The late actor approved of his character's death scene, which will air in an upcoming episode of the soap opera

“We were rolling the dice, because it’s difficult to tell a story of someone’s death or a character’s death while the actor is still alive; albeit [Drake] was fighting, like a tiger, a very difficult disease,” Corday told Soap Opera Digest. “And I made the choice to, ‘Okay, let’s tell the story.’”

Days of Our Lives will say a more permanent goodbye to the late Drake Hogestyn’s character, John Black, with upcoming death and funeral scenes that the actor approved before he passed away. In a new interview with Soap Opera Digest,