A GH rep confirms that Nathanyael Grey, who joined GH in 2022 as Austin’s lollipop-sucking cousin, Mason, has wrapped his run on the show — at least for now. (Though Mason is Pentonville-bound, the door is being kept open for a return.) Speaking to Digest in September, the actor expressed surprise at the longevity of his stint. “I was hired for three episodes,” he marveled. “I’ve been waiting to die, like, forever! But Frank [Valentini, executive producer] told me on my fourth episode that he really liked what I did as an actor and he wanted to use me more. So I was like, ‘Okay!’ ”
Grey noted how appreciative he was of the warm response he’d gotten from fans, both in person and online. “The fans have been very, very sweet,” he said. “I met a woman at a bar/restaurant in North Hollywood and she kept looking at me, and then she goes, ‘Wait, you’re, you’re Mason on GENERAL HOSPITAL!’ I was like, ‘Yes, I am.’ She invited me to her birthday party! And I got recognized at Home Depot. This woman that worked at the store, I walked past her and she triple-takes me and started following me to the garden department. And then she was like, ‘I make everybody watch the show. You’re my favorite bad guy on the show.’ She introduced herself and she was also very sweet. It’s weird, though, because I don’t expect them to respond to me that way. Like, I’m not Roger [Howarth, Austin]! I’m nobody, you know? But the fact that they recognize me and think I’m a good actor, I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll take the compliment!’ They made me feel like I was somebody and I am absolutely nobody! I’m humbled by all the praise that I get.”
Grey had plenty of praise of his own to offer when speaking about his GH scene partners. “Roger is a very fine actor,” he said of his on-screen cousin. “He can make a scene interesting in an instant, with just a small turn of phrase. He’s a very unique character, quirky and intuitive. Roger likes to play and when we run a scene, he’ll goof off a little bit to kind of find momentum; Roger knows his lines, but he’ll go beyond them to try to find a moment. I’ve learned a lot from watching that and we play off of each other very well. I’ll have an idea and I’ll bounce it off him to see what he’ll do, and Roger just has this great ability to take something I would do, like a line or whatever, and he’ll make a joke that wasn’t in the script at all, but it lands so perfectly that it forces me to react. It brings you really into the moment.”
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Gatlin Jolt: Grey says of his on-screen cousin, Roger Howarth, “He can make a scene interesting in an instant.”
He likewise enjoyed working with Maura West (Ava). “Maura is a ball of fire,” he raved. “She is so, so funny. She makes such interesting choices and is so great to work with, but you never really know what you’re going to get with her! She’s very thorough when she rehearses and she plays around with a lot of concepts in a different way. I would say the most dynamic rehearsal I ever had was when I had scenes with both her and Roger at the same time, and watching them build their chemistry because of the direction their story was going. It’s like going to acting class watching Maura and Roger.”
He was glad to also cross storyline paths with Jeff Kober (Cyrus). “He’s two different people,” Grey declared. “That’s what I would say when he’s on set and he’s in Cyrus mode. In the scenes, he’s super-intense — then the man’s playing the harmonica like Neil Young and he becomes, like, the sweetest guy! He’s just so gentle in comparison to his character and he wears his personality on his shoulder, as it were. It’s fun working with him because he’s a very different style of actor. I think the best part [about working on GH] is all the different actors I’ve witnessed and their different styles of acting, but they’re all doing it in the same show. Maurice [Benard, Sonny] is very Method, and Maura very emotional, and Roger is very dialogue-driven, and finding his way with the words. With Jeff, it’s just presence, you know what I mean? Like, he sits down [as Cyrus] and his voice becomes that voice. That’s not even how he talks when he’s actually talking to you [when the cameras aren’t rolling]! It’s crazy! It’s just been a hell of an experience.”
The actor intended to savor every day on the job, however long it lasted. “I’ve told Frank countess times, ‘Thank you so much,’ ” he shared. ” ‘And when you finally kill me, I’ll have to say, it’s been a fun ride!’ I honestly must say, of everything I’ve ever worked on — every commercial, every play, every TV show and every movie — my favorite job I’ve ever had is GH, that’s a 100% fact. I’ve had more fun on this job than anything else I’ve ever done.”
