INTERVIEW: Bryan Dattilo on WilSon trouble, single parenting, and Lucas' love life

Does father really know best? Days of our Lives' Bryan Dattilo (Lucas) weighs in on being a soap single parent, WilSon's trouble, and Lucas' love life.

A lot of laughs come along with dads trying to handle their children. Just look at classic sitcoms like Full House, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, and Married With Children, all of which have featured father/children storylines that left millions in stitches. Days of our Lives' Bryan Dattilo (Lucas Horton) has had his fair share of sitcom-worthy moments, as well, having just welcomed his second child, Delila, into the world this past June. But he tells Soap Central that the same can't be said of Lucas and Will, whose father/son hurdles will be anything but laughable in the weeks ahead.

Times, they are a-changing in Salem. And that is no more true than for Will (Guy Wilson) and Sonny (Freddie Smith), whose marriage has been on the rocks for quite some time and is headed for even more trouble now that Sonny's ex, Paul (Christopher Sean), in involved. Though viewers initially assumed that Sonny would be the one lured into Paul's web, it was Will who ended up in bed with the baseball player. And that makes for one slippery (albeit sexy) situation.

There's no telling what the future holds for the threesome, but Dattilo reveals that Will ends up needing his father's help in a big way. "There's no one really there for Will right now, so it's kind of cool that Lucas can give his input and help him," the actor reveals. "He definitely wants to be there and support his son if/when things go wrong, like all parents do. But at the same time, you've got to look at the situation. It's a hard thing to [deal] with as a parent, who you side with and which way you go -- the right way or your kid's way."

The storyline, Dattilo continues, has given him a rare opportunity to show duality in his acting. "Lucas is faced with a couple of things in the future and... I think I do a very good job of conveying both sides as an actor. It's a fun thing to play, where you have to play those different problems. ... It's tough as a parent to be there for your kids when you want them to do one thing, and they're doing another. But you still have to be there, no matter what they do, you have to be there for them anyway. So Lucas is forced to do that in the future. He's got to do some things with Will and help him with some things that he probably wouldn't normally do, but because of circumstances, he's kind of left with no choice. He supports him in a way that he normally probably wouldn't. So it's interesting to see, because it's totally different than anything in the past. It's definitely something you want to watch."

Once the fallout of Will's betrayal plays out on-screen and Lucas gets involved, fans will no doubt wonder how Sami (Alison Sweeney) would have handled the sticky situation if she were still in town. According to Dattilo, if history repeated itself, she'd probably do the exact opposite thing Lucas does. "It's kind of cool not to have Sami there, because Sami kind of questions Lucas a lot when he makes decisions about Will, and she usually goes against what he wants to do," he says with a laugh. "But you never know. Things might happen to where that comes around again, but for now, it's cool to be there for him."

It's also cool, says the actor, to have the opportunity to work closely with Wilson. "Guy is doing such a good job. He's coming in and busting his butt," Dattilo enthuses of his costar. "It's hard taking over for somebody, and you've got a lot to do when you have a huge storyline, but he handles the work well, and he's really cool to work with. We wear the same shirts sometimes, and it's so weird. I'll walk in, and we'll both be in the same exact T-shirt. Or some days I'll walk in and it'll be almost the same T-shirt, like the same color but a different logo. And then sometimes it'll be baseball/baseball, or football/football, or music/music. It's weird! We've tweeted a couple of pictures where it looks like we're posing together in the same stuff on purpose, but it's totally a fluke."

Showing up at work wearing matching T-shirts is fun and all, but what really makes work fun for soap stars is when they have a real match -- of the romantic kind. And lucky for Dattilo, 2015 will be bringing Lucas a woman. The actor couldn't reveal exactly who will be turning his alter ego's head in the weeks to come, but he was able to speculate on what kind of woman would be good for the cosmetics exec. "He's getting to the point where he's mature enough to realize that [hooking up with bad girls] is not a good thing to fall into over and over," he says with a laugh of his alter ego's past with troublemakers like Sami, Nicole (Arianne Zucker), and Chloe (Nadia Bjorlin). "But at the same time, he doesn't have a lot of options in Salem right now. So for Lucas, I think he's just looking for someone who's got their stuff together and isn't a headache and who makes his life better and is fun to be with -- light and stress-free. So we'll see what happens."

Speaking of women, the actor admits that he views them in an entirely different light now that he has a daughter of his own. "You can't look at women in general the same way, because it's just different; if a women is attractive, [I now think to myself] 'She's got a dad,'" he explains, adding that his thoughts about a lot of things have changed since he and his wife, Elizabeth, welcomed baby Delila last summer. "It's weird, because you see yourself in her, but you're not a her, you're a he, so it trips you out. ... And I was always there for my son, but when she cries, it's kind of different. I used to let my son [Gabriel, 14] cry it out. [I thought] 'If he cries it out, he'll learn to soothe himself.' But if she cries, I'm like, 'Give me that baby! Are you okay? What happened? Who did what to you? Who do I have to kill?' [laughs] It's like looking at a girl version of yourself in certain ways."

And though it's been awhile since he's had a baby in the house, Dattilo says caring for an infant is just like riding a bike. "It's different because the technology is different; it's better," he enthuses. "The monitors are a lot cooler and smaller, and all the stuff is high tech, so that's kind of cool, to see that happen in such a short period of time. But I don't know, I'm good at taking care of babies. I like getting up early, I don't mind getting up in the middle of the night."

And not only that, he admits he doesn't mind taking diaper patrol, either. "I was left on patrol a couple of days ago because my wife had some work to do, and [Delila] doodied while I was on duty," he recalls with a laugh. "And it was everywhere. It was on the car seat, it was on her, it was on her clothes, and she touched it, and I thought, 'Why are the peas she ate last night over here? How did this happen?! Oh, not peas.' Thank God for the whale tub."

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Diaper messes or not, Dattilo is thankful that he has a job that allows him to spend so much time with his children. Though with Lucas' romantic storyline about to blossom, who knows how much time he'll have for diaper duty. "We'll have to see," he muses of upcoming story. "We'll see what happens in the future with ol' Lucas."

What do you think about Lucas finally getting a love story? And are you excited to see him be a bigger part of Will's life? You can share your thoughts below in the Comments section, post with other fans on our message boards, or click here to submit Feedback.

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