Courtesy/ABC

Who else on daytime plays the brooding, introspective, tough, sensitive and romantic hero better than Michael Easton?  For years, his incarnation of John McBain on One Life to Live, made the audience at home swoon and fall in love with the man who is on the right side of the law seeking justice no matter what it takes!  And John’s ongoing love story with Natalie Buchanan was the stuff great soap was made of.

Recently, Easton transferred John McBain to a different soap, General Hospital!  And immediately, he was immersed in back-story with Sonny Corinthos, and found a deep connection with Sam McCall, and tried to help recent Llanview transplant Starr Manning after the loss of her daughter, Hope, and her beau, Cole.  But with so much on his plate, how did Easton feel about ending his One Life lived, only to end up on the lone ABC soap?  In this thought-provoking, honest, and revealing interview with On-Air On-Soaps, Easton talks about the challenges of moving McBain to a new town and how the journey has been after One Life.

This week and next on GH, John is front and center in the baby switch involving Sam and Tea’s infants, and getting to the bottom of what led John to Port Charles in the first place, … getting revenge on Sonny!  The stage is set for some high drama.  But where will it all lead?  Michael fills us in.  And for One Life to Live fans, get ready to grab a few hankies as Michael recounts the final days of the series and missing his dear cast mates.  But coming up, you can catch Michael and five of your other One Life favorites live in the upcoming Loving Llanview events, where tickets are still available!  After reading this interview, you will come away with the fact that Michael Easton truly understands the fans.  And isn’t that what one hopes for from a soap star of his magnitude? Here’s Mr. Easton!

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/ABC

What has it been like being John McBain in Port Charles as opposed to Llanview? Is it odd?  And, has it been a difficult adjustment for you?

MICHAEL EASTON:

A bit of tale of two cities!  You feel like you are in the Twilight Zone a bit.  You are the same, but the world has changed a bit.  The dynamic between the actors has almost been like an experimental process.  You being you, and then walking into a different world where the dynamic between you and the actors have changed pretty radically.  I think it’s affected me and the performance, and John.

MICHAEL:

He seems to me a bit of a different John than he was on One Life to Live!

MICHAEL EASTON:

I try to think of the four months John McBain was away and off the screen.  Where was he at in his life?  I found him to be in a happier place when he came to Port Charles, even though it was fraught with circumstances.  His time away with Natalie and Liam was a happy time away from the television screen, and that affected his demeanor.  So maybe, he was approaching life from a clearer and more optimistic place when he got to Port Charles.

MICHAEL:

Maurice Benard (Sonny) is the top dog over there at GH, and here you come in, a very popular big wheel actor yourself.  How has it been working as Maurice’s adversary? He had nothing but great things to say about you in our recent interview.

MICHAEL EASTON:

Courtesy/ABC

Maurice has been completely charming and he is a lovely guy.  I hope I am not blowing his cover with that. (Laughs)  He is a terrific actor.  The actors there could not have been more welcoming at GH.  I know it sounds like I am towing the company line, but from day one Maurice gave me a big hug, and he has done nothing but terrific work in every scene I have worked in with him.  His commitment and his dedication to his craft are amazing.  He never lets anything go. I have had a really good time working with him.

MICHAEL:

So are you feeling pretty stead-foot over at GH now?

MICHAEL EASTON:

I don’t know if any of this feels very steady, especially coming off of the residual effects of what happened with One Life and subsequently, Prospect Park.  I don’t think anybody is on really solid ground, but I am not looking for anything solid anyway.  John is a stranger in a strange town.  I have been using that, and that is how I feel as the actor there.  Even though they are a familiar lot on some level, I had never been in that studio before.  However, seeing some familiar faces in the crew was nice and certainly there is a level of comfort seeing Kelly Monaco (Sam) again.  That is the same face I looked at nine or ten years ago. 

MICHAEL:

Kelly Monaco and you play a connection between Sam and John.  Inevitably, the two characters wind up in scenes together via circumstances.  Is this love?  Or, what are you playing that is going on between them?

MICHAEL EASTON:

I have to be honest with you, you can’t satisfy everybody.  I have to give the writers credit.  It is a tricky thing to have to handle.  I think they needed to be respectful of Sam’s long running storyline with Jason.  I think you need to be respectful of John’s long running storyline with Natalie and Liam.  And yet, it’s two people who are drawn to each other for whatever reason.  I think they have a lot of openings of how to make it work, but they have not told me what the ultimate end game is.  But I felt that the scenes are always interesting between Kelly and me.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/ABC

During the final episodes of One Life to Live, John and Natalie got back together!  Fan waited so long for this.  Now, One Life fans are clamoring for Melissa Archer (Natalie) to make a visit or come on to GH with you.  It’s been a hard pill for them to swallow, that John would just up and leave Natalie and Liam and head to Port Chuck, after they just found their way back to each other.

MICHAEL EASTON:

They are really trying to finesse it and it’s a tricky thing!  I imagine John would not be leaving his family at this point to do this.  I think the only way you can justify it is; he is a cop.  Natalie knows that John is a cop and this is the life they do, and this is the life that they have chosen.  Sometimes they have to make hard decisions.  I remember having a conversation once with Renee Elise Goldsberry (Ex-Evangeline OLTL).  She was talking about when she first came on OLTL, she had this terrifically strong character.  She was morally centered and had all these great qualities.  But slowly but surely, she felt that those characteristics were eroded over time.  So I said to her, “When the character was noble and doing everything great, how often were you working?”  And she said, “One day a week”.  And I said, “Well, how often are you working now?”  And she said, “Like four days a week.”  And that is the moral of the story; the more you work on the soaps the more screwed up your character ends up being. (Laughs)  It’s just by default.  So to be involved in this storyline, there have been some things that are hard to handle and swallow.  We are just trying to do the best we can to make them work and still have a story. There is going to be some collateral damage to the storyline while you are trying to protect it, but the only real way to do that is to sit at home and not be there!

MICHAEL:

Would you like to have Melissa Archer on GH with you?

MICHAEL EASTON:

I would love to!  She is wonderful and I enjoy working with her so much!  But again, I think that Ron Carlivati (head writer, GH) and Frank Valentini (executive producer, GH) are doing a great job.  When Frank called up and said, “Hey, do you want to come over to GH?”   Frankly, I was reluctant.  You don’t want to be involved in something where it’s about, “Well, we are trying to grab the One Life audience,” because that would have offended General Hospital fans.  These audiences are a lot more astute then people give them credit for.  You can’t fool them.  So the storyline had to be organic and something that didn’t feel forced.  And that is kind of what I wanted to hear when they told me what the storyline was.  So I thought, well that makes sense on some level.  Because, if you just start forcing OLTL people onto GH, that is not going to work.  Also, I don’t think the OLTL fans want to see a courtesy thing.  It’s all about these stories.  It seems on GH, they have some good storylines right now.  So I think if they can finesse Natalie and John and Liam in a storyline together, then there is a nice place for it somewhere down the line, absolutely.

Courtesy/ABC

MICHAEL:

There has been an ongoing battle on message boards and posts between GH and OLTL fans where some say GH is becoming OLTL, and they are not happy about it, and the fan factions in-fighting.   What are your thoughts on the crossovers? (With you being one of them!)

MICHAEL EASTON:

I think the positive response does not get out as much.  It’s hard to say.  I went back to New York for a bit and was walking the streets, and the response was that a lot of GH fans understand and have a kinship with other viewers of daytime that the wrecking ball is right outside for this whole medium.  And there are a whole lot of people out there with holes in their hearts.  They had dedicated a very long time to a show.  The GH fans realize a few of the OLTL characters can live on our show for a little bit as long as it works within the world of that show.  They are very generous with that and they find nothing wrong with that, and they have opened their hearts.  I think they would feel the same way if it were reversed.  Hopefully, GH does really well, and out of that comes good things!

MICHAEL:

How were you after One Life to Live went off the air?  Did you go through a depression?  Were you sad?  Were you able to just move on?  What was particularly upsetting was the show was doing well in the ratings and was on a creative high when it was canceled.

MICHAEL EASTON:

It’s almost tragic when soap operas get canceled, because people have committed one, two, three, four generations to these shows.  It is something that is very different.  The hurt I felt first was for the crew, and secondly, the fans.  Not so much for myself.  I just realized it’s time to go back out there and button up and try to get a job.  It was disappointing.  I thought we really put up a good fight to try to keep the show on.  You would love to see it rewarded.  You always like to see a Norma Rae story.

MICHAEL:

As I have said many times, the last year of One Life to Live had some of the most wonderful episodes in its 43-year history.  It was picking up steam and then dropped by the ABC network, regardless of all the plain as day, in front of your face facts that it was moving upward.

MICHAEL EASTON:

Photo Credit: MF Soaps Inc.

I don’t know anything for sure.  But, I think the decision may have been made to the cancel the show before that point.  It is a good lesson of: you can’t throw away anything anymore.  You can’t have bad storylines that go on for too long, and you can’t regurgitate stories or fall back on old things.  You really have to keep story moving at all times.  I think that is really the focus of Frank and Ron right now at GH.  They are really trying to tell as many good stories as they can and make them work, and really pull the audience in, because you can’t afford a lull anymore.  It used to be “Well, we had six bad months. We will pull out of it!”  Now, the future of your show could be decided in those six months.

MICHAEL:

Good Afternoon America will soon begin its nine-week trial as a summer replacement series in OLTL’s old timeslot taking over for the canceled The Revolution.  GH has needed a good lead-in to help propel it in the ratings.  But with Good Afternoon America about to debut, this could be a double-edged sword.  While it could provide a better lead-in to GH, it could also score higher ratings than GH.  Then, ABC could take another look-see and reassess their lineup!

MICHAEL EASTON:

Yes, they could.  So, we are all getting pushed into this one show left at ABC, this little island, General Hospital.  If you have any affinity at all for these shows, it’s really time to come out and try to give them some support.  It’s the light at the end of the tunnel right now, and you have to see your way through it.

MICHAEL:

Michael, you have made John McBain such a beloved character and a true original on daytime soaps.  Kudos to you for making the audience care and love this guy!

MICHAEL EASTON:

That is really kind of you to say, Michael.  And thank you for all the support you have given to the shows.  We all respect what you do and appreciate what you do in trying to get the word out, because we certainly need all the good word of mouth we can get.   Hopefully, I think soaps can find a new audience and this gets turned around along the way.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/ABC

Last week on GH, we saw John helping Sam deliver her baby, only to be conked out by Jason’s henchmen!

MICHAEL EASTON:

Jason had John beaten up and the timing was not so good!  As you saw, Jason sends some goons to do it, and doesn’t realize that Sam went into labor.  And of course, John helps Sam deliver the baby.  He goes to get the car to take her to the hospital, but then he gets beaten up and dumped at the side of the road.  When he gets back, Sam is gone and Jason is there.  Then, they have to search for Sam.  John is too beaten up to go, so Jason goes to find Sam.  It’s a lot of story.

MICHAEL:

And then we have, voila, a baby-switch.

MICHAEL EASTON:

Of course!  Tea went into labor and Todd was helping her, and anything involving Todd comes with its share of problems.  And yes, there is a baby switch.  And so we are going to have to dance around that for a while.

MICHAEL:

Please don’t let it take five years to figure this out!

MICHAEL EASTON:

You can’t do that anymore!  We have to wrap things up faster and have some resolve, and have a pay-off to your audience more often now.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/ABC

So the big question; when you heard GH was going to do another soap opera baby switch, what did you think about it?

MICHAEL EASTON:

Well, personally, I was involved in a baby thing for a very long time.  I think that is a tricky thing to do in this day and age where DNA tests are available at your local drug store.  But that being said, it seems to be a story that is a staple on daytime.  And it gets people involved and it gets people engaged.  Even if it engages people negatively, I think the powers-that-be approach is they will watch.  They would rather have people be angry and watch, than people that are apathetic.  I think that is the worst time; when you have people who have general apathy about it and they don’t feel anything, either way.  So I think their hope is; if any of these storylines get people involved, then there is an investment there.  Like, “When will these people find out that the baby is theirs?”  Hopefully, this story resolves itself at a good pace and you move on to something else, and it doesn’t hang on for two years!

MICHAEL:

Will we see more of John with Tea?  They had such great chemistry in Llanview!

MICHAEL EASTON:

I think so.  I love working with Florencia Lozano (Tea).  I always enjoyed working with her on One Life.  I think John and Tea had a very interesting dynamic.  We had two weeks off now and just before our break, John was leaving Port Charles and going back to Llanview to see Natalie and Liam.  He has resolved this issue with Sonny to some extent.  John had some other investigating he needed to do, so he was leaving.  I left and I didn’t even bother asking, “Is that it?”  You come in and do your job and hope that people would want to see more of it, but if they don’t, that is OK, too.  It’s just nice to have been a part of it.  It has really been a lot of fun.  I think they have some terrific actors over at GH.  I have gotten to work with some performers I have always admired and respected, such as Maurice, Steve Burton (Jason) and Tony Geary (Luke) and Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis), Kelly and Laura Wright (Carly)

MICHAEL:

But … you will be back?  You are on contract, right?

MICHAEL EASTON:

Yes.  They have me down, but you know how things go; they are renewable every 26 weeks.  We will see how the storyline goes, and if that was it, that was fantastic.  It was great seeing Frank again and nice to hit the ground running with people.  I think one of the things that was easier was bringing some characters over from One Life.  I think it got exaggerated a bit.  There were only three or four of us from One Life and like 30 plus people in the cast already at GH.  It is a small number compared to the size of the cast.  It is hard to establish new characters sometimes and takes a lot of groundwork, whereas, these characters can come in from Llanview whether you like ‘em or don’t like ‘em.  They can hit the ground running and you know who you are.  They have a formidable cast over there.  I can imagine it’s a tricky place to bring people in who don’t have much experience trying to stand up to them.  It can be a tough room.

MICHAEL:

Do you know when you will go back to tape new episodes?

Courtesy/ABC

MICHAEL EASTON:

When I do go back, I am in Llanview and I run into Tea there.  She is back in Llanview too, and I am speculating at this point.  I would imagine at some point John becomes aware something is not right about these babies.  I am not sure about that, but that is my two bits.  It just seems that he would become aware of something, and then he wouldn’t be that oblivious to not go, “Hmm.”  It could keep him in the story. 

MICHAEL:

So next week we will finally get some answers to the sisterly drama that has John gunning for Sonny and the score he wants to settle with the mobster!  How does it go down?

MICHAEL EASTON:

Maurice does great work that day.  There are no flashbacks; he retells the story of what happened to the audience.  He just tells it, and when you watch it you will swear you were there in the room.  Obviously, this was tricky, too.  This was not a story that existed on One Life to Live.  I did not even get John’s sister’s name till recently, and you just have to start the storyline with one hand tied behind your back.  It’s a bit of a magic act, you know.  (Laughs)  McBain comes in and Sonny was holding a gun over his dead sister.  So he has always held him responsible, and somehow Sonny has always skirted the law.  And John has had it in the back of his mind that Sonny did it, and he is going to pay for it.  I think they wrote a nice piece where Sonny is going through something with someone, and it makes him have a bit of empathy for what McBain is going through.  Of course the issue is; is Sonny telling the truth or not?  That will be part of, where do you go from there?

MICHAEL:

Fans will get to see you live and in person very soon though. The Loving Llanview tour is making stops in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 22nd, Merrillville, Indiana on June 23rd, and then, Chicago Illinois on June 24th.  After the show, will fans get to meet you up close and personal?

Photo Credit: Kathy Hutchins

MICHAEL EASTON:

We meet them afterwards in person and take pictures and sign autographs.  It’s just a bit of a catharsis to be able to say “goodbye”.  Some of these fans we have gotten to know, and some of them show up at all the comic book conventions that I do.  They have been so supportive.  It’s a great opportunity to say “hello” again and  “goodbye” again to people.  It puts some closure on that, because we really didn’t get to say “goodbye”.  It’s an opportunity to also say hello to some good friends and say, “See ya soon.”  Chicago is one of my favorite cities, and I debuted my book, Soul Stealer at Chicago Comic con.  I just love it there.  I did not need an excuse to go there.  We went on vacation there one year, just because we love the city so much.  It was a perfect thing.  It’s a lotta fun being with Trevor St. John (Victor Jr.), Melissa, Kassie DePaiva (Blair), Hillary B. Smith (Nora) and JP Lavoisier (Rex).  It’s like we should be paying the audience to come to it, just to share with us the moments of being together again and being with the fans.  It’s a rare experience. I have to psych myself up, because I am overwhelmed in large groups, but it seems like a really nice thing to do. It is really fun to be a part of this.

MICHAEL:

What did the fans say to you the most when they saw you at the first Loving Llanview event back in January?

MICHAEL EASTON:

They say, “I miss you, and I miss the show.”  And usually, “My mom and I have watched One Life together.  Or, my Mom got me started …”   Every so often you get a story that tugs at your heartstrings.  You really do get to hear a lot of great stories from people.

MICHAEL:

Let’s just say; One Life would have lived on and there were more stories to tell.  What would you have liked to see happen next to John?  Would you want him to get married, or go off and have him find Victor Jr., who somehow mysteriously ended up on the final episode in the clutches of Alison Perkins?

Courtesy/ABC

MICHAEL EASTON:

Oh, find Trevor?  Oh God!  I wasn’t too sure about the ending and how that all came about.  That wasn’t my favorite episode.  I actually thought the second to last episode of One Life was fantastic.  And of course, anything that highlights the great Bob Woods (Bo) is OK in my book.  I thought it was a lot of fun having Trevor St. John and Roger Howarth (Todd) on the show at the same time.  I think they should have continued that on.  Now I don’t know what was going on with people’s contracts and leaving, or coming and going, but I think we had just gotten to a really interesting point in the storytelling and that would have been great.  And I can say that John would have found that to be quite the challenge, Victor and Todd in the same, small, small town.  I certainly was looking forward to John having a family life and depicting part of that.  I know everybody seems to think that you finally get a couple together and everyone gets bored or goes, “Now what?”  But look at how many great movies or television shows that are out there now about families.  There is a lot of drama and conflict there and Natalie and John still had a lot of issues to resolve.  I don’t think it was all easy sailing from there on out.  I think there was a lot of potential.

MICHAEL:

Why do you think you and Melissa Archer worked so well on-screen? 

MICHAEL EASTON:

She is lovely.  She is easy to look at and she is easy to work with.  She has this incredible innocent soul that you just want to protect and help.  No matter how mad John would get at Natalie, and certainly he acted at times uncharacteristically around her, mostly for story purposes, at the heart of it, he looked at her and loved her, and wanted to protect her.

MICHAEL:

I recently interviewed Bob Woods’s on his Daytime Emmy nomination and his time leaving, and post-One Life.  He had nothing but very heartfelt comments to say about working with you, and would jump at the chance to work with you again on GH, should the opportunity arise.

Courtesy/ABC

MICHAEL EASTON:

It is fantastic that Bob is nominated and I want him to win, too!  He is the most honest guy in daytime, but I honestly think he is the most honest guy in television.  Bob was the big guy on that show from the day he started till the day it ended.  He might have shared that with Phil Carey (Asa) for a while.  But for the last several years, for me it was Bob Woods.  Working with him was a highlight for me.  I learned from him being in scenes with him.  I learned a lot about how to conduct myself and dedicate myself.  He is just a charming beautiful guy.  He was at my wedding.  He is a great friend, too.  Bob, Thorsten Kaye (Ex-Zach, AMC, Patrick, OLTL and currently on Smash), and Susan Haskell (Ex-Marty, OLTL) that became our circle of friends.  It got me through my time at One Life to Live and made the work very rewarding.  But the friendships I made out of One Life was even more rewarding.  I still talk to Melissa Archer.  I still see and talk to Trevor St. John.  I see Roger Howarth.  Probably the hardest thing when I walked out of One Life’s studio on the final tape day, in the back of my mind, I was going, “I think there is a chance I am never going to see most of these people ever again.”

MICHAEL:

So what happened?  Everyone just packed up their dressing rooms and walked out?  How awful!

MICHAEL EASTON:

Yes. We packed up our stuff and then walked out the studio front door, but we didn’t want to make a lot out of it, because you are hoping this isn’t goodbye. You don’t say goodbye and you don’t want to jinx it.  For me, I approached it like; “I will see you when I see you.  Cause I know I will see you again.”  But in the back of your mind, your heart is pretty heavy; because you know you are probably walking out the studio doors for the very last time.

MICHAEL:

Did you find out about Prospect Park fizzling out, before they put out that press release that they were not moving forward with plans to bring OLTL and AMC to the web?  Or, were you blindsided, too?

MICHAEL EASTON:

If I remember correctly, Frank Valentini called me.  Frank was kind enough to let us know hours before it went out to the press that the deal had fallen apart.  Hey look, we all chipped in to contribute to moving the show forward, but even when we did that, I knew it was quite an ambitious task.  I think it’s the future, but it’s a hard thing to throw together in a short period of time.

Courtesy/ABC

MICHAEL:

I go back to the final OLTL press junket in November and speaking with Erika Slezak (Viki) and so many others, for those video and print interviews at On-Air On-Soaps.  Had there been a feeling of real closure, the interviews could have been so much more about a proper goodbye for the fans and for the actors.  It is one thing that has upset me to this day.

MICHAEL EASTON:

It was hard to really be introspective at that time, because you weren’t too sure it was definitive.  I think it would have been lovely to find out how Erika Slezak felt or Bob or Hillary, or anybody that had really been invested in the story for that long.  Everything ends badly, or it wouldn’t end.  But sometimes you have expectations, and you want it to be perfect, and it rarely is.  I know this does not compare, but we left Port Charles and went on hiatus thinking we were coming back to filming the show.  They had written new scripts and then we were canceled, and so we never got to say goodbye. 

MICHAEL:

And speaking of vampires, look at all the vampire shows now on primetime television!

MICHAEL EASTON:

It’s too bad vampires didn’t become popular or anything! (Laughs)  I think it was one of the few times in history that daytime was ahead of the curve! 

MICHAEL:

Do you watch any of the vampire shows and go, “I can do that?” (Laughs)

MICHAEL EASTON:

Courtesy/ABC

I don’t watch True Blood and I have heard it’s terrific.  Certainly, you have a lot to draw on now.  But back then you only had the really good Gary Oldman movie and the Anne Rice book, and of course, Bram Stoker.  I did read Interview with the Vampire again quickly.  I actually signed on to do ten weeks on the show.  Mark Teschner, the casting director said, “Hey, do you want to do a part for ten weeks and come over to Port Charles and do this?  It’s kind of top secret.”  I am like, “How secretive can it be about a soap opera that takes place at a hospital?”  (Laughs)  And he goes, “But I need you to sign on first and then we will let you know everything.”  So I am like,”Alright.”  Then I go into the meeting, and that is when they tell me I am going to be playing a vampire! They say, “You are actually going to be playing twins.  One is a priest and one is a vampire.”  I remember going, “Uh-oh.  What have I gotten myself into, a vampire on daytime?  This is going to be terrible.”  Then I went home and watched The Dracula movie with Gary Oldman and I started writing down his lines.  I remember thinking, if I saw those lines in a script, I would think it’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.  But I watched him and he was brilliant.  It engaged you.  That was the whole inspiration for me playing Caleb, the whole time I was doing it.  And …it was all about, you love this woman and that’s all that matters.

MICHAEL:

Caleb is now a soap classic!

MICHAEL EASTON:

He was something else!  Very different from John!  (Laughs)

MICHAEL:

It would have been great if you could attend the Daytime Emmys on June 23rd, and be there with your former OLTL co-horts.  However,  you have other important business to attend to that night with Loving Llanview! ( NOTE: since the posting of this interview: the event in Merrillville, Indiana has been switched to Sunday, October 14th, Rosemont, Illinois has been switched to Saturday, October 13th. The new date for Cincinnati is not determined yet.)

MICHAEL EASTON:

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Oh, that would have been interesting.  One Life has a great group!  It’s amazing that Bob Woods got nominated, and Erika, and Eddie Alderson, who for a long time I thought was the best damn actor on the entire show!  I love him.  What a wonderful group in the Lead Actor category with Woods and Maurice Benard and Anthony Geary (Luke, GH).  It is fun to know that I have had some relationship with all these guys.  There are some actors that advance the cause of daytime and some that pull it back, and these guys are the guys that have advanced the cause.  I think Anthony Geary is one of the true originals on daytime.  I think his performance made it possible for a lot of people to approach daytime in a different way, because he brought so many layers and is so intricate.  Tony has brought so many qualities: humor, compassion, quirkiness, and all these strange things that opened up doors for so many actors.  I think he is still the cornerstone of what you look for in an actor, always interesting to watch.  I think that goes a long way when you have to be on 150 shows a year for 25 or 30 years.

MICHAEL:

I recently went to the Los Angeles Premiere of Trevor St. John’s latest film release, In the Family.  He was amazing in it.  I was blown away and I wish he would be getting more rave reviews for it by film critics around the country.  I know you two are buds.  He is also another original, wouldn’t you say?

MICHAEL EASTON:

He is amazing, isn’t he?  Trevor is an amazing actor.  I think the year he was put in the death chamber and sentenced to death by lethal injection as Todd he should have gotten an Emmy.  Every so often I will say, they missed one, and that was certainly one they missed.  But Trevor always does interesting things.  I miss his sense of humor.  I haven’t found that quite yet at GH … someone to goof around with.  Trevor and I would do whole scenes as pirates sometimes, “Argh. Bring me Nate.” (Laughs)  Only we would be the only ones laughing, but it would be funny!  But at the same time, you can’t handcuff people like Trevor or Roger Howarth or Tony Geary.  You have to just turn them loose, because you will get something interesting out of it.  I think that is what makes Frank Valentini a really good producer.  He really understands the personalities of whom he is working with.  John McBain is not always an easy character to do.  Frank is really good about giving me freedom, and also giving me guidance at the right time.

MICHAEL:

Courtesy/ABC

Finally Michael, what do you love about playing John McBain?

MICHAEL EASTON:

I find him such a strange guy, he is really is.  He is carrying around all that damage and that baggage inside.  Here is this guy who was surrounded by this body count in his family, and of people that have been killed and sometimes in horrific ways.  And that what he had seen on the job, must have made him incredibly damaged on the inside, too.  Yet, even though he has moments of doubt, he is still trying to do good.  Sometimes, it’s a twisted kind of justice, and sometimes he does not see clearly, and sometimes he can be stubborn to his own faults.  But at the end of the day, he loves this girl and he is trying to do the right thing.  Sometimes he is his own worst enemy in doing that.  I also think that it is interesting to play his obstacles, which many times are of his own manufactured ones.  He can’t say, “I love you.”  These are things that people need to hear, but he is stubborn to the point where he can’t do it.  I always found that interesting.