Three-time Daytime Emmy winner Rick Hearst is heading back to General Hospital!
The daytime vet is set to reprise his role of Ric Lansing, Sonny Corinthos’ (Maurice Benard) half-brother, and his scenes will begin airing the week of August 19. Hearst, who first joined the cast in 2002, admits he was surprised when he got the call to return. “It’s been very much on my periphery and not in my consciousness for eight years,” he explains. “The last time I was there was 2016.”
But Hearst was made aware that his character had been mentioned recently in the storyline with Ric’s daughter with Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn), Molly Lansing-Davis (Kristen Vaganos), and her sister, Kristina Corinthos (Kate Mansi). “I didn’t think anything of it, really, and then lo and behold, [casting director] Mark Teschner is reaching out to me via email, my Google voicemail and my Facebook with a ‘call me,’” Hearst recalls. “I’m like, ‘You know, as much as I love Mark and I love that he would reach out to me, that’s awfully intense. Something’s up.’ ”
Disney/Christine Bartolucc
Hearst connected with Teschner, who asked if he was interested in coming back. “My first question was, ‘Really?’” he muses. “And he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘What’s the story, what’s happening?’ So then he told me and I kind of look at it as, ‘Daddy’s home and here to take care of his daughter and anything that entails.’”
Since he hadn’t been watching the show regularly, Hearst started tuning in again. “I’ve been trying to catch up and see what’s happening and I see that there’s a situation where Kristina is being a surrogate for Molly,” he says. “And while I don’t know what that turns into, I have a feeling there’s going to be some friction by virtue of the fact that one daughter is parented by Alexis and Sonny, and the other daughter is parented by Alexis and Ric. That alone is enough to create a mad amount of drama of who’s going to side with who. And it’s going to be entertaining.”
Though the actor began his daytime career as Scotty Banning on Days of our Lives in 1989, he admits he still gets nervous before a job. “Of course! Are you kidding me?” he exclaims. “I was making jokes, like, ‘I hope I don’t have to eat a box of Prevagen [a memory improving supplement].’ Look, I can hang and riff with the best of them still, but we’re a little slower than we used to be, and I know that they’ve sped up quite a bit there. So, my secret weapon is preparation. That’s always been my calling card.”
Hearst is headed to the studio next week to film and is excited to connect with his former castmates. “I’m really stoked to see Nancy [Lee Grahn], obviously, Becky [Herbst, Elizabeth Webber], Mo [Benard], Steve [Burton, Jason Morgan], Laura [Wright, Carly Corinthos], all those guys there,” he lists. And this will be the first time he meets Vaganos, the new actress playing Molly. “I’ve heard wonderful things about her and I’m looking forward to meeting her and just being an open book for her so that it helps drive whatever story that we’re going to be in,” he enthuses.
Everett Collection
But there will be some noticeable absences as he makes his way around this old stomping grounds. “I’m very sad that Nneka [Garland, former producer who passed away in 2023] won’t be there,” Hearst adds. “I’m a kibitzer; I like to go chat with people and hang out and be very communal that way, and I always did that with her, so that hole is going to be very apparent. Tyler [Christopher, ex-Nikolas Cassadine, who passed away in 2023] is not only there no longer there but no longer with us and it definitely makes you look at the beauty and the finality of life.”
As he looks back on his own path and his association with soaps, Hearst says he is happy his name is still in the mix. “With the limited amount of programming that there is with daytime, with all changes in media that’s happened over the years, it’s nice that we can still honor the base that we have and tell stories through that medium,” he reflects. “It’s very gratifying that they still find relevance in my generation of actor who’s been there and gone through it and is still able to tell story.”
General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC, Check Local Listings