General Hospital’s Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) Dishes Ric Hostage Story And Daytime Emmy Nom (EXCL)
On General Hospital, Alexis got herself into quite the conundrum when supremely messy circumstances dictated (in her opinion at least!) that she team up with Ava and Kristina to hold Ric hostage in her basement. Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) opened up to Soap Opera Digest about why she’s bummed that storyline has come to an end, what feels different about her 13th Daytime Emmy nomination and more.
Captive Audience
“It was my favorite thing,” gushes Grahn about the fun she had with the “Ric in captivity” storyline. “I wish we could have had more fun in that basement! We all loved it,” she says of her partners-in-crime in the plot, Maura West (Ava) and Kate Mansi (Kristina), as well as good-natured victim Rick Hearst. “It was really fun. We had a lot of trouble not laughing!”
While the premise was dark — the three women kept blackmailing Ric chained to a bed, often with a ball gag in his mouth, and plied him with sleeping pills for weeks so they could reclaim the money he had pilfered from the Cassadine estate — it ended up being rather funny. “If they had turned this around and were doing this to a woman — which they did it to Carly, right [in the show’s infamous panic room storyline in which Ric held a pregnant Carly hostage] — then it becomes violent and upsetting, and I just really, really don’t like the violence. You know, nobody does, because our world is just so violent right now and everybody’s so on edge that my feeling is, you make them laugh! They don’t do that too often on General Hospital. On Santa Barbara,” where she played Julia Wainwright from 1985-93, “they did it all the time and I loved this. I wish they would do more of it.”
Grahn felt confident from the start of the story that the show would strike the right tone with it. “When I saw the script, the first script, I could tell it had kind of a black comedy thing to it, so I was good with that. If we were being serious — like, really super-serious — or if there was any thought that we were really going to hurt him, I would not have been into that. But they made it clear from the get-go. I mean, Ava’s got a ball gag in her glove compartment? That’s funny! The writers did a great job and it was very respectful to the characters. I just wish it lasted longer [laughs].”
Reel Talk
It’s a big week not only for Alexis, but for Grahn: the actress has once again earned a Daytime Emmy nomination, the 13th in her career, and on Friday night, she’ll find out whether she takes home the gold in the Outstanding Lead Actress category. “It’s always nice to be acknowledged,” says the star, who has two wins under her belt already, both for Supporting Actress; her 1989 win was for SB’s Julia, and in 2012, she was honored for her GH work.
The actress reports that it was not a given that she would submit herself for consideration. “I think I’m pretty self-aware and I think I’m very appropriately self-critical of my work, in a healthy way,” she says. “I don’t submit unless I feel like there’s something there. Otherwise, I just don’t bother. If I don’t feel my stuff is worth somebody sitting there and watching it, I don’t want to waste somebody’s time.”
In the period of eligibility, though, Grahn had strong material as Alexis’s world was rocked by the sudden loss of her firstborn daughter, Sam. “I actually think this work is good,” she shares of what she put together for her reel, which was a mix of the immediate aftermath of Sam’s death in the hospital, some of her funeral, and “a thing that I did in court with Ric, which is totally different. I was actually very proud of that tape, and for me to say that after doing this for this long is something. I’m the first person to call myself out, but I also need to be the first person to pat myself on the back because I think it was well-done. It was well-written and I thought it was well-executed.”
When she learned she had made the elite list of nominees, “I was humbled by it — you’re always humbled by it,” she muses. “I have to say, this time felt different because I actually agreed with the nomination. I always think I can do better, but with this tape … I felt complete with it. I thought, ‘I think this is solid and worthy of people’s time and I hope they like it,’ and they did. And that feels good.”
Glam I Am
Of course, every rose has its thorn, and for Grahn, that means putting herself through the rigamarole of getting herself red-carpet ready. “I really have to work on my attitude here, because I am not one to love getting dressed up and having to worry about the way I look and having to go through all that fuss and walking around in heels for hours and hours,” she admits. “It’s stressful, but I have no right to complain about it, so I won’t. I mean, it’s lovely and stressful. It can be both! Both things can be true.”
The actress is greatly looking forward to getting to hang out with friends and colleagues on Emmy night, including fellow nominee Gregory Harrison (ex-Gregory). “I haven’t seen Gregory in so long and I’m so looking forward to that,” Grahn says. “I have a tremendous appreciation for the daytime community and the people in it and the people that watch it. It’s a very nice thing to be able to see people and mingle with people that you don’t typically see and celebrate each other. It’s just that if I could come in jeans or sweatpants and a baseball cap and sneakers, it would be much easier for me!”
Noting that “I am not a fashionista, that is not my thing,” Grahn turned to her friends in the wardrobe department at GH to help put her look together. When she walks the red carpet, she’ll be wearing a floor-length silver skirt that was constructed for her in-house based on an inspiration photo she provided, one of Alexis’s blouses (a Norma Kamali design), “and my earrings are literally $15 from Amazon,” she adds. “Shopping stresses me out!”
Both her daughter, Kate, and her sister Suzi will be accompanying her to the ceremony. “It doesn’t really matter if you win or lose,” she asserts. “It’s not going to change anything, it’ll just be a really nice night for me and for my family. If I don’t get it, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. I don’t know [fellow nominee] Sharon Case [Sharon, Young and Restless] but I certainly love the other women in my category very much. One of us will get it and for the rest of us, life will go on!”
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