On Sept. 12, 2014, Billy Flynn stepped into the role of Chad DiMera on Days of Our Lives, and Salem has never been the same. Fans have watched the character go through major life milestones with Abigail over the last 10 years, and those cherished moments are not lost on Flynn, whose personal journey seemed to mirror what Chad was going through onscreen.

Flynn tells Soaps.com that Chad’s evolution over the last decade started with him coming on the show “young and cocky” — just like his beloved character. “I didn’t really know what love was and he fell in love with Abigail at the same time I was. I had met Gina [Comparetto], who’s now my wife, and I was falling in love with her.” He loves that Chad has been “a direct reflection of where I’ve been at in my life.”

Even when Flynn faced challenging moments personally, Chad was often facing trials of his own. “There was a storyline [when] Abigail went missing or we thought she was dead, I was in a real dark place in my life, and you see that on camera,” he says. “I think that was around when Marci [Miller] had come back, I was in this really kind of dark area in my life, and then we go away. [By the time,] we come back, it’s Chad and Abby in Paris. I had fixed all those things in my life that were broken.”

Flynn notes that he’s “always tried to stay true with Chad” over the last 10 years and for viewers with a perceptive eye, they might have noticed how the two men — one real, one fictional — echo each other. “The dark area for Chad is my dark area, I was working so much and it’s funny.. look back,” he reveals. “You can see this arc and I feel like my weight reflects it, too. So, you can see when Chad’s happy, he’s in shape. Chad’s unhappy, he starts to put on a few pounds. It’s not hard to miss.”