Days of our Lives Casting News: Sami’s Daughter Sydney Replaced, Mystery Fiancee Named

Days of Our Lives big comings and goings news for you and two huge tidbits that tie back to Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney). Not only has her youngest daughter Sydney DiMera (Sidney Malakeh) been recast. But her fiancé Dante Vitali (Franco LoPresti) that we first heard about many months ago has finally been cast and he is actually in town soon. Plus, we’ve got a lot of other casting news with big ins and outs for the Peacock soap.

Days of our Lives: Sydney DiMera Recast Confirmed

Let’s dive into this casting stuff. So, this week it was finally confirmed that Sydney Malakeh will indeed be portraying Sami Brady and EJ DiMera‘s (Dan Feuerriegel) only daughter, Sydney DiMera. The last time that we saw Sydney on the soap was 5 years ago.

It was in 2021 in the holiday digital spin-off A Very Salem Christmas. At that time, Sydney was played by young actress Evelyn Stevenson. And now she’s been aged up. And since Sydney DiMera has been mentioned numerous times over the past few months. We already assumed that Sami and EJ’s daughter was coming to Salem.

So, we had kind of figured this out. But Sydney and EJ have spoken on the phone many times. And we also saw Kristen DiMera (Stacy Haiduk) trying to cozy up to Sydney. Because she was asking her niece to meet her for fashion week in Milan.

Kristen Targets Sydney on DOOL

But Kristen was just trying to torment EJ. And once he found out that Kristen was targeting Sydney after Kristen tried to kill his son Johnny DiMera (Carson Boatman), you know, that was why he kidnapped Kristen and was going to send her back to the island. But Lexie Carver (Nikki Crawford) thwarted it. And now Kristen is on the loose.

EJ is on his way to Italy with Chad DiMera (Connor Floyd). This is where Sydney and his ex-wife Sami currently live with her fiancée Dante Vitali. So, Sydney’s first appearance on Days of Our Lives will be next week on Wednesday, September 9th. I’m assuming it’s going to be in Italy. You know, when EJ is reunited with his daughter Sydney. But it’s not going to be until the following week on September 14th when we meet Sami’s mystery fiancé, Dante Vitali, for the first time ever.

He’s going to be played by Franco LoPresti. So, he has been on Tracker. He was on Schitt’s Creek. He’s done a bunch of prime time stuff. And Franco is a total hunk. The last time Sami was in Salem, if you remember, it was November 2025. And she tried to make her ex-husbands EJ, Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering), and Lucas Horton (Bryan Dattilo) all jealous when she announced her engagement to mystery billionaire Dante. That was almost a year ago.

Days of our Lives: The Vitali Name Spooks Everyone

But what Sami’s exes were most concerned about was his last name, Vitali. But Sami reassured everybody that Dante, while related to Ava Vitali (Tamara Braun), had nothing to do with the Philly mobster side of his extended family. So, there’s a lot of online speculation and I tend to agree that Dante is the real buyer of the Kiriakis mansion. Rita Lesley (Maggie Carney) told EJ that the buyer’s name who made the all-cash offer was Dominic Mariano. But that could be an alias of Dante’s or it could be a minion that he has doing the real estate transaction for him.

But what’s bizarre is that Dante’s bride to be Sami doesn’t return to Days until June of 2027. Yet Dante is going to be on screen in a little more than a week. So, I wonder if he’s going to stick around for a while or if he’s in and out and then returns when Sami does next summer. I mean, Days is a revolving door of characters. So, as we reported a while back, Alison Sweeney, Christie Clark, Brian Datillo, and Chandler Massey are returning in June to reprise their roles of Sami Brady, Carrie Brady, Lucas Horton, and Will Horton, respectively.

Big Story Ahead on Days of our Lives

And the four actors filmed their arc this July. But right now they’re taping days more than 10 months ahead. So, it’s kind of crazy. The return of several Hortons and Bradys was reported to be a limited run for a huge story. I tend to think it may be about Sami’s wedding to Dante. And in fact, if he is buying the Kiriakis mansion, maybe that’s where Sami and Dante are going to get married.

Moving right along, we just saw the arrival of a brand new character this week when Mason Whitfield (Brandon Butler) arrived on Days on September 1st. This time he was not playing Zack Brady in a dream sequence who is the dead son of Bo and Hope Brady. Instead, Brandon now plays Mason Whitfield. And as far so far, we know Mason is a former Marine. He’s out of the service. He’s attending Salem U.

And we also know he does not like Holly Jonas (Ashley Puzemis) for some reason. When she was almost mugged and Lani Price (Sal Stowers) saved her, Mason didn’t even care to find out if Holly was okay or not. Now, the only other Marine I know of in Salem is Philip Kiriakis. (John-Paul Lavoisier).

Days of our Lives: Mason Knows Holly?

And we last saw him in uniform on Memorial Day, and he was offering his condolences to Amy Choi (Shi Ne Nielson) on the day of Sophia Choi’s (Rachel Boyd) memorial. I mentioned this because I do wonder if Mason has a tie to the Choi family and that’s why he hates Holly. Because Mason’s reaction to Holly was triggered by her name alone.

He didn’t seem to physically recognize her. So, he refused to shake her hand and Mason walked away from Holly in a huff. So, Mason thinks he knows Holly obviously and that may be based on her reputation or her past behavior. And if Mason cared about Sophia, he’ll obviously keep hating Holly. And speaking of her and her boyfriend Tate Black (Leo Howard) were now on a countdown to their exit.

Days of our Lives: Holly & Tate Exit Soon

Ashley Puzemis and Leo Howard were fired in January of this year when they came back from their Christmas break. But we still don’t know when their last air date will be. I’m expecting the pressure in Salem gets to be too much on Holly and she and Tate relocate to Paris to be near her mom Nicole Walker and her baby brother and all that. So, we have kind of the same thing going on for Chanel and Johnny actors Raven Bowens and Carson Boatman.

They were fired at the same exact time as the Tate and Holly actors. So, we’re on a countdown for all four to exit Salem despite Chanel, Johnny, Tate, and Holly all being still very active on front burner storylines. So, it remains to be seen if all four characters will exit or if just the actors are going to exit and they’re recasting the roles of Johnny, Tate, Holly, and Chanel.

And speaking of recast, Swedish American actress Sofia Mattsson well, technically she was born Swedish and she’s become an American citizen, could be playing a familiar character. She makes her debut in Salem in early 2027.

Days of our Lives: Sofia Mattsson Role Revealed?

Nadia Bjorlin said in a recent interview she was asked to return to Days, but turned down the offer, which means the writers have a storyline they want to do for Chloe Lane. So, we may see Sofia Mattsson playing a recast Chloe Lane. Sofia described her character as complex and interesting and that fits Chloe to a tea. And just like Nadia Bjorlin, Sofia Mattsson is actually a singer, not an opera singer. But the actress was in a band and was the lead singer years ago in a group in Stockholm, Sweden.

So, if she is recast Chloe, maybe she’s coming back to help heartbroken Brady Black (Eric Martsolf) pick up the pieces once Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey) goes back to Xander Cook (Paul Telfer), which we know is happening. And one last casting tidbit is that Days of Our Lives has hired Britney Sarpy. She is going to show up around the same time as Sami and the other Bradys and Hortons in mid-2027. But so far her role is undisclosed.

I think you guys are really going to like Britney Sarpy. She’s gorgeous. She’s talented. She was on General Hospital for a while. She was on The Young and the Restless for a while. And in the meantime, we’ve got some new faces to look forward to in the next couple of weeks. So, be sure and watch for Sydney DiMera and Dante Vitali on September 9th and the 14th.