General Hospital Exclusive: Cynthia Watros on How Far Nina Will Go to Protect Willow
Nina’s life took a dramatic turn on General Hospital last week when her daughter, Willow (Katelyn MacMullen), confessed that she shot Drew (Cameron Mathison) and is now drugging him to keep him in a locked-in state, then tricked Nina into delivering one of the illicit injections to gain leverage over her. “It’s a pretty big crisis,” says Nina’s portrayer, Cynthia Watros, who gave Soap Opera Digest the inside scoop about Nina’s drive to protect Willow, how Brennan (Chris McKenna) and Valentin (James Patrick Stuart) fit in, and the co-star she says she just can’t help but flirt with in scenes.
All For One
Willow’s admission of guilt was far from music to Nina’s ears, but according to Watros, she wasn’t entirely unprepared to hear it. Watros shares, “I think that Nina always suspected that there was more to the story than what Willow was telling her, but she didn’t really want to believe it,” she muses. “When Willow finally admitted the whole truth to Nina, it still stung because even though she had her suspicions, having them validated means knowing that her daughter is in a lot of trouble.”
When Willow also revealed how she had deceived her mom by getting Nina’s fingerprints on one of the syringes used to inject Drew, things went from bad to worse. “That was a shock,” Watros nods. “Nina is definitely worried about where she is mentally, if she’s blackmailing Nina into doing what she wants — even though with Nina, Willow didn’t need to blackmail her. I think Nina loves her daughter so much that she definitely has a huge blind spot when it comes to the things that she does, and I think the amount of sacrificing that Nina will do for her child is huge.”
Willow explained to Nina that she had tricked her into administering the drug to Drew so that she wouldn’t have to choose between her loyalty to Willow and her loyalty to Charlotte (Bluesy Burke), her former stepdaughter. In the current story, Nina is also beholden to WSB Agent Jack Brennan for making incriminating evidence implicating Willow in Drew’s shooting disappear during her trial for the crime. In exchange, he wants Nina to get Charlotte to disclose the whereabouts of her dad, fugitive Valentin.
Watros doesn’t think Brennan was ever going to get that info out of Nina, even if Charlotte spilled it. “I never thought that Nina was ever going to betray Charlotte,” the actress says. “So for Nina, it’s a struggle, because she’s trying to protect Charlotte and she’s trying to protect Willow, and I think Nina feels like she can do both and keep both girls safe.” Which, she acknowledges, may be easier said than done. “I love Nina so much, but she’s not always great at the execution of her plans! She’s not an expert at any of this, and she fumbles.”
Further complicating matters? That Valentin himself sneaked out of his hiding spot in Carly’s (Laura Wright) attic to pay Nina a visit to try to persuade her to work with him against Brennan and feed the agent false info on his location. “She always has a soft spot for Valentin,” Watros notes. “No matter what happens, she will always have a love for him and want to make sure he’s okay, too. She’s not sure how this is all going to work out between Valentin and Brennan and Willow. I think that’s very confusing right now in Nina’s mind!”
Anything For Love
A sure sign that Nina is willing to try anything to regain control of the situation is that on the April 20th episode, she tapped Ric Lansing (Rick Hearst) — to whom she had a short-lived and stormy marriage back in 2015 when he tried to bilk her for her fortune — to try to build a battered woman defense for Willow, just in case Congresswoman Cain finds herself back in handcuffs. “He definitely brings up some issues that Nina might not have thought about ahead of time,” allows Watros, referring to Ric’s comments about how Willow won’t be protected by double jeopardy if she has committed more crimes against Drew since the shooting, and also his warning that Nina might be considered an accomplice to those crimes.
“What I really like about Nina is that she really thinks ahead,” Watros says. “She’s thinking, ‘Okay, so how can we strategize if people do find out about this? What can we do to protect Willow? Can we maybe use this defense or maybe this one?’ But I also think that Nina is very softhearted. I don’t think any of this feels good to her. Injecting Drew with a paralytic is very uncomfortable for her; it’s not in her personality to go around physically harming people. But yeah, Nina is definitely putting herself in jeopardy, legally and morally.”
And if viewers noticed any sparks in Watros’s scenes with Rick Hearst, know that that was by design. Grins Watros, “I love Rick so much and so whenever I can, in scenes with him, I always like to flirt with him a little bit because in the back of my mind, I’m like, ‘Maybe they’ll put them back together!’ I can’t help it [laughs]! He is just the loveliest, nicest, most amazing, down-to-earth guy.”
But for now, romance will have to wait as Nina moves heaven and earth to keep Willow — and herself — out of jail. “Nina will do pretty much anything to protect Willow,” declares Watros, who says she draws from her real-life experience of motherhood to fuel Nina’s maternal instincts. “I have young adult daughters [twins Emma and Sadie, 24] that in no way are in the kind of trouble that Willow is, but as Cynthia, I still wish that I could plan out their lives and tell them exactly what to do, and they’d do it and everything would be great and their lives would be perfect because I know the answers to everything and they wouldn’t have to make the same mistakes I have made in my life! But they have their own journey, and you’re going to love them even if you don’t 100 percent agree on the journey that they’re taking.
“I kind of implement that with Nina and Willow,” the actress continues. “Of course Nina doesn’t agree with all the decisions that Willow makes, but the bottom line is, she is Willow’s mother and she would give her life for this girl. And in some ways, that’s what she’s doing.”
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