Al Calderon exits Days of Our Lives in latest casting shake-up

Al Calderon is reportedly set to leave the long-running NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives after landing a regular role on another of the network’s shows.

The 31-year-old actor has played Javi Hernandez since February last year. The character is set to be recast.

In a statement to Deadline, representatives for Days of Our Lives said: “We do not comment on the contract status of our actors, but fans should not worry, Javi is alive and well in Salem.”

Calderon is departing in order to play Nurse Scotty Silva on NBC’s Brilliant Minds, a series inspired by the life and work of author and physician Oliver Sacks.

He will be joined in the show’s second season by fellow newcomers Brian Altemus and John Clarence Stewart.

Calderon’s exit represents just the latest casting change at Days of Our Lives. Last month, the show aired a heartbreaking onscreen death of Drake Hogestyn’s character, John Black, eight months after the actor died in September 2024.

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Hogestyn, who starred in nearly 4,300 episodes as John, passed away at the age of 70 from pancreatic cancer. He made his final appearance on the show in the episode that aired September 9, 2024, weeks before his death.

While his character had remained absent from the ongoing drama series in the interim, the show eventually gave John a proper send-off.

In the episode, John is seen in the hospital after being wounded in a lab explosion while searching for an experimental drug to save Bo (Peter Reckell). With his face completely bandaged, John is visited by his wife Marlena (Deidre Hall) and family, who remain by his side before he eventually succumbs to his injuries.

During his final moments, Marlena, whom he had been married to several times, tearfully told him that he’d given her and their four children “all the love we will ever, ever need.”

“We will always have you in our memories. We will always hold you in our hearts,” she said. “You can rest now.”

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Hours after the episode premiered, Hall, 77, labeled it the “hardest day ever” in an Instagram post.

Previously speaking to TV Insider about his emotional return as Bo in Monday’s episode, Reckell admitted that “there was no acting required” while filming John’s memorial scenes.

“Because you’re saying things as the character that parallel your feelings in your personal relationship,” said Reckell. “When I went to John’s memorial and all these emotions came up, I just wanted to run away and be by myself and feel those feelings. To have to do it as a character was really difficult.”

In November, executive producer Ken Corday revealed that before Hogestyn’s death, he had signed off on his character’s ending.