Ari Zucker, Lauren Koslow & Kate Mansi

NBC Daytime's Emmy Award winning drama, "Days of our Lives," will be celebrating its 48th Anniversary on November 8, 2013, and this weekend marks the return of the "Day of DAYS" event at Universal Citywalk in California. We got the chance to speak with some of the actors to celebrate the occasion in a special two-part "DAYS" extravaganza.Arianne Zucker has played the role of Nicole Walker since 1998. Nicole definitely is a complex character with a checkered past, and fans love to hate Nicole after all this time. Zucker told us why she feels Nicole is still popular after all this time:"I think it's really a team effort. Also, this character has maintained her reasons behind a majority of the things she does. Now, especially, is love, and she wants to be loved. Nicole gains empathy from people because she makes really bad choices. People can see that because sometimes they may make bad choices on a whim. It may not be as extreme as Nicole, but there are things where people can relate to the situation. I try to portray Nicole as realistic as possible. Between the writing and the trust I have with the producers to go places, the character is pretty amazing."As the reveal of what transpired between Eric (Greg Vaughan) and Kristen (Eileen Davidson), Zucker spoke about what will now happen between him and Nicole:"The line has now been drawn in her favor with Eric accusing her of a heinous issue. Let's go back a little bit. Nicole can't believe Eric would accuse her of this. At 16, her father drugged her and put her on porn. Why in the hell would Nicole do it to anyone else? There is a lot of pain she is feeling right now, based on the accusation alone. When she does try to do the right thing, she is still not believed. Nicole is in a really tough position right now. You can imagine how those type of feelings will reflect onto Eric."Zucker spoke more with us about the character of Nicole and her work with "Arrow Heart" Camp, which can be found at http://www.arrow-heart.comFollow Arianne on Twitter: @Ari_Zucker.Lauren Koslow plays the role of Kate Roberts, and she has been involved in one of the most buzzed about relationships to hit Salem. Soon, fans will see Kate work together with her arch nemesis, Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney). How and why does this go down?"Sami and Kate are FORCED to work together in a very serious situation. It is really high stakes here, which causes them to both go into action. It's a very spontaneous thing that they are suddenly in a pile of stuff that's not good. They have to figure everything out. It's actually very humorous, crazy, exciting, and can't wait for you all to see it."Koslow gave us some insight into how is Kate handling and dealing with the aftermath of Rafe's accident, and how he is not able to remember the life they shared:"Things do go totally out of control, but slowly and surely, they get everything back in control. That's always very important Kate. In terms of her love life, when she broke it off with Rafe, that was her being controlling again. She's enjoying this whole thing, but it's too complicated with Stefano. So, she is forced to turn off her feelings, and she does that a lot. If we ever found out about her past, this is something she always had to do. Something really traumatic had to happen to her at an early age, and that is how she copes. If she is controlling the situation, she feels like she has the power, and that's what is important."We spoke more about with Lauren about Sami and Kate, and what's to come between these two rivals.Follow Lauren on Twitter: @laurenkoslow.Kate Mansi plays Abigail Devereaux, and she lost not one but two loves in just under a month. Mansi delves into what is next for Abigail now:"After your world is wrecked like that, where you lose a great love followed by the next love you had in such a short time span, a lot of people would be like, 'I just want to hit reset and focus on myself.' That is where Abigail is at right now. She's been disappointed and let down, and needs to take time and focus on herself. Abigail wants to mend her heart re-evaluate what went wrong so it won't happen again. Abigail is such an analytical person, just like her father. She doesn't want to get hurt again."While this story happened over a year ago, fans still talk about the Austin/Abigail/Carrie storyline, and often brought it up in passing during the recent Chad/Abigail/Cameron triangle. Mansi spoke to us about playing that storyline with former co-stars Christie Clarke and Patrick Muldoon:"That story was more than a year ago now, and fans will reach out still saying how much they enjoyed that storyline. Christie, Patrick and I hold that very close to our heart. We were blessed to work on some brilliant material together. I won't necessarily say it was bitchy, but I understand where fans are coming from. There was some grittiness, and Abigail was pushing a line. She became a bit more edgier. Whenever someone steps outside of themselves, it's sort of fun to watch. It always end in some form of metamorphosis, but also the road to get there could be such a train wreck. I think the fans responded to the writers taking a chance. So, I would love to know what the audience is going to think of what's coming up since they responded so well to Abby being edgier. I think they will be pleased for what's ahead for her."We continued speaking with Kate about working alongside Casey Moss, who plays her on-screen brother, JJ, as well as her work with Charity:Water, which you can learn more about at http://www.charitywater.orgFollow Kate Mansi on Twitter: @KateMansiPart 2 of our "DAYS" Extravaganza continues with Chrishell Stause, Galen Gering, and Eric Martsolf, which will be uploaded shortly.