In the wake of stuffing the ballot box to win the Oakdale U election, AS THE WORLD TURNS' Luke slips back into some old patterns and destructive habits. Van Hansis talks about why being bad is just so darned good.

Soap Opera Weekly: Are you having a good time with Luke's fall from grace?
Van Hansis: Oh, yeah, it's been great to play, because you can only do so much with a character that is, for the most part, 100 percent good. You can only take it to certain places, because nobody's like that — everybody does bad things; everybody. So to have a good character — because I do think that Luke is essentially still a good character — doing bad things and making bad decisions, that's some of the most fun stuff to play as an actor.

Weekly: And as much as Luke has been raised a Snyder, he's still a Grimaldi, too — and Damian's a sketchy guy.
Hansis: Yeah, Damian's sketchy, and Luke has followed a lot in Lucinda's footsteps, too. I don't know where it will take him, but I think that Luke had to grow up and make mistakes, and had to do things that weren't good. In Oakdale, it seems like the people who do bad things are the most loved, like Paul or Carly, so I'm like, "Hell, Luke can do whatever he wants!" (laughs) It's interesting, because Paul and Carly are very, very popular characters. And Dusty, too. Yet all three of them are often doing pretty sketchy things, amoral things. So for Luke to start doing some of that, I find it very exciting.

Weekly: Definitely. Especially since there seems to be a habit of making core gay soap characters perfect, just so no one can ever find a wrong thing to say about them. Yet it's flaws that help make someone a more relatable character.
Hansis: That's the point of the story. When I was talking to people about it, they were like, "Luke really needs to mess up, Luke needs to grow up; he needs to make some bad decisions." It was time for Luke to have a little bit of a change and go down a darker path.