Exclusive: GH’s Kristen Vaganos Shares Backstage Secrets Of Molly And TJ’s Breakup

Go Your Own Way: TJ (Tajh Bellow) and Molly (Kristen Vaganos) have reached a breaking point in their relationship.

The hits just keep coming for Molly on General Hospital. Not only is she mourning the deaths of Irene (the baby her sister Kristina was carrying for her and her domestic partner TJ) and her big sister Sam, but she and TJ have come to the conclusion that their visions for their future are too far apart to move forward as a couple. Soap Opera Digest got the inside scoop from Molly’s portrayer, Kristen Vaganos, about the split, acting out the heartbreaking turn with Tajh Bellow (TJ) and more.

 

Soap Opera Digest: Molly and TJ’s relationship has been strained for a while now. What is your take on what proved to be the breaking point for them as a couple?

Kristen Vaganos: I think it’s that really devastating thing where, after everything has happened, Molly feels like, “I can’t be anything for anybody right now. I can’t put on a brave face. I can’t perform for you or grieve the way you want me to. I am literally hanging on by a thread.”  Obviously TJ and Molly cope in very different ways. We’ve been experiencing that and feeling that since the very beginning of their attempts to get pregnant. And so it just all comes to a head where TJ wants this closeness, wants to mourn together, wants to be in this together, and Molly’s way of coping is to push people away, to put on her blazer and just throw herself into her work and distract herself from what is happening and feel productive and feel efficient and feel that life moves on, because to sit in it — to pause and stop and really sit in it with him — is too painful. When a couple goes through something like [the death of a child], where your partner is that person you look to for comfort and for safety and then it changes, and when you look at them, all it does is remind you of grief and loss. It’s heartbreaking and it’s really no one’s fault, but you can’t just come back from it. [For Molly] he doesn’t represent safety and happiness anymore, he represents all that we’ve lost. Molly feels attacked by the way that he doesn’t feel that she’s grieving correctly. She feels like she’s constantly at fault and constantly apologizing, and she can’t handle any of that anymore. She doesn’t have a single ounce of strength left for that. So it just gets to the horrible breaking point of, “Maybe we can’t do this anymore.” And then on top of that, you add the notion that TJ wants to try again [to have a baby], and Molly just doesn’t have that in her.

Digest: The breakup scenes themselves were quite emotional. What were they like to film with Tajh Bellow (TJ)?

Vaganos: They were definitely an intense bunch of scenes to do with Tajh. It just felt like our hearts broke over and over and over in the rehearsal, in the running of lines, in the workshopping of it all the way into filming it. I mean, we were, like, ugly-crying snot all over the place the whole time! It was just heartbreaking, but it really was a culmination of such a long storyline that we’ve had going on for a year now. We really wanted to do these characters and this relationship justice, because the characters and the relationship existed before either of us [Vaganos assumed the role of Molly in 2023, while Bellow has played TJ since 2018, but the couple’s romance began on screen back in 2012]. We really had this shared awareness of the responsibility to do the story and their relationship justice and to honor it as it sort of fell apart, and to experience the weight of that. It really had to be sort of brutal and heartbreaking and not easy for them to come to this conclusion [about separating], because there is so much love and history there. We sort of took our time with those scenes and really, moment to moment, were checking in about is certain blocking felt right in the moment and that kind of thing. By the time we were taping, it felt like we were off to the races and were clearly in a flow, and whatever was happening was happening. I’m so grateful to the team and the directors that they were sort of willing to work with us, like, “Do you want to stand up [on that line]?” “Do you want to turn to face him?” They were really malleable with us, and we all just felt really kind of locked in and present.

Digest: The show delivered a real gut-punch ending, with TJ and Molly both falling apart on opposite sides of their apartment door.

Vaganos: Yeah, it ends with us in the separate little vignettes. I filmed mine first, right after the [previous] scene ended, and then they would move the cameras and reset and then they filmed Tajh. I finished my scene, and I stepped off [the set] and got water and tissues and all of that, and sort of put myself back together a little bit. And then, just as they were getting ready to film Tajh’s part, I remember that I came back to the set and I just kind of grabbed his shoulders and was like, “Do you need anything from me?” Like, “Can I help you?” And he just asked if I would give him a hug, so that we could feel the closeness and then the separation, again, so that he could feel that going right into the scene. So we did; I just kind of held him for a little while as he was sort of getting emotional again, and then as soon as they were ready [to resume filming], I kind of let go, let him go. So we were really teammates throughout the whole thing and yeah, it was just so heartbreaking.

Digest: So much heartbreak in such a short period of time — even by soap standards!

Vaganos: Yeah, it really has been. It’s been one thing after another for months. Tajh and I talk about that all the time. We’re like, “Oh, come into work and get in your sad pants!” We haven’t had a bright day for a while, so we’re curious if something is out there for TJ and Molly, if some happiness is coming soon. But it really was an honor to play out this story through to — not to the end, but to wherever we are now, to this moment in time, and just honor their experience. There’s a lot of love between them still. There’s no hatred; it’s just not working at the moment.

Digest: General Hospital viewers have never seen Molly as a single adult woman. Not saying that she’s truly single and available, but still, it’s a big change for someone who ended up in a domestic partnership with her high school sweetheart.

Vaganos: Yeah, and to be honest, I’m just as curious as viewers are! I’m really intrigued and excited to see what happens next for Molly and what this next phase of her life looks like because she’s never had to experience [navigating her adult life without TJ as her partner]. And I don’t know exactly how it’s going to go, because you’ve got someone at their breaking point, right? So even someone who is as ingrained in their ways as Molly is, when you take them to this kind of rock bottom, anything can happen. She could really sort of do a 180 and act in ways we’ve never seen from her before and become a little unhinged just because she’s lost so much. Or she could stick to her ways and react in a very Type A way. I really don’t know! I am curious to see what dating looks like for Molly, if that is what she does next. I can’t really imagine throwing myself into another relationship if I was at where she is emotionally. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t expect that for her. I would expect a moment of independence and solitude and just not owing anybody anything because that could be quite freeing.

Digest: Could you imagine a world in which TJ and Molly could reconnect, could get back on the same page down the line?

Vaganos: Absolutely. I mean, they’re bonded for life. They’re all each other knows, and there’s probably a lot for them both to learn about themselves if they take time apart. A lot of times what happens then is you learn that you really did want that thing from before and you can’t live without it. And so they might be brought back together. And with some distance, maybe they can, sort of, choose each other again with a newfound motivation, but the thing that worries me in terms of, their relationship is, the simple fact of right now, do they want the same future? Because it, doesn’t sound like they do. And that happens all the time, that couples who are really great together are broken up by this, just one simple black and white thing as if you don’t want the same thing, then you just can’t force it. But maybe Molly will come around and maybe she will want kids again. We’ll see.