General Hospital Exclusive: Rick Hearst (Ric) Previews Ava’s Day In Court
See You In Court: Ric (Rick Hearst) lays out his case for Ava’s (Maura West) acquittal when her trial begins next week.
Ava’s trial is poised to take center stage next week on General Hospital, putting Ms. Jerome’s future on the line. It also put the actor playing her defense attorney, Rick Hearst, in the memorization hot seat, testing his ability to toss off legalese with ease.
Trial By Fire
Hearst readily admits that he was anxious about the acting challenge the trial presented to him. “I have not done a courtroom trial in at least 10 years,” the actor says. “And when I got the initial script, or, I should say, the script for the first day that I did of court, which was two days’ worth of courtroom scenes, my insides went, ‘Oh, my God.’ And then I went, ‘Okay, here we go,’ and just immediately dove in.”
His first task “was memorizing a three-page opening statement,” Hearst continues. “And what was really at the forefront of my mind as I went along is that court scenes can sometimes be very labored, and [for the actors in the scenes], can be very, like, ‘Let’s get this over with!’ And my feeling was, I wanted to be so on point and I wanted Ric’s arguments to be so clear and to be really driving him. And knowing what Ric’s motivation was” — not only getting a not guilty verdict for Ava, but demonstrating to his daughter, Molly, that the tragic death of the baby Kristina was carrying for her was an accident, not a deliberate crime — “I thought the scenes were very well-written across the board and made sense.”
Hearst says that “the hardest thing for me was the continuity of the story [being rehashed in the testimony],” as the Ava/Kristina confrontation at the heart of the trial took place before Hearst returned to the show. “But I also had to go back to, ‘Hey, Rick wasn’t here for that argument and that animosity [between Ava and Kristina], but neither was Ric, and he’s the attorney, and the attorney is usually not privy to all the information and they need to investigate the facts and details of their job!’ So I literally took it on as I would have if it was a real case, and leading up to shooting it, I was hunkered down every day, going over [the material] every waking moment that I had.”
As the storyline has progressed and Ric has gotten more of a window into his client’s psyche, Hearst says that his character truly does believe Ava is innocent, and is sincere in his desire to help Molly see that for her own good, she needs to let go of her anger toward the accused. Notes the actor, “For Ric to defend Ava and say she isn’t guilty of pushing a pregnant woman out of a third-story window, he does genuinely have to believe her. Otherwise, there’s no credibility or credence to him doing this to help his daughter come to the realization that [baby Irene’s death] is nobody’s fault. If that core element wasn’t there, I don’t think genuinely and honestly he could even have a leg to stand on.”
In Hearst’s view of where Ric is coming from, “Molly has gone from blaming Kristina to blaming Ava; she’s looking for a place to lay that blame, and once you start blaming, you’re going to be in that never-ending cycle. That’s what he knows, and he feels the only way to break that cycle for Molly [is for Ava’s innocence to be proven in court].”
But that drive will lead to some fireworks in the courtroom. Teases Hearst, “He’ll be as ruthless as he needs to be. He will utilize every element of his defense to his advantage for her so that he gets what he needs, because ultimately, the end game is to get Molly to see that she can’t continue to harbor this anger, this vengeance that will continue to grow inside of her, whether it’s being placed on Kristina, whether it’s being placed on Ava, whether it’s being placed wherever it’s being placed.”
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