A man in a dark suit steps down from a helicopter into the aftermath of a warehouse shootout. Flanked by machine gun-toting members of his tactical team, he stalks through the carnage. Without breaking stride, he comes to a defeated fighter lying face down, reaching for a handgun, and shoots him at close range. The man stops in front of another fighter clinging to life, causing her to recoil in fear. “Everything’s gonna be OK,” John Oliver says, as the camera eases into focus for his closeup. “I’m here to help.”
For the past two months, US daytime television watchers have been reduced to double takes and stitches as the Last Week Tonight host has embarked on a summer side quest to become a soap opera star. It began with a three-episode arc on General Hospital with Oliver making his grand entrance as Z, head of the deep state-coded World Security Bureau. And it continued this week with another three-episode arc on Days of Our Lives as Devlin St John, chief water inspector for the soap’s mythic town of Salem.
The performances have been delightfully wooden, with Oliver playing it just straight enough to avoid tipping into outright comedy. But in his defense, he can only do so much with a costume and wardrobe situation that still makes the bespectacled funnyman instantly recognizable and leaves viewers bracing for his next punchline. Much as he tries to disappear behind these characters, there’s no missing the fizzing fanboy beneath, doing everything in his power to resist the urge to make the kind of mischief he does on his HBO set.
The soap appearances aren’t so much dream roles for the Emmy-winning comedian as they are resolutions of a passionate public grievance. On the 8 March episode of his Emmy-winning series, Oliver offered himself up to the daytime soaps. “Write me a role, and I will be on your set so fast it will make your head spin,” he said. The plea sprang from Oliver’s genuine love of soaps, but also from a professional jealousy of Stephen A Smith, the ESPN shock jock who has been a General Hospital regular since 2007 – most recently as the trigger-happy fixer Brick. That’s despite Oliver’s acting credits (Community, The Lion King) putting Smith’s bit parts in Creed III and Chris Rock’s I Think I Love My Wife to shame. (See Oliver’s dilemma now?)
Still, Oliver made clear that his participation would come with certain non-negotiable conditions: “First, I don’t want to play myself,” he said. “I want to be a character, and I also want his name to be ridiculous. Also, I want to do something juicy, like murder or slapping or being slapped or being someone’s long-lost something. And ideally, I’d like a dramatic closeup of my face. In return, trust me, I will give my all to this performance.”
He ticked all those boxes in his General Hospital appearance as Z, who turns out to be every bit the turncoat villain his white-knight opening scene and dark profile would suggest. (“Yes, my hair has been dipped in an inkwell,” he snarked while teasing the character to Last Week viewers.) As Devlin St John on Days of Our Lives, Oliver cuts a much tweedier figure with a Lego-man shag as he trades blows with a Josh Duhamel lookalike (Daniel Feuerriegel), trades barbs with TV legend Jackée Harry (a Days mainstay) and delivers zingers to empty rooms – George Costanza-style.
In an interview with Vulture, Days executive producer Ken Corday said the show typically tapes episodes nearly a year in advance, but Oliver’s TV experience and ability to regurgitate reams of script pages and last-minute alterations made it possible to jam his arc into already completed episodes without disturbing the overall story flow. “He’s very machine-gun in how he speaks, so that took a little work,” Corday said. “But in the end, we both got what we wanted.”
For all the logistical gymnastics required to get Oliver on screen, the soaps appear to have gotten exactly what they bargained for: a viewership bump. His General Hospital cameo coincided with the show’s highest weekly audience in 15 weeks, and his appearance on Days (which streams exclusively on Peacock) has been similarly buzzy. Overall, Oliver’s soap stint has made such an impression that other seasoned actors could soon be lining up behind him for their daytime chance, too – not least Academy Award-nominee Ryan Gosling, according to Access Hollywood.
What was once an unassailable television institution with a seemingly bottomless well of credibly outrageous storylines, a bespoke media ecosystem and a star-making conveyor belt – from Michael B Jordan to Kelly Ripa to even soap opera journalist turned profile writer and novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner – has been outflanked by the more grounded drama of court shows, reality TV and Law & Order reruns. When As the World Turns was canceled in 2010, after more than five decades on air, it was thought to be the end of an era. Currently, Days of Our Lives and General Hospital are two of just five daytime soaps still in production, down from a peak of 19 in the genre’s 1970s boom. Beyond the Gates, a CBS soap that debuted in 2025 with a predominantly Black cast, is a notable bright spot in the industry. Oliver’s side quest is another.
Only the Daily Mail seems down on the idea of Oliver as a soap star, framing his daytime walkabout as a last gasp, late-career move made as “whispers swirl” about his HBO fate. (Never mind Last Week’s strong audience numbers or its slew of industry distinctions.) But because Oliver has been so genuine and almost awe-struck in his enthusiasm and his commitment to this latest bit of performance art, it’s hard not to appreciate what he’s doing for soaps altogether: making them fun and worth watching again.
