Days of our Lives comings and goings: Peyton Meyer brings Doug Williams III to Salem

When one door closes another one opens looks to be the case for Days of our Lives' Julie. She just lost her beloved husband, Doug Williams, and is about to meet another man named Doug Williams, played by Girl Meets World alum Peyton Meyer.

Doug's grandson comes to Days of our Lives

Longtime DAYS fans will recall that Doug had a son named Dougie as a result of his affair with Rebecca North. While Doug was Dougie's biological dad, he was raised by Doug and Julie's old friend, Robert LeClaire (Robert Clary). Now, Dougie's son is set to arrive in Salem on the day of his grandfather's funeral.

Julie will meet the young man and bring him back to the Horton house on December 3, which is also the soap's 15,000th episode. Meyer has hinted that Doug III is likely going to cause some trouble.

"When we first meet Doug, he’s a mischievous guy," Meyer told TV Insider. "He’s in and out of trouble. No matter where he goes, chaos comes with him. He’s not purposefully mischievous or purposefully wishes harm on people. I think it’s just how he grew up, that everything he does ends up causing a bad karmic chaos storm behind him. He’s a gentle guy and he’s peaceful, but it seems that he doesn’t make the proper choices when he needs to."

Trial by fire on Meyer's first day

When Meyer landed his DAYS role, he had just moved back to Los Angeles after taking a break from acting. As a teen, Meyer was a regular on the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World but had taken some time off from Hollywood when COVID hit. Booking a job on DAYS soon after returning to LA was a blessing, but he had no idea he would make his debut on such a momentous day.

"When I got the script, I saw that it was episode 15,000, and I was like, 'Oh, my, this is insane. Huge celebration for the cast and the crew. This is kind of cool that this is my first episode,' ” he recalls. “So I walked on set with the excitement, obviously, of a new show and meeting a whole bunch of new people."

Unfortunately, Meyer also learned it was a somber day and that the cast was filming Doug Williams' memorial, which doubled as a memorial for the late Bill Hayes, who passed away in January.

"When I got on set, it was really down," Meyer explained. “The energy was really low, and I had no idea what was going on. We ended up filming the scenes, and after, one of the crew members came up to me and she was like, 'Just so you know, this is a very emotional day today, and the fact that you were able to do that scene and carry a positive attitude into the set was so amazing to watch because I don’t know if you know what’s going on, but it’s very heavy today so thank you for coming in so professionally.' I think it kind of worked better that I wasn’t fully aware of everything that was going on."

Meyer was also in awe of Susan Seaforth Hayes, his first scene partner and the veteran actress who was not only mourning Doug in character that day but mourning her husband of 50 years, who had played Doug since 1970.

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"I was sitting there as a 25-year-old memorizing 25 pages a night working, filming an episode per day, and I didn’t understand how the process worked, and it was so difficult," Meyer said. "Watching Susan do it so effortlessly was something that I’ll carry with me forever. She was so professional."

Catch all-new episodes of Days of our Lives weekdays on Peacock.

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