Actor Van Hansis has landed a new role on the long-running soap opera General Hospital. Hansis, 43, will play the character Lucas Jones.
Jones first appeared as a child character back in the late 1990s. He’s been played by a handful of actors over the last 25 years, most notably Ryan Carnes between 2004-2005, 2014-2020, and briefly earlier this year.
Hansis is best known for playing Luke Snyder on As the World Turns from 2005-2010. He also starred in the fabulous, queer web series, Eastsiders, for which he won a Queerties award.
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He came out in 2014 and has been with his partner, Tyler Hanes, since 2007. He’ll make his General Hospital premiere this Friday, October 4.
“A dream come true”
“Being on General Hospital, I guess, is literally a dream come true,” Hansis told TV Insider. “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.”
Hansis said he’d found his new castmates to be welcoming and supportive.
“It’s such an awesome family environment. 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.”
He added, “I did as much research as I could, but there were some times 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.”
Playing gay
Hansis’ character in As The World Turns was gay, and so is the character of Lucas Jones. Hansis says he’s happy to see how unsensational it is to have a long-running gay character on a daytime show.
“I love that Lucas is not the only gay character on the show. I remember when Luke and Noah kissed [on As the World Turns] for the first time, we had Entertainment Tonight come,” he said. “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.”
Here’s a reminder of Hansis on Eastsiders.
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Darson
I remember watching Luke and Noah along with Kyle and Oliver (OLTL) back in the day. A youtuber had the Gay Romance channel and he showed just the scenes with the gay male actors. Great way to keep up until cbs got wind and shut him down. BTW..I thought Luke and Reid were better suited.