literally was coming out of the makeup room, and I’m just turning the corner, and there he is,” Fairley remembered. “It was so cute. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ It literally just came out of me.”
Apparently, spending weeks emotionally preparing to mourn a man you have never met will do that to you. The moment made her realize how real that relationship had already become in her head. “I was like, ‘You’re all my character talks about,'” she said.
Once they started working together, Graham’s warmth made the father-daughter dynamic even easier to understand.
“I genuinely do love working with Jason too because I feel like he feels so fatherly,” Fairley said.
That warmth also helps explain why Doug’s appearances with Deanna feel so natural, even if the show has remained deliberately vague about exactly what she believes is happening. She knows her father is dead, but sometimes she appears to seek him out while other moments suggest she is just as surprised to see him as anyone would be if their deceased father suddenly showed up for a conversation.
“I think it’s a bit intentional, as in her state of all of it and probably her state of understanding or processing what’s even happened,” Fairley said. “What I think as an actor who plays Deanna is, with what we’ve seen so far, I think Deanna’s figuring it out. She’s figuring it out and just allowing it to be and happen.”
Whatever the explanation, Doug’s presence seems to be giving her something she needs. “It seems to be giving her a sense of peace and comfort and some sense of direction, whatever it is that she’s experiencing.”
Which is lovely. My only complaint is that he spends entirely too much of his supernatural screen time doing public relations for Vanessa. As far as I am concerned, death does not require this man to continue explaining his wife’s behavior to their daughter. Fairley laughed when I pointed out that Ghost Doug may currently be one of the better parents in Fairmont Crest, even if I need him to stop defending Vanessa long enough to let Deanna be mad.
Why Joey Is Probably Never Getting Off the List
For all the scrutiny of Deanna’s behavior, one important detail keeps getting lost: her father died. Then she came home and found Vanessa wrapped up with Joey, giving her almost no real space from the situation that keeps reopening the wound.
“Grief just takes time,” Fairley said. “And you have to remember, in the sense of grieving, she’s being triggered and reintroduced to it constantly.”
The idea that she should somehow be handling all of this neatly does not hold much weight either. “I don’t know how a parent dies and you’re not unstable,” Fairley said. “However we cut it, I’m like, look, Deanna does not hate her mother. She literally lost a parent.”
So what would actually help? Some distance.
“She needs some space to be de-triggered by this Joey, Vanessa, yada yada stuff,” Fairley said. “So I guess she needs Vanessa to get away from Joey.”
We all need that because, as I keep emphasizing, get off the floor, Nessa.
The problem is that distance may help her grieve, but it probably is not going to make her suddenly accept Joey.
“I don’t think she understands it’s probably never going to work for Deanna,” Fairley said. “Deanna’s not going to get over it.”
There’s also the matter of incomplete information. From her perspective, her father died and Vanessa moved on with Joey almost immediately. The audience knows there was more happening inside Vanessa and Doug’s marriage before his death, and Donnell has gotten some of that context. She has not.
And none of that changes a more basic problem: Joey himself simply does not make sense to her.
“This man, what? Break it down to me because it’s not making sense,” Fairley said. “The math ain’t mathing.”
And if Deanna ever learns everything else Vanessa did while Doug was alive, especially what happened in Puerto Rico, I somehow don’t think that’s going to improve Joey’s standing.
Going Toe-to-Toe With Jon Lindstrom
Those confrontations also put Fairley opposite one of daytime’s most experienced performers.
“Jon is just such a professional,” Fairley said. “He’s been in it for so long. He brings so much. He can receive all the stuff I’m throwing at him, and I feel like I learn and level up every time I work with Jon, which is really exciting.”
The harder part was reconciling Joey with the very nice man standing across from her. “It was a little bit tricky at first because I’m like, but he’s so kind,” Fairley admitted.
I’ve watched Lindstrom disappear into completely different characters for years, going back to Ryan and Kevin on General Hospital. So seeing Fairley come in and match him scene for scene was one of the first things I noticed about her work as Deanna.
What Could Push Her Too Far?
I remain convinced Deanna is capable of violence. Fairley, to her credit, did not immediately shut the theory down.
“I don’t think anything’s off the table for Deanna,” she said.
She stopped short of predicting a complete spiral. “But I think that it would have to be probably something that just keeps triggering it or making it worse, or things are snowballing.”
And honestly, Fairmont Crest is not exactly a place where people get to mind their own business for long. This town has never respected the concept of six degrees of separation when two will do, and Deanna is standing close enough to several dangerous situations that one bad turn could put her in the middle of something much bigger.
Fairley would like it noted that she does not subscribe to my theory. However, after some negotiation, she was more receptive to vehicular homicide than to making Deanna a gun girl.
I’ll take the win.
More “Sisterhood Vibes,” Please
After all the grief, Joey drama and questions about whether Deanna might eventually run somebody over, it is nice to remember that not everything in her life is constantly raising her blood pressure.
One relationship Fairley especially enjoys is Deanna’s friendship with Kat, played by Colby Nixon. “I love the Kat scenes. I love working with Colby,” she said. “She surprises me the most. When I sit down to act with her, she always does something I’m like, ‘Wow, I wouldn’t have seen the scene like that.'”
The appeal goes beyond enjoying the scenes with Nixon. “I love the sisterhood vibes. Deanna needs the sisterhood vibes,” Fairley said. “She needs somebody in her corner that’s not making her feel crazy for the things that she feels.”
Kat may disagree with Deanna, but she does not start from the assumption that Deanna’s feelings are invalid. For someone who spends so much time being analyzed by the people around her, that kind of friendship matters.
And if that circle grows, Fairley already has some ideas. She was careful not to spoil who may be sharing scenes with Deanna, but one name came easily.
“Dani, Dani, Dani,” she said. “Dani’s always number one. I love me some Dani.”
She thinks bringing Deanna and Dani together could be especially sweet, although that much personality in the same room could easily become somebody else’s problem.
Marquita Goings, who plays Hayley, also came up because she and Fairley enjoy spending time together behind the scenes. Whether or not those characters have anything coming, Fairley likes the idea of seeing what they could bring out of each other.
After watching Hayley drop the good-girl act and start waving a gun around, I am fully prepared to support the pairing.
The Romantic Options Need Work
Then there is Noah (Nick Hagelin), whose father, Kial (Greg Vaughan), did not exactly endear himself to me by questioning whether he wanted his son involved with Deanna.
That concern felt especially rich considering Noah arrived in town as a struggling musician with a maxed-out credit card. It threw Fairley too. “I was a little thrown by that whole dad situation,” she said, although she understands that Deanna’s story cannot revolve entirely around Joey and sees the potential conflict as fair game.
Things did not improve for me when Deanna ended up paying the bill during one of their outings.
“I was a little thrown too when Deanna paid the bill. I’m not gonna lie,” Fairley said.
My issue is simple: I do not like fixer-upper men. Beyond the Gates already has enough accomplished women being handed romantic prospects who arrive requiring assembly instructions. Fairley suggested that imbalance may be intentional. Maybe. I still do not date potential, fictional or otherwise.
Which brings me to Izaiah, played by Lami (fka David Lami Friebe). His conversations with Deanna have caught my attention, especially when he reached out to her about returning to school. I asked whether I was seeing something intentional or simply searching for an escape route from Noah.
My attempt to get clarity went nowhere. “I don’t know nothing about nothing,” Fairley said.
Fine. I will continue observing.
The Girl Who Swims With Literal Sharks
Fairley describes herself as “publicly private” or maybe “privately public,” but her curiosity and “zest” for life apparently extend to activities I personally believe are best observed from dry land.
Case in point: she recently went to Nassau and swam with sharks.
She had wanted to do it for about two years and, being an animal lover, researched nurse sharks and how to behave around them before getting into the water.
“These sharks aren’t, they don’t mean to bite you,” she explained. “If they do, they just mistake you for food.”
That sentence did absolutely nothing to reassure me. She insisted that all you really have to do is pay attention to how you move around them.
I have ADHD, so I already know how that story ends for me: I get bit.
There Is Still More to Discover
Part of the appeal of the role is that the character never stays at one emotional temperature. There are sides of her the audience has yet to see, and whatever progress comes next is unlikely to happen in a straight line.
That feels right. She is not a problem waiting to be solved. She is figuring out who she is after a loss that changed everything, while standing close enough to trouble that one bad decision could send her somewhere she never expected. There is plenty left for both the character and the actor to discover.
Beyond the Gates airs weekdays on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
