Together, even when their characters are not, GENERAL HOSPITAL's Maurice Benard (Sonny) and Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) are actors who genuinely love working with each other. Here, they offer a glimpse at a real-life connection that exceeds even their potent on-screen chemistry, as these respected thesps expound on a ton of topics including why Benard hardly minds when Grahn compares him to a dog named Barney.
Digest: Do you remember your first scenes together?
Maurice: Uh...no.
Nancy: I'm afraid I can't recall myself.
Maurice: You know why I don't? It was because it was way long ago...
Nancy:...and I was a nothin' burger on the show, so he paid no attention to me. And he made me call him Mr. Benard.
Maurice (laughs): No, it's just that there were scenes where she'd come in, say some legal terms and leave, basically.
Digest: Did you know each other's work or reputations before you started?
Benard: I thought she was wonderful, especially having to say all those big words. [Grahn snorts.] I'm afraid of big words.
Nancy: I'd been visualizing working with the big tamale way back when because I was a great admirer of his. He's Mr. Cool. I thoroughly enjoy working with him.
Maurice: We get each other. It just kind of flows. I mean, she talks too much, but....
Nancy (laughs): He's constantly going. "They agreed with you. Why do you keep talking?" He keeps me grounded, and I keep him from being too serious.
Maurice: Yeah, and it's good. She helps me with the comedy side of anything, which is not really what I love to do. And her timing is as good as it gets. It helps my timing.
Digest: Do you remember when you first felt like things clicked on-screen?
Maurice: I know when. There was a scene after they blew up Sonny's penthouse and made it into a sardine can. I remember the day because it was one of the first days that I worked in that sardine can and I thought, "Okay, I guess this is what it has come to."
Nancy: He was feeling vulnerable because they made his set smaller.
Maurice: Right
Nancy: And you know what happens to actors when they make their sets smaller [Benard laughs.]
Maurice: We had scenes where...it was the first time Alexis opened up and talked about her mother. Somebody got choked or something...I don't know.
Nancy: You know, the old, "My mother's throat got slit by Helena...."
Maurice: And after seeing that show, I said, "Okay, this could be something," because we listened and talked to each other. She broke down, and it affected me. I was like, "Right on. This is cool."
Nancy: For me, it was when Sonny was sitting in [Alexis' apartment, and I had a five-page monologue and then passed out.
Maurice: (grins): Oh, yeah!
Nancy: and his reaction...he had no words to say, but from his expression--that was how somebody would react if someone were doing that. I liked the dynamic. They are opposites. Alexis is the law., Sonny is the breaker of the law. They're both the masters of control.
Maurice: Yeah, in different ways.
Nancy: We demonstrate it differently. But the balance of the two of us feels right. It makes it really fun. I go to work happy, and I leave happy. And it's exciting for me to work with the biggest soap actor...
Maurice: Aww, shut up [laughs]
Digest: Sonny's softer, funnier side has been allowed to come out. Do you like that?
Maurice: I like it if its coming out of real situations and circumstances. I like it if I can still do it and the other stuff. To me, it's the best of both worlds. I wouldn't like it if I just played comedy, no matter how good I think she is. I like to shout.
Nancy: And break things.
Maurice: And break things.
Nancy: And I like to roll my eyes when he does that.
Maurice: Exactly. So for me. it's fantastic.
Digest: How do your acting styles compare?
Maurice: The joke is she's from the Sandy Meisner School, and I'm from the Actor's Studio.
Nancy: [His] is very Method and the other is very instinctual--listening and responding, asking why. He goes strictly by feeling and has the sensory of an animal. He's the most honest person I have ever met in my life. I love that most about him. But I get more cerebral because I have a bit of a writer in me.
Maurice: A bit?
Nancy: He's also more reasonable than I am. I thought it would be the other way around, but it's not.
Digest: Why do you say that?
Nancy: Well, because quite frankly, there are certain men in daytime who can say, "I don't want to do this," and everyone goes, "How can we make you happy?" And I can say, "I don't want to do this," and they go, "Will you stop being such a bitch?" [Benard burst out laughing] That still exists. I'm not getting on a soap box about it. But the truth is, he doesn't make a fuss. He is a good picker and chooser of battles. He doesn't make a fuss unless it deserves a fuss. And I don't make a fuss either, but I'll whine.
Maurice: It's funny because Jill [Farren Phelps, executive producer] comes out and gives me a look, and we both laugh.
Nancy: And every time she passes me, she goes, "You're fired [laughs]," But you know what? It works the other way too. He gets nutty over little things. What about the times that somebody talked on the set?
Maurice: Oh, that's different.
Nancy: Which never bothers me.
Maurice: If I'm acting in a scene and I hear people talking, that can get me. If people talk. I just think it's disrespectful.
Nancy: Or when people ask you to speak up. They don't do it again after the first time!
Maurice: No, I've gone off on that so much that I think it's over with. When I started, I was with [former Executive Producer] Wendy Riche and [Consulting Producer/Director] Shelley Curtis and they offered me [this role] and I said, "All right. But there's a few things that, just don't tell me to do. Don't tell me to talk faster or talk louder." So the first day, I'll never forget I had these big scenes--I mean big monologues. I'm doing them and then [I hear] over the intercom [in a booming voice]. "Could you talk louder, please?" first day--I took a pause. That was that. Months later, directors who didn't know me, they'd tell me that and I'd go off.
Nancy: "Nooo! Don't say that [laughs]!"
Maurice: That's the only thing that pisses me off. Now, if you ask me to sit in a cabin and walk around looking at turtles...
Digest: If you're referring to Angel's cabin, you were looking at loons.
Nancy: Yup, loons. You were lookin' at loons! It's just when you do anything without any reason.
Maurice: And I'm not big on comedy with Sonny. I remember doing a scene with Anthony Geary [Luke], who's wonderful with comedy, but with me....That's why you don't see me singing at the Nurses' Ball.
Nancy: Now that would be funny! You could sing, "When Sonny gets blue."
Maurice: Yeah, right.
Digest: Were you surprised how people responded to Sonny and Alexis right away?
Maurice: I was surprised, but there are so many different types of fans out there.
Nancy: Yeah. I always kind of put myself in the place of the audience, going, "If I were watching this, what would I think?" It feels like we're participating and the audience is participating. So, I like that they like it.
Digest: And many wanted romance.
Maurice: It was like real life. I care about Nancy as a friend. Sonny cares about Alexis that way. Deep caring.
Nancy: Plus, you think I'm beautiful and sexy and sometimes find yourself not being able to resist me. But you resist that feeling.
Maurice: It's not that Sonny didn't want to have some fun with Alexis, but...
Nancy: Hey you pig! What do you mean. "Have some fun with her"? You shallow tamale.
Maurice: I'm talking about Sonny now.
Nancy: Is that considered a racial slur if I call you a tamale?
Maurice: Nah, it's actually good.
Digest: Do you go over your scenes together beforehand?
Nancy: I like the spontaneity, personally.
Maurice: I do my s--- at home. I don't like to rehearse, unless I'm working with someone new, and I think it'll better the scene.
Nancy: Sometimes we'll just run the lines. But we don't plan anything out.
Maurice: But I believe, and it's proven, that once you get in the groove and you work with somebody who's good, there's no need. You just go up and you've got it.
Nancy: It's like a marriage at this point. We've been working together every day. We finish each others' sentences. But I also have a terrible habit of, if the scene doesn't interest me, I can learn my lines going up the stairs [to the studio]. And you don't know the difference.
Digest: Do you improvise?
Maurice: She does, but that's cool.
Nancy: I like it when people do that to me. He doesn't improvise, he'll just pick up something and throw it.
Maurice: Oh, I'll break something.
Nancy: He'll break something that's not supposed to be in the scene, or he'll slam my door. He tries to scare me to death, but I laugh in his face.
Was there ever a time when you couldn't stop laughing on-set?
Maurice: We laugh a lot, but only in scenes with Steve Burton [Jason]. When I looked at his Chia-Pet hair, I could not stop laughing. With her, we've never gotten in trouble.
Nancy: Strangely enough, I think they like us here. They think we're fun. Whenever we're on the set, everybody comes over.
Maurice: We're always screwing around.
Digest: What is it about the dynamic of Sonny and Alexis that makes them so appealing?
Maurice: Ah, I don't want to answer that [Ingo Rademacher, Jax who's been sitting quietly in the room, pipes up.]
Ingo: I'll answer that!
Maurice: Ingo will answer it.
Ingo: I think it's interesting because Alexis is such a sophisticated lady, who's not like any of the the other women he's ever dated. All of the chicks who he's dated were always younger and needed help.
Nancy: Okay, you were going strong until that younger part.
Ingo: No, she's a successful, sophisticated, rich woman.
Maurice: He's right.
Ingo: She's a sophisticated lady, as opposed to...
Nancy: The slutty tramps Sonny's dated before [laughs]? Thank you, thank you. spoken like a true ex-husband.
Digest: How would you feel it they said that you couldn't work together anymore?
Nancy: "I quit [laughs]...Ned?"
Maurice: It would be disappointing because we have fun.
Nancy: But you'd be slightly relieved.
Maurice: Yeah, because she talks a lot...
Digest: What do you like best about each other?
Maurice: She's very honest...funny. It's like we've known each other for a long time. There's nothing I can't say to her. And there's nothing she can't say to me.
Nancy: That really is true. In fact, there are many things that I only say to him that I wouldn't say to anyone else. And I know that I can trust him implicitly; if I ask him not to say anything, he won't. He's going to take this the wrong way, but he reminds me of my dog, Barney [laughs].
Maurice: Oh, your dog, Barney, man, I like that dog.
Nancy: Barney...he's loyal, he's smart.
Maurice: If you tell me not to say something, I won't. If you don't tell me, I might.
Nancy: You're like a puppy
Digest: And he has a wet nose
Nancy: And he has a wet nose!
Maurice: Yeah, it is kind of wet.
Nancy: He is just as sweet as they come. And doesn't it sound wrong to say that he is sweet? But he really is.
Maurice: I like to be like a dog.
Nancy: I love my dog, Barney.[laughs]