DAYS Exclusive: Leo Howard On The End Of Tate And Holly

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Star-crossed teens Tate and Holly have called it quits on Days of Our Lives, at least for now. Tate’s moved on with Sophia and is committed to making their relationship work, although his lingering feelings for Holly might make that a challenge. Leo Howard weighed in on his character’s romantic about-face with Soap Opera Digest and revealed the one thing he thinks might send Tate running back to Holly.

Soap Opera Digest: Tate switched gears pretty rapidly between Holly and Sophia. Did that catch you off guard?

Leo Howard: At first it was jarring. But the more I think about Tate’s values about family and everything… Family is so important to Tate and so is his dad. There have been a lot of things trying to break his family up. Since his dad’s gotten sober, that’s his guy. That’s Tate’s only sort of lifeline. So when Holly turned against his dad, when she wanted to put him in prison, it was a little easier to get behind that switch, because it made sense.

Digest: Plus, Holly arguably hasn’t brought much good into Tate’s life. She’s pretty much been nothing but trouble!

Howard: There’s a bit of a toxic thing going on. They do work well together, but yet when they get together it can be kind of destructive. When it comes to that quick switch that we’re talking about, it makes sense. When we’re teenagers, we don’t know what we want — especially a teenage guy like Tate. He is very swayable, and Sophia absolutely has that intoxicating charm that makes Tate fall under her spell.

Digest: What were your thoughts on Tate immediately coming clean with Holly about sleeping with Sophia instead of trying to cover it up?

Howard: I actually have lot of admiration and respect for Tate. Most of the time his intentions are really good and pure. He tries to protect everyone and keep them happy and healthy, but it’s just impossible to do that all the time. So Tate has a tendency to sort of overextend himself to try and make other people happy, and in that comes disappointing other people. This situation with Sophia, as soon as it happens Tate is very quick to take ownership for things. I have a lot of respect for the way the writers write Tate. That’s a theme. Even [with what’s] coming up, he really faces things head on. It’s a respectable quality about him. He doesn’t shy away from telling the truth really ever.

Digest: Of course, Tate wants to be true to Sophia, but his connection to Holly hasn’t just disappeared. Would you say his heart is divided?

Howard: Absolutely. It’s all very complex. Tate’s feelings for Holly are a lot deeper. I think [his feelings for] Sophia are something that can develop over time, but there’s a lot of history with Holly. Even the whole situation with [Tate going to] rehab and whatnot, even though it was traumatic, it was still very bonding. They have a deep connection that is hard to replace.

Digest: What’s it like working with Madelyn Kientz (Sophia) as opposed to Ashley Puzemis (Holly)? What are the similarities and differences?

Howard: They’re totally different characters, but both of them are manipulative in their own way. Sophia’s pretty outwardly manipulative, whereas I think Holly is just interested in getting what she wants, but she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Whereas Sophia, I don’t think minds hurting people in the process. I love working with both of them. Maddie’s great. There are some actors that just really understand in their gut what they’re talking about, and she’s so quick to know exactly what’s going on. She’s great at playing the moments and playing the subtleties of what’s going on.

Digest: What about Ashley?

Howard: Ashley and I have a great thing. It’s so comfortable working with her. It’s easy. We really flow well and we are good at sort of figuring things out on set together. There are a lot of times where we will ad-lib to fill in this space and make it a lot more colloquial. I can always trust that she’s going to be with me, if I kind of stray [from the script] a little bit.

Digest: Are we going to see some tense moments between this threesome in the weeks ahead?

Howard: You sure will. There’s a lot of juice to come with this storyline. It’s by no means over at all. There’s a lot of conflict between the triangle of us.

Digest: Do you think that Tate might have a change of heart regarding who he wants to be with if Holly suddenly finds somebody new that she’s interested in or if some other guy starts pursuing her?

Howard: I definitely think that would change the game, because it’s one thing to not be with a person, but it’s a whole other thing to see that person with somebody else. I don’t think Tate is prepared to be able to handle something like that. And his feelings for Holly are very, very deep and very real. Whereas it will take time to develop those same feelings for Sophia.