Meet Doug Williams III: Peyton Meyer Introduces His ‘Days of Our Lives’ Character

Peyton Meyer will make his soap debut on Days of Our Lives on December 3 as a new character, Doug Williams III, grandson of the late Doug Williams (Bill Hayes).

Meyer, who began acting as a child, was living across the country when the opportunity to join the show came his way. “It’s a little bit of a crazy story,” he begins. “I lived for about 10 years in L.A. and then right around COVID time, I left L.A. and moved to Nashville and spent about two-and-a-half years there. I took some time off and then said, ‘I want to start acting again. I’m ready to get back in it.’ I booked a room in a house with some of my buddies. Four days after I had moved my stuff into that new house, I booked Days of our Lives, so it worked out perfectly; the timing was unbelievable.”

Doug Williams was introduced in 1970 as a con man; his grandson appears to be a chip off the old block. “When we first meet Doug, he’s a mischievous guy,” previews Meyer. “He’s in and out of trouble. No matter where he goes, chaos comes with him. He’s not purposefully mischievous or purposefully wishes harm on people. I think it’s just how he grew up, that everything he does ends up causing a bad karmic chaos storm behind him. He’s a gentle guy and he’s peaceful, but it seems that he doesn’t make the proper choices when he needs to.”

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Meyer was excited to see that his first episode was also a milestone for the 59-year-old show. “When I got the script, I saw that it was episode 15,000, and I was like, ‘Oh, my, this is insane. Huge celebration for the cast and the crew. This is kind of cool that this is my first episode,’ ” he recalls. “So I walked on set with the excitement, obviously, of a new show and meeting a whole bunch of new people.”

But the mood at the studio caught him off-guard. While he was thrilled to be starting his Days run, the cast was not only saying goodbye to Doug Williams but also to his portrayer, Bill Hayes, who passed away in January after 54 years on the show. “When I got on set, it was really down,” Meyer relays. “The energy was really low and I had no idea what was going on. We ended up filming the scenes and after, one of the crew members came up to me and she was like, ‘Just so you know, this is a very emotional day today and the fact that you were able to do that scene and carry a positive attitude into the set was so amazing to watch because I don’t know if you know what’s going on, but it’s very heavy today so thank you for coming in so professionally.’ I think it kind of worked better that I wasn’t fully aware of everything that was going on.”

Meyer began his day working with Susan Seaforth Hayes (Julie Williams), who was not only mourning her TV husband Doug, but her real-life one, too. He didn’t exactly make the best first impression. “Susan was the first scene that I had,” he says. “I’m very adamant about time. I always try to be 30 minutes, maybe an hour early. I don’t like being late. So I got there an hour and a half early, and the makeup department was about an hour and a half behind and we were one of the first scenes up. So when I got to hair and makeup, we had about seven minutes until my scene, so the crew and the cast were waiting on me to get to set, which was out of my control. They had been waiting about two or three minutes. I meet Susan and she looks at me and she is so intimidating because she’s so professional. She said, ‘Nice to meet you. Be on time, get your lines down, show up, and be prepared,’ and gave me the entire rundown of how the show works. Immediately, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m so sorry I wasn’t late to makeup. I don’t have time to explain because we’re shooting the scene already.’ After that moment of intimidation from her, [I realized] she has such a power on set. I was sitting there as a 25-year-old memorizing 25 pages a night working, filming an episode per day, and I didn’t understand how the process worked and it was so difficult. Watching Susan do it so effortlessly was something that I’ll carry with me forever. She was so professional.”

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Meyer’s own professional career started when he was 10 and living in Las Vegas. He began modeling and making the trek between Vegas and L.A., where he scored some big campaigns. “Kids at school were putting up my Target ads on my locker and stuff,” he muses. “It was funny, but I said, ‘I want to be an actor.’ My agent ended up sending me on this general [casting call] for Disney and the next day I had an audition. Literally, 24 hours later, I had an audition for Girl Meets World. I went through about seven or eight different callbacks before I finally booked the show.”

Landing at Disney was a momentous career shift for Meyer. “It was incredible,” he says. “It was either going to be for ABC or Disney Channel and obviously, at the time I was 12 years old, coming up on 13 years old. I was like, ‘This is crazy; we’re doing the wand thing/‘You’re watching Disney Channel.’ It was like a dream.”

One of his co-stars was Sabrina Carpenter, whose concert he recently attended in Los Angeles. “It was amazing. It was incredible,” he raves. “I grew up with this girl! We were 12, 13 years old, and she always wanted to be a singer. She was putting out some music every now and again, and she sat right next to me in our schoolroom, so she would always hum. I would hear it and pop my head and kind of dance along to it while I was doing schoolwork. She would play her new songs, and we would go to her shows that had 150 or 200 people in it, and two nights ago I looked around a sold-out Crypto[.com] Arena with [L.A.] Laker banners hanging down and not a single seat open and watching her just tear up this stage. It was such a nostalgic night to be able to see how big she’s gotten and how far she’s gone from where I remember.”

Bob D’Amico / ©Disney Channel / Everett Collection

After the show wrapped, Meyer moved on to ABC’s American Housewife. “That was honestly one of my favorite sets to work on,” he says. “The crew was very fun. Everyone was friends. Filming a sitcom is one of the best experiences you can have as an actor. The energy is always high. Everyone’s always relaxed. It takes a little bit more time, but it’s smooth sailing.”

Now, Meyer is eagerly anticipating his Days debut. “It’s one of the best experiences I’ve had in my career,” he enthuses. “Balancing the traveling between Nashville and L.A. and my son put me in such a challenging position that I had to use every ounce of strength I had in me to be able to show up and perform every day because I didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be. It feels like someone paid me to go to an intense acting boot camp. I feel like I’ve learned so much as an actor, and that this boosted my career and my performance as an actor 10 times.”

Days of Our Lives, Weekdays, Peacock