General Hospital Exclusive: Van Hansis on Lucas’s ‘Trauma Bond’ with Britt
After his boyfriend, Marco (Adrian Anchondo), was tragically murdered on General Hospital, Lucas Jones set out to avenge his death, putting his own life on the line to bring Cullum (Andrew Hawkes) and Sidwell (Carlo Rota) to justice. So far, this has been a solo quest for Lucas, but on the April 16 episode, he clued Britt (Kelly Thiebaud) in to his plan — and she promptly warned him that he was playing with fire. Lucas’s portrayer, Van Hansis, checked in with Soap Opera Digest about Lucas’s growing “trauma bond” with Britt and why he is confiding in her and not Carly (Laura Wright).
Snark Contrast
Britt herself is deeply enmeshed with Sidwell and Cullum, who have forcing her to continue the cold fusion research project started by her father, the late Cesar Faison (Anders Hove), in exchange for access to the medication keeping her Huntington’s disease in check. And while there’s no great love lost between Lucas and Britt, her own vulnerable position with the villains gives them not one but two common enemies and makes her the one person Lucas can truly be transparent with.
If this means that Lucas and Britt will stay in each other’s storyline orbits, Hansis is thrilled. “I absolutely love working with Kelly,” he says of GH co-star Thiebuad. “She’s become a very good friend of mine and we always have a really good time on set together.” Their on-camera relationship is equally dear to him. “What I really like about the Britt and Lucas relationship is that even though they are getting closer and closer, it’s not saccharine,” Hansis muses. “They’re not enemies by any means; there is a friendship there. But it is a friendship that is very different than, say, how Lucas is with Elizabeth [Rebecca Herbst].
“There’s a snark to to both of them that they have with each other and they express it by jabbing at each other,” Hansis continues. The actor says that moving forward in the story, “That doesn’t change — but you will start to see more vulnerability between the two of them. I think it’s a vulnerability that makes both of them uncomfortable, but I think it’s that they both need to be able to share what they’re going through with somebody. It’s a trauma bond, almost, because not only has Lucas lost Marco, but Britt has also lost Jason [Steve Burton] through this whole thing,” since Jason claimed responsibility for shooting Cullum and was promptly whisked away by the WSB.
Speak No Evil
That shared connection and mutual loss is why Lucas can confide in her while concealing his real reasons for continuing to reside at Wyndemere from his sister, Carly [Laura Wright], but Hansis thinks there’s another reason, too. The actor explains, “The way I have always played Lucas’s relationship with Carly is, he can be very critical of her, but he also very much puts her on a pedestal. I think Carly’s opinion of him means more than maybe anybody in Port Charles. I think that he doesn’t clue Carly in on why he is still living with Sidwell because he knows that she would disapprove of what he’s doing and he doesn’t want to handle her disapproval. Lucas sees things in black and white and so while I think he can be very judgmental of other people, I don’t think he handles it very well when people are judgmental of him!”
Hansis adds, “You know how when you’re a teenager and you’re doing bad things, you don’t want your parents to know about it, even if you have a great relationship with your parents? With Bobbie’s [Lucas and Carly’s late mother] absence, Carly is not necessarily a mother figure to Lucas, but she is somebody who is sort of like a guiding light for him, and I just don’t think he wants to hear negative things from her. Like, Ava [Maura West] can say them, but Carly can’t!”
As for whether Britt will be able to convince Lucas to drop his perilous mission out of self-preservation, Hansis doesn’t think she has a big chance of success. “Lucas knows that he’s in danger,” he declares. “He’s definitely aware of that, but that’s not as important to him as getting justice for Marco is.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.