Greg Vaughan Previews His New Beyond the Gates Character: ‘He’s Reshaping His Life’ (Excl)
During his daytime career, Greg Vaughan has earned fans through his roles as Diego on Young and Restless, Lucky on General Hospital, and Eric on Days of Our Lives, and now he’s adding another soap to his resume when he debuts as Dr. Kial Rollins on Beyond the Gates on Monday, December 8. However, the actor jokes to Soap Opera Digest that he actually had a different daytime drama on his radar. “Well, Bold and the Beautiful was my next goal,” he says with a chuckle. “I was like, if I’m gonna hit all the flagships, Bold and the Beautiful has not got my stamp of approval yet. But I’ve made my way [to] CBS again!”
Man of Mystery
Joining the cast of BTG came about when the new soap’s head writer, Michele Val Jean — who was a script writer at GH during Vaughan’s tenure as Lucky — called him up out of the blue. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I haven’t spoken to Michele in a long time,” Vaughan recalls. “I pick it up, and she’s like, ‘Hey Greg, it’s Michele.’ And I’m like, ‘What do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?’ And she’s like, ‘I have a role, so give me an answer.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ And she’s like, ‘I have a role that I want you to take, so yes or no,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, what is it?’ And she’s like, ‘It’s a yes or no conversation right now, okay? I’ve written it, it’s for you. Do you want it? Because if you come, I’m going to write this. Yes? Okay, done. I’ll have people call you.’”
Despite not knowing exactly what he had just gotten himself into, the actor was excited to be getting back to work. “I mean, it’s been 15 months,” says Vaughan, referring to the end of his time on contract at DAYS (he has subsequently popped in for visits as Eric). “I took time off and I embraced it, but now I’d love to get back into the game because, if you know the industry well enough, there’s not been a lot of work going on.”
And he did eventually get a little hint as to the character he’d be playing before the actual scripts started rolling in. “Another week went by, and I’m like, ‘You know that conversation we were supposed to have? Because I’m now getting contracts that I need to be there in Atlanta without scripts,’” he recounts with a laugh. “So I was like, ‘Can you send me some kind of a synopsis?’ And she’s like, ‘You are a traveling sports orthopedic surgeon. Widower. Father of two boys.’”
The idea of playing a doctor spouting medical jargon was daunting, but Vaughan was up for the challenge. “This is the fear that I have had to be in this medical world, this dialogue that one would share with another doctor,” he admits, “but when she gave me that it was a traveling orthopedics doctor, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m a father of three boys [real-life sons Jathan, Cavan, and Landan]. I’ve been hurt a lot, they’ve been hurt. I’ve spent a lot of time recently in the ER because of my sons and their motorcycles, so I can do this.’”
Getting to Know You
Already familiar with Val Jean from GH and aware that BTG had made quite a splash since it premiered in February 2025, Vaughan’s anticipation to begin working was soon growing. “I knew the success as it was launched was picking up,” he says of the fledgling soap. “I saw a lot of articles going on about the show. But then a few of my former co-stars that I worked with on Queen Sugar [as Calvin] were there [such as Timon Kyle Durrett, Bill, who played Davis], and I reached out to them, trying to get a pulse on the temperature out there, and they were like, ‘Bro. You need to come! I can’t wait.’ They were sending me emojis of like, confetti flying everywhere [to show] how excited they were if I would come. So I just leaned into it. This was an opportunity to do something outside of what I had been accustomed to doing the last 10 years. So it was refreshing, and it’s been fantastic.”
Vaughan teases that fans who are familiar with him from his previous soap roles are about to see him in a whole new light, as Kial is completely different from his other daytime characters. “He’s been more introverted as he’s getting the lay of the land in a new environment, a new hospital,” the actor previews. “He’s not aggressive with his approach. He’s just embracing it and a sponge, if you will, soaking it up. And he’s a nomad, because he’s a traveling orthopedic surgeon, so he’s never rooted in one place. He’s just kind of reshaping his life, and I’m reshaping a character that hasn’t been established. So I’m just enjoying this journey.”
The actor hopes that fans of his from the other soaps tune in to check him out on BTG. “My grandmother was the biggest CBS watcher, so I did Young and the Restless for her,” he says. “But let me tell you, Beyond the Gates is so fresh, so well written, and so much talent for such a new show. I’d say this is already, like, veteran quality television, and I’m just happy to be a part of it. And I hope this character is somebody that each and every one of these fans will be excited to see and wanting more.”
Vaughan is confident that his storyline will be a hit with fans. “You’re gonna love it,” he predicts of what Kial gets mixed up in. “It’s got drama. It’s got everything you’d want a soap to have.”
Conversation
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