In the fall of 2004, GUIDING LIGHT suddenly, unceremoniously axed veteran cast member Grant Aleksander and killed off Phillip, the character Aleksander had played off and on for the previous 22 years. Insiders claim the show always planned on bringing the Spaulding scion back to life — and, more crucially, always assumed that perennial Emmy nominee Aleksander would eagerly reprise the role. Oops. In the 11/2 years since his firing, Aleksander has turned down multiple offers from the show, devoting himself instead to ambitions and duties that had been back-burnered by the demands of his former job: his animal rights work (see sidebar), directing at AS THE WORLD TURNS, feature films (he has parts in the upcoming indie slice-of-life Big Bad Swim, and a Gettysburg saga, Fields of Freedom), serving on a jury, enjoying free time at his New Jersey home with his wife, Sherry, and their legendary menagerie of rescued critters. Here, the actor discusses his past with GL, his present without it and what the future holds both for him and for Phillip.

Soap Opera Digest: We might as well get right down to it. Did getting fired shock you?
Grant Aleksander: I don't know that there's a really good, honest answer to that. I think every actor instinctively suspects that, you know, someday the bell's gonna toll for you [laughs], but at the same time, when you've been on a show for a long time, it instinctively seems less likely. But when Tom O'Rourke [ex-Justin] got fired from our show a million years ago, I promised myself I would never be surprised if they canned me. I always tried to keep that in the back of my mind. So I guess yes and no, both.

Digest: Were your feelings hurt?
Aleksander: If you've been as fortunate as I have over the years to work a lot and to be well paid, I just don't think you have the right to get your feelings hurt when your number comes up and they say thanks.

Digest: From a financial standpoint, are you okay?
Aleksander: Um ... you know, they pay you very well while you're working. And if you're lucky enough to work for a long time, you ought to have some money saved. And we've always been pretty good about that, so yeah, I'm okay.

Digest: When you were let go, another magazine ran a story saying that it was because you were difficult to work with and had problems with your female co-stars.
Aleksander: Yes, and I was surprised by that. That was unpleasant.

Digest: Looking back, do you think that you ever were difficult? Could there have been any validity to the story?
Aleksander: Oh, I think there's always validity to certain things; the thing that upset me about that article was that they didn't pick any of the right things. You can absolutely say that I was extremely intense at work and I was demanding in that, you know, I wanted the work to be as good as I could make it and I expected everyone else to feel that way, too. And I definitely think it would have been fair for someone to say, "Grant, lighten up." But I just didn't think that any of the things the article said were fair. And it particularly bothered me that people might think that was the reason I was let go because I knew for a fact that it wasn't true.

Digest: So as far as you're concerned, you were let go purely for storyline reasons?
Aleksander: As far as I know. I think they were looking for a really big, shocking story to tell and they thought [killing Phillip] would be a good one.