He’s an original, respected by his peers, beloved by the fans of the soap opera genre, a Daytime Emmy winner, and can make any scene he is in intriguing and draw you into wanting to know what will happen next.  We are talking about General Hospital’s Roger Howarth (Franco)

This soap veteran who played One Life to Live’s Todd Manning and As the World Turns, Paul Ryan, has a history of portraying complex bad boys who have done some dastardly things, while yet, at times, displaying a heart of gold.

In Port Charles, Franco has had a violent and dark past (yes, the character had a brain tumor which explained most of his heinous acts), but with that comes an underlying danger that often rears its head for the character, as well as others. Earlier this year, GH viewers witnessed Roger’s heartbreaking performances as Franco came to grips with, and recalled the sexual abuse he suffered as a child by his abuser, Jim Harvey (Greg Evigan). This added yet another layer to Franco’s tragic past, while as fans know, the show has tried to find ways to redeem the character and make him someone to root for; which Howarth does a mighty fine job at doing any way, no matter what material is sent his way.

Coming up this fall, “Friz” fans are anxiously waiting for the nuptials of Franco to his lady love, Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst). Can Franco get out of his own way and find some peace and love as Liz’s new hubby? Only time will tell! Michael Fairman TV caught up with Roger to talk about: his recent tough and impactful storyline, his love and commitment to his craft, and the importance of bad guys on your favorite daytime dramas, and more. Here’s Roger!

You delivered Emmy-worthy performances during Franco’s storyline where he remembers his childhood sexual abuse.  How did you feel going through that as an actor?  Were you hoping that it was going to help explain more about the emotional make-up of Franco?

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

ROGER:  I’m very proud of the work that we did, and I think everybody pitched in.  I liked being a part of a story that encompassed several different characters and everybody’s different points of view, and I think everybody was pretty well-represented.  In terms of an explanation … I just think it was my job as an actor to put myself in that situation and have the character live through it.  Whether it explains something to the audience, or not, isn’t something that I can control, so I didn’t really engage in that.  I do believe that their intention might have been to offer an explanation to Franco’s behavior, and his impulsiveness, and his deep-seated anger and his desire to control.  Historically, I think real people do kind of repeat behavior, until they remember.

Courtesy/ABC

I always felt GH has tried through various storylines to humanize Franco in some way, because of the horrible things that the character has done in the past.  They obviously want Franco to also be this leading man on the show.  With that, does it get muddied up, or problematic for you when trying to play the character? 

ROGER:  It doesn’t get muddied up for me, because I’m pretty much a worker-bee in that I get a script,  I learn the script, I perform the script, and the other actors and I are responsible for just our acting.  I do think that it might have presented a problem for the writers, and that they were trying to address what you’re talking about. But, I don’t think that fish know that they’re swimming in water, and Franco doesn’t know that the audience thinks he’s a bad guy. (Laughs). You, know what I mean?

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

There was this recent scene where Franco is kind of pulled in to the situation at Ferncliff by Jason (Steve Burton) in an effort to help free Carly (Laura Wright).  It’s clear Franco doesn’t want to be there, and he is going back in forth with his conscious on this, and the right thing to do, and whether he should help Jason out.  Franco doesn’t know how far to go with it.  What do you think those of those kinds of moments?

ROGER:  Well, I wasn’t there when Franco and Jason were interacting, because it was a different Franco (played by James Franco).  I know that when Steve came back, the writers knew they had to address the fact that while Elizabeth and Jake (Hudson West), and the other Jason (now Drew, played by Billy Miller), had a perception of Franco, that they couldn’t necessarily ask the original Jason to see Franco, differently.  From Jason’s perspective, Franco was, in fact, the old Franco. So, from what little I know about the old Franco and the old Jason relationship, I think Franco has a real need for Jason’s approval.  In those scenes, I thought that here was a guy who was doing something and he wasn’t sure what was motivating him to do these things.  I thought that it was kind of cool and beautiful in that the pleaser and the killer are kind of different parts of the same person.  I think on a very basic level, he really wanted this other man (Jason) to like him.   I thought that was very human, so I liked that part.   It’s like, everybody else thinks he’s a changed man, so why does this one person just not see him for who he really is?”

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

What do you think about the relationship Franco has with Drew, who was the brother he grew up with as a little boy, before Drew was taken from the family?

ROGER:  I think that is an important relationship for Franco to have.  Drew was a key to his past.  I think moving forward these two will have a bond, despite themselves.

Courtesy/ABC

Do you think that if Franco found happiness and actually married Elizabeth, and it actually worked out, that he could deal with it?

ROGER:  I don’t know if that’s a Franco issue, or a human issue.  I think that people say they want intimacy, and they’ll do everything they can, and when they’re actually confronted with the possibility of it, they do sabotage, and they do run away, and they do find a way to screw it up.  I think that’s part of the hook.  Her perspective is something that I would hope would be written into the story, also.  Elizabeth has her past, and these two people are complicated.  I do think there’s something really sweet about the way that these characters feel about each other.  What I hope is that we’ve set up a dynamic that the audience is hoping that they can manage to be together.  I hope we are appealing to the part of the audience that doesn’t want to screw up their own lives.  (Laughs)

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Franco is great with Jake, and Liz’s other children, as well.  Why do you think that is? 

ROGER:  I think there’s an honesty and spontaneity to him, and I think Franco’s developed those survival skills, because of his own history.  He relates to kids on a really honest level that I think some children appreciate.

What was it like working with Greg Evigan in Franco’s childhood abuse storyline?

ROGER:  Greg was fantastic.  He did a great job, particularly when Franco actually got to confront him.  I think he was very successful in having his character’s point of view be heard.  For as dark and twisted and perverse as Jim Harvey’s thinking was, that character didn’t know that.  What they wrote was a man who said that he really loved these children, and that’s really difficult to write, play, and be a part of.  I think Greg owned it and did a really good job, and I think he was committed.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Would you have liked to have had a scene with Franco and his father, Scott Baldwin (Kin Shriner), where Franco went to his dad, and told him about the abuse he suffered as a child?

ROGER:  I do think that different roles provide different flavors, and there were some scenes in the park for instance, where Franco did tell Scott what had happened to him, and Scott’s reaction was very generous and supportive.  Franco told him what happened to him off-camera, because I’m guessing that the network thought there were some sensitive issues, and they never actually said the specifics of what happened to Franco, which is tasteful.

Courtesy/ABC

With what is going on in the world today with the news cycle, stories of sexual abuse are sadly more commonplace.  Do you think they wouldn’t get into more specifics about the abuse, because of this being a daytime soap opera and its audience?

ROGER:  I can’t tell whether they can’t say it, or they know who their audience is, and they can just point to it.  I think with the Bensch/Kiki storyline for example, they left things to the imagination.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

I thought that it was so sad what Franco went through.  That a molestation of a little boy happened over and over again.   It must have affected you when playing out this story.

ROGER:  I did get upset and sad.  I just can’t imagine that one person would do that to another person.  As an actor, I’ve played characters that have done horrible things, and it’s surprising to me that people are so resilient.  It’s just so sad what we do to each other.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Do you want to see your character progress in his life, or continue to be tortured by his past?

ROGER:  I think that the dramatic tension of it all is: “Will these people figure out their stuff?” I think that is intensely human and beautiful.  Every relationship is problematic for one reason or another, so I really hope that there’s a rooting value.  I don’t think that there can be a rooting value without an obstacle.

Have you ever gone to the powers-that-be to tell them what you’d like to do, or see happen next with your character?

ROGER:  No, I don’t get involved in any of that.  I’m not the best judge of what we do.  I’ve learned over the years that we have to commit to everything, because sometimes the things that you think are problematic wind up being the fan favorite.  So, I’m more of the: “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, and I’ll try not to screw it up.” (Laughs) They shouldn’t let the inmates run the asylum. (Laughs) Because then you get into a weird situation where you’re saying, “My character wouldn’t do that,” and that’s really limiting.  That’s the whole point of what we do.  It’s supposed to be challenging and out there and large-scale.  We are supposed to be really brave and accept the challenge.  We aren’t supposed to control where these people go.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

Will you tweak the lines of dialogue in small ways to fit your character, if necessary?

ROGER:  Very rarely, and honestly, not as much as people think. I work really hard to make it appear spontaneous.  By the time it comes on air, I’ve said it forty-five times.  You just have to see that character think that thing for the first time on the TV, because Franco didn’t get a rehearsal.  He doesn’t know what’s going to come out of his mouth, and the stimulus are supposed to happen to these characters, and you’re supposed to watch them react in real time.  Franco is a spontaneous human being, and I do think there is a responsibility for some characters like Nina (Michelle Stafford), and Franco and Obrecht (Kathleen Gati) to have a different set of synapses. I’ll give you an example: Elizabeth is going to the stand for the Kiki (Hayley Erin) trial, and they wrote a line where she says, “I’m going up there,” or something like that, and Franco says, “Good luck,” and then he turns downstage and says, “Me too.”  They didn’t know that the guy at the “Me Too” trial can’t say, “Me too,” so I told them that I would like to say, “Me also.”   So, there was a conversation about it, and they just wrote a different line.   I didn’t just tell them I wasn’t going to say that.  So, there are some conversations.  There are fewer conversations now than there were in New York at One Life to Live, because our head writer at the time, Ron Carlivati, was physically in the building.  At GH, there is a three-hour time difference between L.A. and N.Y. where most of our writers live, while we are taping on the west coast.  So, who do you talk to?  For the most part, it doesn’t happen.  There’s a luxury for me to even change “Me too” to “Me also.”   I do think that we are supposed to come up to the floor with a set of ideas and a way to get it out of our mouths.  I do think that they give me a bit of a longer leash, primarily because they understand that I kind of can’t do it another way.

Courtesy/ABC

What do you think of Franco’s relationship with Obrecht? What does he really think of her?

ROGER:  I think he really appreciates her support.  I don’t think her at times, insanity, bothers him.  I think he appreciates it.  I think he doesn’t want Obrecht to do harm to people, but expects her to be peculiar.

How would you feel if they wrote that Franco did harm people again?

ROGER:  Great.  Then we will do that.  It could be.  It is a little strange, and it seems to me, that they’ve grown reluctant to have some of the primary characters on the canvas behave poorly.  I think we do ourselves a disservice when we bring in a fantastic actor to play the bad guy.  I don’t know why the child abuse of Franco wasn’t from his actual father, Scott Baldwin.  How cool would that have been?  I do think that soaps need bad guys.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

What do you think about the journey you’ve had as an actor?  Do you feel that you’re a better actor now at this stage in your career?  You started out, I believe, when you were found by an ABC casting search and development program.

ROGER:  There was something that brought in to ABC: Michael Weatherly, Laura Wright, Rebecca Gayheart, and Roger Howarth.  We all came onto Loving at the same time, and I was terrible, and they fired me immediately.  I really thought that it should be played the same way that you play Shakespeare. (Laughs)  I was abysmal. I look at it that I am half-way through.  I made it to halfway in my career.  I’ve got another twenty-five years in me.  I don’t know what that will ultimately look like, but I just like acting.

Photo Credit: JPI Studios

You’ve never lost the passion for acting?  Some in your profession often sound jaded about it after doing it for a long time.  Do you still get the same thrill when you hit the set?

ROGER:  Every time I walk on a set, I think it’s amazing.  It’s cool what I do.  I love it.  I love what I do 100%.

So, are you looking forward to Franco and Liz’s upcoming nuptials? What did you think of Roger’s performances earlier this year when Franco recalled his sexual abuse at the hands of Jim Harvey? What did you think of Howarth’s comments about how key bad boys are on the soaps?  Share your thoughts via the comment section below.