Scene And Heard: Jackie Cox On Her DAYS OF OUR LIVES Transformation

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t: Darius Rose and Jackie Cox both appeared on DAYS.

Appearing both in and out of drag on DAYS over the course of one episode makes Jackie Cox’s life behind the scenes at the show just that more of a whirlwind. “It is a lot!” Cox exclaims. “The same thing happened when I did Craig and Leo’s wedding, where we did both in drag and out in the same day. The way we do it is that I come in drag; I start the day in drag regardless of whether it’s chronologically [that way in the script] because it’s easier to take off the makeup, or a little faster, anyway, than it is to put on. So, all the drag stuff we shoot first, and we make it work! I’ve had late flights, I’ve had bags arriving moments before I have to hit stage, so I’ve done a fair amount of quick drag in my day! I’m able to kind of get it on and off pretty quickly, thank goodness. But it is a fun process.” Cox doesn’t modify her makeup routine that much from her regular performance practices, explaining, “I do it pretty similarly do how I do it on stage, I just try to be a little more careful with the blend. We’re not trying to make giant shapes for a big stage, we’re trying to make things that can look good in a closeup. The great thing about having been on RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE,” where she competed in Season 12, “is that I got to see what my face looks like on camera. Definitely after that experience, which was a couple of years ago now, I was able to be like, ‘Okay, I need to change these things for on-screen.’ That really helped me so much, but you know, it’s all the same [makeup] kit! And thank goodness, at DAYS, the lighting is always beautiful for all of us. Let me tell you, I was like, ‘I want this lighting in my house! I want glowly light from every angle, no harsh shadows!’ I’ve done a couple of indie movies and stuff and I’m always like, ‘If it’s a scene of me in drag, we cannot have this moody lighting. I need the pretty, front-facing lighting!’ ”

When it comes to Cox’s wardrobe for DAYS, “I always bring a drag option, and then they have some options, too. This time, we did go with the gown that I brought. But I let them have fun with my out-of-drag looks because I just love to see what they end up pulling! And I loved the sweet sweater they got for Darius.” On the show, Cox also wears glasses when in Darius mode, but not when in drag. “It’s so funny, because I wore glasses a lot on DRAG RACE because I had shaved off a lot of my eyebrows for the show,” Cox reveals. “I wore glasses to kind of hide the fact that I was just drawing in my non-drag eyebrows. But then people just started, like, recognizing them as my thing! And then the first time I appeared out of drag on DAYS, Ron [Carlivati, head writer] had written in, ‘Darius puts on his glasses and reveals himself.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, now they’re on the show!’ Like, ‘Well, I guess the Darius in this universe wears glasses, too!’ ”