Jon Lindstrom And Cady McClain Join The Cast Of Beyond The Gates!
When Beyond The Gates premieres on CBS on Monday, February 24, two more faces in its cast will already be familiar to soap fans. The show has announced that daytime veterans Cady McClain (ex-Jennifer Horton Deveraux, Days of Our Lives; ex-Kelly Andrews, Young and Restless; ex-Dixie Cooney Martin, All My Children; ex-Rosanna Cabot, As the World Turns) and Jon Lindstrom (Kevin Collins/ex-Ryan Chamberlain, General Hospital; ex-Craig Montgomery, ATWT, et al) have signed on to play the roles of Pamela Curtis and Joey Armstrong on the new sudser.
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The actors’ casting on BTG was announced during a Zoom interview, where they were joined by other members of the cast along with Executive Producer Sheila Ducksworth and Michele Val Jean, creator/head writer/showrunner. Val Jean broke the news of their casting with a flourish. “I finally know the meaning of chomping at the bit because I’ve been so excited to share what we’re about to reveal,” she said. “It’s my honor, my privilege, my joy to introduce our newest cast members, who are not only soap opera icons and brilliant actors, but two of my favorite people on the planet.”
Lindstrom and McClain were equally effusive in expressing their excitement over their new daytime family. “I’m just so thrilled to be a part of this incredible cast and this amazing show,” McClain enthused. “I think it is so exciting. It’s such a beautiful production [with] such amazing actors, and I have the great pleasure of getting to work a great deal with Karla [Mosley], and we have so much fun— probably too much fun!” Pamela will be in the thick of storyline with Mosley’s character, Dani. “We play very, very, very, very, very dear old friends, and we get up to a bit of trouble,” McClain teased.
Lindstrom described his new alter ego “as a bit of an entrepreneur in a kind way. Joey comes from the other side of the tracks. He has fought his way up in many ways, but he’s never lost his charm. But Joey runs a casino, which, if you’ve ever been inside a casino, you know a casino is kind of like what a bar is to an alcoholic. So, people can get into a lot of trouble around Joey, and Joey doesn’t like trouble. He knows how to end trouble, but he doesn’t like trouble.”
This is not the first time Lindstrom and McClain have worked together. On the defunct ATWT, their characters were linked romantically, and in 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic, Lindstrom stepped in as a body double for Matthew Ashford (Jack) in a kissing scene with McClain — his then real-life wife on DAYS. The actors got engaged in 2012 and tied the knot on Valentine’s Day in 2014, but announced their split in April of 2024. In a since-deleted Instagram post, they wrote, “After serious consideration, we have decided that our goals have been taking us in different directions and to end our marriage. We remain friends and wish each other every happiness. As people who work in the public eye, it can be difficult to have a private life. Regardless, we ask for your kind consideration in this matter.”
Val Jean and Lindstrom’s professional affiliation stretches back to the early 1990s, when both were working at GH. Lindstrom originally entered the Port Charles scene as serial killer Ryan in 1992, and the following year, the show introduced Ryan’s upstanding twin brother, psychiatrist Kevin. In a 2021 interview with Soap Opera Digest, Lindstrom credited his success in the dual roles to Val Jean, then a member of GH’s writing team. He explained, “The character was created out of necessity to, at that time, replace Ryan with someone who looked like me and who didn’t need to be redeemed, since Ryan was unredeemable. [Then-Head Writer] Claire Labine threw Michele the reins and then she and I talked a lot about what ways Kevin could be differentiated from Ryan. Michele is an incredibly articulate, well-read person. I think Kevin’s syntax, the way he speaks, never would have developed clearly without her.”
Ditto Kevin’s popular pairing with Lucy Coe, played by Lynn Herring. “It was her idea to put them together,” Lindstrom shared. “I think her take on it was something like, ‘What if Lucy goes to therapy, not because she thinks she needs it, but because she thinks Kevin is cute?’ She pitched it to Claire and she told Michele to run with it. And man, did she ever! The story of how Lucy chased Kevin, who didn’t trust his own heart then, was her doing. She wrote all those scenes, so she was, in a word, indispensable. She not only wrote the Kevin/Lucy stuff, but she was primary writer on all the Kevin/Ryan scenes going forward. She told me the first significant thing she wrote of Ryan was his first confession in the police station with Sean and Mac, and that she fell in love with his ‘crazy’ from those scenes and wanted to write him every chance she got. Ryan was so well-defined in a twisted sort of way, and only Michele can pull that off.”
Given Lindstrom’s deep respect for Val Jean, it should come as no surprise that when asked what his favorite thing about being part of BTG was, he replied, “Michele Val Jean. That’s about all I can say about that. Everybody knows that Michele is the best writer in the business — and they don’t want to admit it, especially if they’re another writer, but she is the very best in the business.” He also spoke highly of “every single member of this cast—this incredible cast—and this crew, who are so happy to walk through those doors every day and be a part of something [that] is so groundbreaking.”
Time will tell whether Lindstrom’s commitment to BTG will prevent him from continuing to air on GH as Kevin (Ryan was killed off in 2023). The character is currently happily married to the mayor of Port Charles, Genie Francis’s Laura, and was last seen on screen in December 2024.
New Year, New Me: McClain and Lindstrom as Pamela and Joey on Beyond The Gates.
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