There's a lot of history between GENERAL HOSPITAL's Lane Davies and Nancy Lee Grahn — professional and personal. The two shot to stardom in the mid-'80s as Santa Barbara supercouple Mason and Julia Capwell, where their volatile romance and rumored offscreen affair provided scintillating stories for soap press and tabloids alike. Now, reunited 14 years later on General Hospital (Davies left SB in '89; Grahn in '93), the actors are forming a new relationship as unconventional shrink Cameron Lewis and neurotic attorney Alexis Davis. One thing that hasn't changed: their love/hate chemistry. Ready for round two?

Soap Opera Weekly: Nancy, what did you think when you heard Lane was joining the show?
Nancy Lee Grahn: Well, after I cried really hard and went upstairs with my hands on my hips...(laughs) I thought it was great. It was somebody good to work off of, and clearly we had done this before. My only reservation was that I believe that you can't go back, so I thought: We have to make this new and different somehow.
Lane Davies: You wanted to make me a lawyer and put me back in the suit and exchange witty repartee.
Grahn: You're right, actually, because that is what we do best. I wanted it where we were at odds with each other.
Davies: History works best when we want to kill each other.

Weekly: Lane, what did you think?
Davies: I had been talking back and forth with (executive producer) Jill (Farren Phelps) and (co-head writer) Bob (Guza) for a while. So I was thrilled when they called, and I figured I would be working with Nancy. The good thing about it is we know the chemistry works, so we don't have to do all that soapy stuff to indicate that something is there. Because it was there even in our worst times together; the chemical element was always there.
Grahn: We weren't speaking to each other for what, eight months?
Davies: Eight months. And four years after the show. My running gag is that it doesn't matter if we are close to strangulation or copulation, the audience seems to like it either way.

Weekly: Did your on-screen romance carry over into your personal life?
Grahn: Yes, and who the hell cares (laughs)? It was a long time ago.
Davies: It's not that it wouldn't have happened under different circumstances, but daytime is an especially dangerous arena for romantic involvement because the mind can be programmed to believe something. If you're thrown in not only from the run of the show but year after year telling someone how much you care about them, trying to create a reality to those scenes so the audience believes them — sooner or later it becomes very hard for your reptile brain to know the difference.
Grahn: We were there for 16 hours a day. There was a lot of lag time.
Davies: And a lot of the time you are by yourself in a dressing room.
Grahn: Or together...
Davies: Frequently, with startlingly attractive people. It's a dangerous place to be. We were young.

Weekly: Do you think it is a bad idea to get romantically involved with a co-star?
Davies: I have never been sure if that had that much to do with the deterioration of the working relationship. It probably had something to do with it, but on the other hand, it might have fallen apart anyway. If you have ever seen (Neil Simon's) The Sunshine Boys, they want to bring them back together but they couldn't because there were so many buttons that were pushed.

Weekly: Would you have big blow-outs?
Grahn: No, he would sit there and not say anything and completely refuse to do anything, and I would be like,"Blahhh, blahhh, blahhh..."
Davies: I knew that would tick her off. I'm Celtic so I brood rather than blow up, generally. And I prefer passive aggression to beating the crap out of each other.
Grahn: We fit the stereotypical man/woman thing. It was classic. I spent many hours in therapy. Between my real-life boyfriend and him I thought: I'm going to figure this out come hell or high water. It took me 10 years, but I have come through the other end victorious.
Davies: I don't think she has made any gains at all. She's as crazy as she has always been.
Grahn: I just don't have boyfriends now. I feel being single is the solution to all my problems.

Weekly: How did everybody on the set react?
Grahn: We provided great entertainment. They loved it, they egged it on. They were like,"Look — he's locked himself in the dressing room and she won't talk to him!"