Months after saying he wanted to appear on a soap opera and do a very specific set of things, John Oliver's wish came true. General Hospital and Days of Our Lives extended invitations to the late-night host, and the actor made headlines for manifesting a truly bizarre dream. That said, how did soap opera stars feel about it?
CinemaBlend spoke to Days of Our Lives star Deidre Hall, as she celebrates fifty years on the program. Having just appeared on Star Trek's parody of a soap opera, I wondered how she felt about having a comedian like Oliver invade the show in a bit of cross-promotion between Last Week Tonight and daytime television. The star didn't hold back and said that when it comes to the DoOL cast, they were thrilled to welcome him on:
We were dancing in the aisles, and we were so excited. We've had, you know, notables on the show before, but he is such a funny, clever, and warm man. He strolled in, and everybody got hugs, and everybody's questions got answered, and he wasn't too busy for anything or anyone. It was a real joy to have him there.
Hall assured CinemaBlend that they were happy to have John Oliver as part of their run on the 2026 TV schedule, and as mentioned, he wouldn't be the first guest star. The soap opera genre often welcomes celebrities, sports stars, and many others onto its programs. Sometimes soaps even promote Marvel movies, so hosting Oliver was far from the strangest thing this show has done.
All this to say, John Oliver's appearances on General Hospital and Days of Our Lives were on par with those of the same actors who made careers in Hollywood off their roles. The host received rave reviews for his General Hospital stint, in which he played the head of the World Security Bureau, Z. Personally, I thought it was a wild role for a show called General Hospital, but I guess a series doesn't get to 16,000 episodes without a few stories disconnected from the medical world.
Oliver played a water inspector named Devlin St. John on Days of Our Lives, a notable departure from what he was doing on General Hospital. It was a short arc, but it may serve as a reminder to Last Week Tonight fans that Oliver's done a bit of acting in his career before he was informing HBO subscribers on various political happenings across the United States.
His stint on daytime television is over for now, and John Oliver is back on the desk on Last Week Tonight. I do wonder, however, if he'll start working on getting involved in other television genres, perhaps professional wrestling? I think Oliver could definitely get a match at WrestleMania, though I'm not sure if wrestling fans would be quite as on board with that.
For those wondering where they can catch up on Days of Our Lives, the series is available on streaming with a Peacock subscription. Subscribers can hop on now to see John Oliver's stint and maybe fall in love with a genre they haven't tried out before.
