Van Hansis, who portrayed As the World Turns’ Luke Snyder from 2005-10, will make his daytime return on October 4 as General Hospital’s Lucas Jones, a role most recently played by Ryan Carnes.
“I guess I have a type, huh?” Hansis muses of the similarity in names. “There are times when I want to call myself Luke, but then I know that there’s Luke [Anthony Geary] and Laura [Genie Francis], and Luke is one of the biggest soap characters in the world. So, I know I’m not that Luke, but there are weird little similarities between Luke Snyder and Lucas. When I got the part, I was looking up who the character was and they both have the same dad stuff going on with their birth father being kind of a dirtbag because Luke had Damian [Paolo Seganti] and Lucas has Julian [William deVry] and then adopted fathers, so there are parallels.”
Though he hadn’t been on a soap set for 14 years, Hansis reports he quickly got back into the swing of things. “It’s a little bit like riding a bicycle,” he notes. “Once you get in it, you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know how to do this, and I know how this works.’ But there is definitely a difference. This is the first soap I’ve done since As the World Turns and it moves incredibly quickly. On As the World Turns, we would shoot a full episode a day usually, and the way we shoot here is there might be three or four episodes shooting in one working day, just depending on what sets are available.”
Zach Roerig, Alexandro Chando, Jesse Soffer, Jennifer Landon, and Van Hansis in 2006 (Brian Ach/WireImage)
Hansis says he already has a good feeling about his new castmates, who have been supportive in his early days. “It’s such an awesome family environment,” he shares. “From what I’ve seen, everybody really lifts each other up in a nice way because daytime has its own challenges in so far as having to work really, really quickly. Everybody’s been super helpful. I’ve had scenes with a lot of different people because Lucas was born on the show, so he knows a lot of people in town. I did as much research as I could, but there were sometimes where I just asked whichever actor I was working with, ‘How do I know you? Do we like each other? Am I happy about you being back with so and so?’ And everybody was so helpful in filling in the back story.”
A high point so far was a World Turns reunion with someone who is now a part of his GH family. “I got to work with Maura West [Ava Jerome, who played ATWT’s Carly Tenney], which was amazing,” Hansis raves. “She didn’t know I got cast and I was coming out of a wardrobe fitting she was grabbing her wardrobe for the day. This was the day that we had scenes together and she just looked at me and it was like she saw a ghost. She was like, ‘Van?’ And she gave me a big hug and then she was like, ‘Wait, are you Lucas?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’ and she screamed so loudly that the security guard came down to see because they thought somebody was getting hurt or something. I have always loved Maura so much. Being on World Turns, my first job I ever did, watching certain actors on that show, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, these people are so good,’ and she was definitely one of them. I think I had more scenes with her that day [on GH] that we shot together than I ever had with her on As The World Turns. I was always watching her from afar. So then getting to actually work with her — she’s my aunt — is really, really something.”
Hansis says he looks back on his five years in Oakdale with fondness and gratitude. “The weird thing is, I always would dream about being back on As the World Turns, like how people have dreams about being back in college or whatever,” he relays. “If mine wasn’t about World Turns, I’d have recurring dreams about being on a soap. So being on General Hospital, I guess, is literally a dream come true. But there was so much I got out of being on World Turns. It was my first job. There was so much, especially with the character, and I think I was just so young, I didn’t understand and I didn’t really appreciate that. Luke was one of the first gay male lead characters. With some time and some distance, I’m like, ‘Wow, that was a really cool experience,’ but I was in the moment and it didn’t feel like how it feels now.
He continues, “I’m really, really grateful to have been able to be a part of that. Sometimes, I just think about all of the insane stuff that Luke was doing and it was really fun, like getting kidnapped and getting shot and being a drunk for three months. And then I think I stole an election at some point. I think my female cousin tried to rape me for my baby at some point. There’s so much stuff that looking back, I’m like, ‘Oh, that was so normal at the time,’ and then I’ll tell people about it and they’re like, ‘Wait, what was happening on the show?’”
Disney/Bahareh Ritter
Playing another gay character is a point of pride for Hansis. “It feels great,” he says. “And I love that Lucas is not the only gay character on the show. I remember when Luke and Noah kissed [on ATWT] for the first time, we had Entertainment Tonight come. And I get it, but it’s great that we’re in a place where it’s so casual, just like how it is in life. There are gay people in life so there should be gay people on soaps and queer people and trans people and all of that. So, the fact that it’s so ingrained and it’s not like ‘the gay character’ or ‘the gay storyline’ feels really nice.”
As Hansis is poised to make his GH debut, he says he’s better prepared to make the most of his experience. “I’m really grateful,” he sums up. “I’ve been in this industry long enough that I know there are no guarantees, but I didn’t know if I’d ever be back on a soap. But now that I am, I’m super excited to be here. I’m really just making sure that I’m taking it in and enjoying being a part of something really, really cool. I’m old enough now that I’m like, ‘It’s okay to be proud of yourself and be grateful for the opportunity.’ I’ll try to do my best and get the most out of it.”
