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General Hospital’s Cameron Mathison Drops New Intel About the Role That Was So Hush-Hush, ‘I Was Given Little Decoy Names’
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
Aspects of his new alter ego “really play to my strengths,” he says.
As the countdown to Cameron Mathison’s General Hospital debut intensifies, the actor is finding it harder and harder to keep his lips zipped about the top-secret role that he’s playing. (The smart money’s on the “late” Drew, of course.) In a recent Soap Opera Digest interview, he says that even he wasn’t fully filled in by the show. “I was given like little decoy names of characters and storylines.”
As such, “it’s been also very easy for me to tell people I have no idea what’s going on — because I literally have had no idea what’s going on!”
Almost no idea, that is. The All My Children vet notes that his new character “is different [from Ryan], and also, in some ways, has aspects of it that really play to my strengths, too.”
Happy as a clam in Port Charles, Mathison has himself to thank: When his now-defunct Hallmark Channel talk show Home & Family was cut down to two days of taping a week, “I kind of reached out to [executive producer] Frank Valentini,” he recalls, “and I just said, ‘Listen, Frank, I’m going to have three days a week [off], and I don’t know if there’s anything, I don’t want to be presumptuous, you know I’ve always been a huge fan of yours and the show… ’
More: Watch Maurice Benard serenade his grandbaby
“I didn’t even practically finish the text or whatever it was. He just took it and went with it,” he continues, “and it’s amazing… beyond what I was sort of secretly [hoping for].”
Who do you think Mathison will be playing? Weigh in in the comments below, then check out the below photo gallery of the all-time greatest characters in General Hospital history — in order!
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Image: Craig Sjodin/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
1/30
<p>The Brooklyn accent. The incredible nails. The yin/yang chemistry with “Eddie Maine.” Ned’s former wife would never have forgiven us if we’d left her off this list, and neither would we.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
2/30
<p>Whenever we’re feeling especially sentimental about <em>General Hospital</em>, we also get a little <em>mental</em> — because it inevitably brings to mind Jeff Webber’s batty, BLT-loving ex, arguably the most entertaining Port Charles psycho ever to spike a drink.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
3/30
<p>Somewhere along the line, Monica’s “better” half must’ve given himself a heart transplant, since the formerly-mad-as-in-angry doctor went from wanting to drop a house on her to being the true partner that she mourned as mightily as we did.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
4/30
<p>Once a fearsome villain, Liz’s husband — thanks to the removal of that pesky homicidal brain tumor — has become known as not only one of Port Charles’ sweetest hearts but one of its funniest residents, too.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection (2)
5/30
<p>They don’t make ’em like this anymore! The patriarch of the Quartermaine family was a blustering tyrant whose huffing and puffing did a fine job of hiding the fact that, underneath, he was really a big softy.</p>
Image: Wren Maloney/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
6/30
<p>Whenever she walks into a room, you <em>know</em> that chaos is going to follow — and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Lucy may not be the conniver that she once was, but she remains as “quacky” and unpredictable as ever.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
7/30
<p>Jason’s ride-or-die boasts an enviably all-over-the-place soap-character resumé that’s taken her from con artist and stepfather seductress to action heroine, “widowed” wife and mom. Along that bumpy road, the one thing she’s never been… is boring!</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
8/30
<p>It’s not just wishful thinking that has kept fans hoping that rumors of the “reformed” con artist’s death have been greatly exaggerated, it’s their knowledge that she’s as crafty as she is beautiful. </p>
Image: Bob D’Amico/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
9/30
<p>May we have this dance? If only. No one grieved harder when Anna’s made-man true love was kilt — sorry, <em>killed</em> — than we did. To this day, we haven’t given up hope that the show will resurrect him again.</p>
Image: Jill Johnson/JPI
10/30
<p>She’s now arguably Port Charles’ most respected surgeon. But to us, Alan’s widow will always be the impetuous strumpet who drove the Webber brothers to distraction and accidentally had a fling with her own nephew.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
11/30
<p>Really, this long-running heroine should have her own action figure, because from the moment that we met her — when she was unconvincingly disguised as a boy, no less! — she’s been tossed from one madcap adventure to the next.</p>
Image: Walt Disney Television
12/30
<p>James Bond’s got nothing on Port Charles’ answer to 007, the smoothest of operators and shrewdest of characters. Even now that he’s switched gears and become district attorney, many a fan wouldn’t mind calling him “the spy who loved me.”</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
13/30
<p>Cut from the same cloth as grandmother Audrey Hardy, Liz is the inspirational heart and soul of Port Charles, a working wife and mom who strives to put her mistakes in rearview in order to pave the way for a brighter tomorrow.</p>
Image: Timothy White/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
14/30
<p>You’ve come a long way, baby… er, Bobbie! The scheming ex-hooker was transformed over the decades from desperate to dependable — miraculously, without losing the mischievous twinkle in her eye.</p>
Image: Sean Smith/JPI
15/30
<p>A do-right guy in a do-wrong town, Luke’s straight-arrow son was destined to suffer — and man, did he, through his own “death,” drug addiction, adultery and, in the end, the demolition of his relationship with true love Elizabeth… at least for now.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
16/30
<p>Anna and Robert’s daughter is an inspiration, a cute kid who absorbed the blows that life dealt her — and there have been many! — to emerge on the other side a grown woman who is kindhearted, open-minded and far tougher than her warm smile might suggest.</p>
Image: Craig Sjodin/ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
17/30
<p>This passion’s plaything always meant to be smart about love, to not only think but think <em>twice</em>. In the end, however, the one that got away from both Sonny and Jax just over and over again wound up putting heart over mind.</p>
Image: Brian Lowe/JPI
18/30
<p>Bundles of neuroses don’t come any more compelling than this alcoholic attorney, the brilliant matriarch of the Davis girls and the most engaging disaster you’re ever likely to watch — preferably from a safe distance.</p>
Image: Touchstone Television/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
19/30
<p>The word “kickass” could’ve been coined to describe the former police commissioner, an all-around Superwoman whose capacity for hand-to-hand combat is matched only by her aptitude for heart-to-heart love.</p>
Image: Chris D/JPI
20/30
<p>It’s no wonder this rascally attorney’s hair is always fantastically askew: Next to the wisecracks in his head are countless plots, both the cajillions that he’s already hatched and executed, and — dare we hope? — the many that are yet to come.</p>
Image: Chris D/JPI
21/30
<p>Unlike Port Charles’ myriad mobsters and madmen, Jane Elliot’s undisputed queen of mean could kill with nothing more than a well-aimed insult. Mind you, she was just covering up the fact that, like anyone else, she had a heart; hers just happened to cost more.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
22/30
<p>When Jack Wagner’s crime-fighting pop star sang, “You’re aaall III neeed,” few and far between were the audience members who didn’t wish that he was singing to them. Even now, years after Frisco burned his bridges in Port Charles, we’re dying for him to cross back over them and give us an encore.</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
23/30
<p>All it took was a big car wreck and a little brain damage, and Steve Burton’s squeaky-clean future doctor was reborn as a Mob enforcer whose love of tight black T-shirts was rivaled only by his love of Sam. (And, depending on the year, Liz.)</p>
Image: ABC
24/30
<p>Fight us if you must, but for our money, Steve’s stalwart right-hand woman was the all-time most-tortured soap-opera martyr. Emily McLaughlin’s dedicated nurse never ceased to volunteer her big heart for breaking.</p>
Image: Howard Wise/JPI
25/30
<p>A tragic victim of circumstance, a stone-cold femme fatale or a little bit of both? With Maura West’s master manipulator, you can never be sure — but you’ll definitely tune in tomorrow (<em>and</em> the next day!) to see if you can figure out the vexing vixen!</p>
Image: John Paschal/JPI
26/30
<p>By now, we’ve come to regard Maurice Benard’s dimpled don as <em>The Godfather, Part IV</em>. Formidable and flawed, the smooth criminal is a mass of contradictions that somehow add up to a character that’s as dangerous as he is appealing.</p>
Image: ABC, John Paschal/JPI (2)
27/30
<p>You know how you <em>know</em> that Carly is one of the all-time greats on <em>General Hospital</em>? The character’s withstood two and a half recasts (from Sarah Brown to Tamara Braun to, briefly, Jennifer Bransford, then Laura Wright) to remain an unstoppable force of nature, a freight train you’d be terrified to be in front of but more often than not find yourself willing to get behind.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
28/30
<p>The white hats in Port Charles tend to get overlooked in favor of the anti-heroes and bad boys — but not by us. We still fondly remember John Beradino’s good doctor — or, as we think of him, the foundation upon which General Hospital is built.</p>
Image: ABC/Courtesy of the Everett Collection
29/30
<p>From Mob flunky to mayor, Anthony Geary’s irrepressible alter ego was fashioned from a mold that was long ago broken, one from which sprang the kind of absolute scoundrel who is as infuriating as he is entertaining, as irrepressible as he is irresistible. </p>
Image: Courtesy of the Everett Collection
30/30
<p>Reunited with her birth mother? Check. Crushed on Mom’s man? Check. Abducted to a Greek isle? Check. Played dead? Nervous breakdown? Elected mayor? Check, check and also check. If it could happen to a soap-opera heroine, it happened to Genie Francis’ erstwhile Miss Star Eyes, along the way making her not just beloved but iconic.</p>
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