Ever since we learned back in December that AnnaLynne McCord had joined Days of Our Lives, we’ve been waiting to get some kind of word — any kind of word — on who she’s playing and when she’ll finally air. Well, we’ve got some great news, because the time has finally come for answers! Mostly. This is Salem, after all.

More: Jack is back — just in time for Abigail?

Days of Our Lives can confirm that McCord’s first airdate will be next Wednesday, June 19. And that, we know from spoilers, is the day Chad and Julie, in their search for Abigail, make a stunning discovery. Well that certainly seems suspect, doesn’t it?

We sat down and talked with AnnaLynne McCord to get the scoop — including on how she ended up in Salem. As fans know, she’s a film and primetime vet who’s done everything from Nip/Tuck and the new 90210, to the Dallas reboot and Power Book III. (When we mentioned that she’s done her share of soapy primetime fare, the actress laughed, “I’ll take that as a compliment, darling.” It most definitely was!)

90210 queen bee Naomi Clark was pure primetime soap!

Credit: CW Network/Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Acting, in other words, is nothing new to McCord, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of nerves when it came to snagging a role on Days of Our Lives. The show’s “wonderful casting director,” Marnie Saitta, McCord shared, was the first casting director she auditioned for “when I was 18 years old. And then 18 years later, I got to test for her for Days. She said, ‘I have been waiting to work with you for 18 years!’ It felt really magical. She was incredible.”

They talked over Zoom before the reading, which is good, because as long as McCord has been in the business, “I still get nervous. Anytime you’re doing a chemistry read, you’re working with another actor and you wanna impress them. You wanna impress everybody. So your energy is a little bit anxious and angst ridden.”

But everyone from Saitta to co-executive producer Janet Drucker was in McCord’s corner — and it clearly worked out! The Actors’ Strike ended in November, which is when the idea of her joining Days of Our Lives came up. The ball didn’t really get rolling, though, until December, and she began shooting in January, after the holiday break was over.

And because of all the upheaval around when she joined the show, at first, McCord admitted, it wasn’t clear who she’d be playing. “To be frank, it was very ambiguous in the beginning,” she said. “Obviously, there was a writer transition and everything that was going on within the industry politically so to speak.”

“So when I initially came on, no one really knew who I was gonna be. We were figuring it out as we went.”

So who is she playing? We’ll have more details on Monday along with a preview of her debut, but there was no getting around the elephant in the room, so we told McCord right off the bat of the fan theories out there about her role.

“Oh my gosh,” she replied, excitedly. “I wanna hear this soap fan theory!”

Enter, Mystery Woman.

Credit: Jill Johnson/JPI

The big one, of course, is that she was hired to take over Abigail, who’s come back to life in some way. That started even before we got into Clyde’s claims, so naturally, once he revealed to Chad that Abigail was alive, the fan talk went into overdrive. “They need to stop reading my journal!” McCord exclaimed with a laugh. “They have to stop that.”

With that said, don’t expect simple answers right away. “What fans who are clearly very clever will come to figure out very early on,” she teased, “is that a certain gentleman who is not quite so gentle by the name of Clyde Weston has his fingers in the storyline of my character. So I enter day one as ‘Mystery Woman.’”

Well, that’s certainly… mysterious! Is she really who we think she is, or is there something more going on here? For now, McCord promises a “fun little ride” for viewers. We guess that means it’s time to buckle in!