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NO MATTER WHAT GETS IN THEIR WAY, NANCY GRAHN BELIEVES JULIA AND MASON'S LOVE ON SB IS
HABIT-FORMING
A couple of years ago, Julia Wainwright could probably have been on the cover of Ms Magazine. She was,
after all, the embodiment of the 80s woman--a successful lawyer (self-made), unquestionably capable, a type-A
personality and, seemingly, independent: when her prospects for marriage seemed nil she made the gutsy
decision to get herself pregnant and become a single mother.
These days, however, the life and love of Julia Wainwright might be fodder for the likes of Cosmos or (perish
the thought) Modern Romance. She fell head over heals, passionately, undeniably in love with--yep, you
guessed it--the father of her baby, who recently got divorced from the woman he married to give her baby a
father. He drinks too much, fears commitment, is suspected of murdering the estranged husband of the ex-nun
who was his fiancée (still with us?) and was recently killed himself (or so everyone believes) when the mission
he infiltrated as a supposedly homeless man (to investigate that earlier murder) was blown to smithereens. But
Julia's devotion to Mason remains unshaken: she recently donned a nun's habit and moved herself into the
convent as Sister Rebecca, determined to uncover the truth that eluded him in his lifetime and to clear his name.
"Once she fell in love with Mason and once Mason fell in love with her, there's nothing she won't do for her
man," Nancy Grahn explains, adding that she has more than a passing familiarity with this facet of Julia's
personality (although she, herself, would draw the line at becoming a nun). "I think that in order to play that kind
of stuff you have to understand it, that it's something you have to experience to the fullest to be able to portray it
as an actress. You can work to a certain extent from your fantasy life--I'm not saying you have to experience the
situations you act in--but I think you have to risk feeling things to the nth degree in real life. My acting teacher,
who is a brilliant man, said you've got to live your life and feel it and make sure you feel it. If you're in pain--pay
attention . Like my mother said when I had all these disastrous affairs, relationships--I was always falling in love
with the wrong man, we all do--I'd just be crying hysterically, 'Oh, mommy, oh, mommy,' and she'd say, 'Don't
worry, this will make you a good actress,'" Nancy laughs.
Although Julia has finally found her Mr. Right in Mason Capwell after a slew of unhappy liaisons ("I think they've
found their soulmates. What I love about the relationship is that they are truly equals. I think they both
understand each other better than any two people could. I think that they are lovers and best friends and there's
also a great level of humor in it, which I think is always important in relationships"), such fortune has so far
eluded Nancy. Her four-year "mostly on but sometimes off" romance with former General Hospital star Sam
Behrens is now history ("We are two people who loved each other to death, unbelievably so. On a day-to-day
basis we get along beautifully--there were just a couple of bugaboos in the relationship, but they were big
enough bugaboos that would keep us apart. We were best friends and really a perfect relationship except for
those bugaboos, so I guess it wasn't perfect. But it certainly was an intense and interesting relationship and I
have no regrets about that at all"), and it seems everyone she's met lately just happens to be an actor born
under the sign of Leo "and I tend to shy away from them," she laughs. "Acting Leos are all around me, and
they're just little devils. I consistently find that's true. I just met someone--I won't tell you his name because you'd
know who he is--who I was sort of fixed up with. He's an incredible looking man, extremely talented, and he sat
and talked about himself all night long and then he was saying how he took his motorcycle all the way to London
to look for this girl when he was in his twenties. I went, 'Are you a Leo?" He said, 'Yes,' I said, 'Waiter--check!'",
she relates, laughing. "I don't put a lot of stock in astrology--I really don't. It's just that I have had five Leo
boyfriends in a row. I'm Taurus, the totally opposite sign. I don't know anything about anyone else's sign except I
can pick a Leo out of a crowd. They can be a Leo and not an actor--they just happen to be the most charming
men, it seems, but just devils. And very self-involved. All actors, I mean, I admit it, we all get a little obsessive at
times."
Although Mason and Julia fans aren't exactly obsessed about it, there has been more than a little idle curiosity
about Nancy's relationship with Lane Davies. Their on-camera chemistry is unquestionable, and they have been
seen together outside the studio from time to time. But, no, Nancy says, they're not an "item."
"We get a lot of that," she says good-naturedly. "People say, 'You two should really get together,' and I said,
'No, we shouldn't. Lane's too much of a playboy,'"she laughs. "Our characters are not that dissimilar [from who
we are], but we would never work out the way it does on a soap opera. I mean, we're definitely attracted to each
other and there's definitely chemistry and you don't have that with everybody and he's certainly a sexy guy. I
can't deny that. There's worse things to do than get paid to kiss him." And, yes, it can be tempting under those
circumstances to let the line between fantasy and reality get blurred--it can get confusing, Nancy admits,
particularly when a storyline is so intense. "You do fall in love. You really do. I think Lane and I have fallen in love
at certain times, but you have to keep yourself in check. The problem is you do cross over that line--what's real
and what's not--because you're doing this fourteen hours every day and if the story is that intense and real - we
had a story that was pretty realistic, we didn't have all the trappings of silliness going on, and I think it's perfectly
normal. I think Marcy [Walker. who plays Eden] and A [Martinez, who plays Cruz] probably fall in love at times.
It's a very difficult profession and that does happen and it's not naughty that it happens. It's perfectly realistic and
you just have to know not to act on it.
Right now, Nancy says, she’s on something of a hiatus from romance, taking time to “regroup,” and directing
herself toward those areas of her life, like writing, auditioning for plays, just walking around, that take a back seat
when she’s involved in a relationship. But, she says candidly, getting married and having a child are very much
on her agenda, and while her mother has lately suggested that perhaps she should lower her expectations a bit
(“She tells me I’m looking for a god”), Nancy’s not convinced compromise is necessary. “He’s just got to have
everything. Most important is he’s got to have a tremendous sense of himself and is as creative outside of me as
he is with me. Of course I have to be attracted to him, but if he’s doing something he’s very creative at and loves
doing and really puts a lot of himself into it outside of me and then does the same thing with me, then we've got
everything. And I've got to do the same thing, of course. It’s a tall order,” she agrees, “and of course, it’s also just
who strikes your fancy at the time.”
Such a man might be castmate A Martinez, Nancy enthuses, if he wasn't already a very happily married man.
“Now, there you go—you want me to define the man of my dreams—he’s A. He is a perfect human being, as far
as I can see, and the most committed actor I've ever seen. I've said to his wife, ‘Can you clone him and give me
one?,’” she laughs. More seriously, Nancy says she’d definitely consider doing what Julia did—becoming a
single mother—in the next few years. “I have heard of people who've done it—friends of friends. I thought [Julia’
s] was an extremely important story and one that hadn't been done and something very significant and very real
to me and scary because I never thought I wouldn't be married by now. I never thought I wouldn't have found
someone and been with someone by now or that I wouldn't have had a kid by now. So if I haven’t met anyone by
now, what’s to say five years from now I’ll find someone? And I’ll tell you, in the next six or seven years, I’m going
to have a kid one way or another. I hope it doesn't come down to that because having a baby by yourself would
be wonderful, but to have somebody with you to say, ‘Look, look, look what’s she doing, look what we did,’
seems so special to me. That’s certainly the way I want it to happen, but I’m not going to go through life and not
have a baby if it doesn't.”
Actually, Nancy thinks Julia may have jumped the gun a bit, that there were a bunch of much more complex
and deep-seated emotions at play that she likely wasn't even aware of. First of all, Nancy believes that despite
Julia’s seemingly business-like approach to the matter of enlisting Mason’s stud service, the truth is that she was
already in love with him but afraid of being hurt. Again. “He is so controlled and never shows his emotions, and
that was her way of not letting any emotions get in it. So she just says wants it to be a business arrangement. If
she absolutely puts her foot down—there will be no emotions here—that way she’s protecting herself. Agewise, I
certainly think she had some more time to go before she had to worry about it, but I think she was extremely
lonely and needy of doing something feminine. When I say feminine I don’t mean dressing up and putting on
heels, but feeling like a woman because she wasn't in a relationship. It didn't seem like she had sex for years,
and she had all this need and all this love to give and no one to give it to. So I think the timing for her emotionally
may have been right, but physically I don’t think she had to panic.”
Nancy says she’s not sorry SB didn't decide to have Julia remain unattached for the long haul—“a romance
was right there and if they had ignored it that would have been a waste.” It’s unrealistic, she believes, for people
to go through life not needing or wanting someone, although some people do build up barriers and allow their
frustration and anger to make them believe they want to go it alone. Such individuals may be happier on the
surface,” she thinks, “but it catches up with you eventually. I think people who say they want to be alone are
people who just won’t get in touch with their feelings or their need to need.”
Despite the fact that Julia is, indeed, quite a catch for any man (“I wish I were her,” Nancy gushes. “Gee, she’s
great. She’s a very capable person and she’s smart and she’s got an awful lot of love to give”), Nancy is well
aware of her flaws and finds it a little unsettling that many people view her as perfect. “She loses her objectivity.
She’s a bleeding heart. She’ll get herself and all kinds of people in trouble in order to satisfy something in
herself. I think she’s a perfectionist. She has a temper. But I do think she’s a wonderful mother and a really
dedicated human being, and I think she also puts up with a lot [garbage] from Mason. And she’s always there for
everyone when they need her. I mean, if she could take on twenty things at once…”
Nancy admits she didn't have much of a handle on Julia for quite a while—that she wasn't a happy camper for
her first year-and-a-half on the show until her kicking and screaming (and threat to quit) finally paid off when she
was worked into the story with David Laurent. “People didn't seem to like him very much, they didn't like the
story. But I got to show some range. And, then, of course, one thing led to another and I got what I wanted,” she
says. “I fight for my character like I’d do for my own kid.” She says she’s also prepared, if necessary, to fight
harder for herself when contract negotiations come around again in October. “I had to quite frankly eat dirt a little
bit to stay [last time] because it was important to me to stay longer with this character I’d just got working. I wasn't
ready to give it up yet. But I didn't get a great contract. I had to just bite it a little. I feel I've done a lot of things
with the part now that I’m satisfied and happy with, and I’m willing to walk away this time. I think they should treat
me well this time, and I don’t know that they won’t. I think I've worked hard and I've earned it. This time I have to
be a better businesswoman.” Although Nancy says she frequently gets into it with the powers that be, she’s
lavish with praise for the creative atmosphere that exists at SB. “They don’t keep us harnessed. We goof around
at camera block, we just laugh at a lot of the absurdity of the scenes, we carry on, we dress up, we have a lot of
fun. They’re not doing the Nazi regime on us—they let us just be crazy and goof around and have fun and
explore and try things—they encourage us to be actors and find our own way because they know at tape time,
they say five, four, three, two, one and they get very good performances.”
Will one of those performances in the not-too-distant future be the wedding of Julia Wainwright and Mason
Capwell? “I think that may be a long way off—I really think they’re going to keep us apart as long as possible,
really stretch it out.” Nancy’s not afraid there’ll be a point of no return “because it will never be dull with the two
of them. That’s the great relief in all this. I think they’re too complex and not pat. They both have too many
problems. They’re more thirtysomething than Romeo and Juliet, and that gives them no boundaries. Anything
can happen to them. You certainly can believe he’d have an affair and you certainly can believe she’d have an
affair. Just out of spite,” she giggles. “But they have their little girl and they are undeniably in love with each
other.” Since Nancy’s a writer (she wrote a treatment for a story for herself and Phyllis Frelich [Sister Sarah’, but
SB decided to work Ms. Frelich into the already planned mission mystery), does she have a scenario in mind for
the day they do finally marry? “I don’t think it would be a princess wedding, like Cruz and Eden. I sort of see the
two of them going off to Carmel and getting married by themselves very romantically. But if I don’t have a big
wedding in real life, I’d certainly at least like to have theirs. That’s the only way I’ll ever be in a white dress,” she
says, laughing. “With a veil.”
NO MATTER WHAT GETS IN THEIR WAY, NANCY GRAHN BELIEVES JULIA AND MASON'S LOVE ON SB IS
HABIT-FORMING
A couple of years ago, Julia Wainwright could probably have been on the cover of Ms Magazine. She was,
after all, the embodiment of the 80s woman--a successful lawyer (self-made), unquestionably capable, a type-A
personality and, seemingly, independent: when her prospects for marriage seemed nil she made the gutsy
decision to get herself pregnant and become a single mother.
These days, however, the life and love of Julia Wainwright might be fodder for the likes of Cosmos or (perish
the thought) Modern Romance. She fell head over heals, passionately, undeniably in love with--yep, you
guessed it--the father of her baby, who recently got divorced from the woman he married to give her baby a
father. He drinks too much, fears commitment, is suspected of murdering the estranged husband of the ex-nun
who was his fiancée (still with us?) and was recently killed himself (or so everyone believes) when the mission
he infiltrated as a supposedly homeless man (to investigate that earlier murder) was blown to smithereens. But
Julia's devotion to Mason remains unshaken: she recently donned a nun's habit and moved herself into the
convent as Sister Rebecca, determined to uncover the truth that eluded him in his lifetime and to clear his name.
"Once she fell in love with Mason and once Mason fell in love with her, there's nothing she won't do for her
man," Nancy Grahn explains, adding that she has more than a passing familiarity with this facet of Julia's
personality (although she, herself, would draw the line at becoming a nun). "I think that in order to play that kind
of stuff you have to understand it, that it's something you have to experience to the fullest to be able to portray it
as an actress. You can work to a certain extent from your fantasy life--I'm not saying you have to experience the
situations you act in--but I think you have to risk feeling things to the nth degree in real life. My acting teacher,
who is a brilliant man, said you've got to live your life and feel it and make sure you feel it. If you're in pain--pay
attention . Like my mother said when I had all these disastrous affairs, relationships--I was always falling in love
with the wrong man, we all do--I'd just be crying hysterically, 'Oh, mommy, oh, mommy,' and she'd say, 'Don't
worry, this will make you a good actress,'" Nancy laughs.
Although Julia has finally found her Mr. Right in Mason Capwell after a slew of unhappy liaisons ("I think they've
found their soulmates. What I love about the relationship is that they are truly equals. I think they both
understand each other better than any two people could. I think that they are lovers and best friends and there's
also a great level of humor in it, which I think is always important in relationships"), such fortune has so far
eluded Nancy. Her four-year "mostly on but sometimes off" romance with former General Hospital star Sam
Behrens is now history ("We are two people who loved each other to death, unbelievably so. On a day-to-day
basis we get along beautifully--there were just a couple of bugaboos in the relationship, but they were big
enough bugaboos that would keep us apart. We were best friends and really a perfect relationship except for
those bugaboos, so I guess it wasn't perfect. But it certainly was an intense and interesting relationship and I
have no regrets about that at all"), and it seems everyone she's met lately just happens to be an actor born
under the sign of Leo "and I tend to shy away from them," she laughs. "Acting Leos are all around me, and
they're just little devils. I consistently find that's true. I just met someone--I won't tell you his name because you'd
know who he is--who I was sort of fixed up with. He's an incredible looking man, extremely talented, and he sat
and talked about himself all night long and then he was saying how he took his motorcycle all the way to London
to look for this girl when he was in his twenties. I went, 'Are you a Leo?" He said, 'Yes,' I said, 'Waiter--check!'",
she relates, laughing. "I don't put a lot of stock in astrology--I really don't. It's just that I have had five Leo
boyfriends in a row. I'm Taurus, the totally opposite sign. I don't know anything about anyone else's sign except I
can pick a Leo out of a crowd. They can be a Leo and not an actor--they just happen to be the most charming
men, it seems, but just devils. And very self-involved. All actors, I mean, I admit it, we all get a little obsessive at
times."
Although Mason and Julia fans aren't exactly obsessed about it, there has been more than a little idle curiosity
about Nancy's relationship with Lane Davies. Their on-camera chemistry is unquestionable, and they have been
seen together outside the studio from time to time. But, no, Nancy says, they're not an "item."
"We get a lot of that," she says good-naturedly. "People say, 'You two should really get together,' and I said,
'No, we shouldn't. Lane's too much of a playboy,'"she laughs. "Our characters are not that dissimilar [from who
we are], but we would never work out the way it does on a soap opera. I mean, we're definitely attracted to each
other and there's definitely chemistry and you don't have that with everybody and he's certainly a sexy guy. I
can't deny that. There's worse things to do than get paid to kiss him." And, yes, it can be tempting under those
circumstances to let the line between fantasy and reality get blurred--it can get confusing, Nancy admits,
particularly when a storyline is so intense. "You do fall in love. You really do. I think Lane and I have fallen in love
at certain times, but you have to keep yourself in check. The problem is you do cross over that line--what's real
and what's not--because you're doing this fourteen hours every day and if the story is that intense and real - we
had a story that was pretty realistic, we didn't have all the trappings of silliness going on, and I think it's perfectly
normal. I think Marcy [Walker. who plays Eden] and A [Martinez, who plays Cruz] probably fall in love at times.
It's a very difficult profession and that does happen and it's not naughty that it happens. It's perfectly realistic and
you just have to know not to act on it.
Right now, Nancy says, she’s on something of a hiatus from romance, taking time to “regroup,” and directing
herself toward those areas of her life, like writing, auditioning for plays, just walking around, that take a back seat
when she’s involved in a relationship. But, she says candidly, getting married and having a child are very much
on her agenda, and while her mother has lately suggested that perhaps she should lower her expectations a bit
(“She tells me I’m looking for a god”), Nancy’s not convinced compromise is necessary. “He’s just got to have
everything. Most important is he’s got to have a tremendous sense of himself and is as creative outside of me as
he is with me. Of course I have to be attracted to him, but if he’s doing something he’s very creative at and loves
doing and really puts a lot of himself into it outside of me and then does the same thing with me, then we've got
everything. And I've got to do the same thing, of course. It’s a tall order,” she agrees, “and of course, it’s also just
who strikes your fancy at the time.”
Such a man might be castmate A Martinez, Nancy enthuses, if he wasn't already a very happily married man.
“Now, there you go—you want me to define the man of my dreams—he’s A. He is a perfect human being, as far
as I can see, and the most committed actor I've ever seen. I've said to his wife, ‘Can you clone him and give me
one?,’” she laughs. More seriously, Nancy says she’d definitely consider doing what Julia did—becoming a
single mother—in the next few years. “I have heard of people who've done it—friends of friends. I thought [Julia’
s] was an extremely important story and one that hadn't been done and something very significant and very real
to me and scary because I never thought I wouldn't be married by now. I never thought I wouldn't have found
someone and been with someone by now or that I wouldn't have had a kid by now. So if I haven’t met anyone by
now, what’s to say five years from now I’ll find someone? And I’ll tell you, in the next six or seven years, I’m going
to have a kid one way or another. I hope it doesn't come down to that because having a baby by yourself would
be wonderful, but to have somebody with you to say, ‘Look, look, look what’s she doing, look what we did,’
seems so special to me. That’s certainly the way I want it to happen, but I’m not going to go through life and not
have a baby if it doesn't.”
Actually, Nancy thinks Julia may have jumped the gun a bit, that there were a bunch of much more complex
and deep-seated emotions at play that she likely wasn't even aware of. First of all, Nancy believes that despite
Julia’s seemingly business-like approach to the matter of enlisting Mason’s stud service, the truth is that she was
already in love with him but afraid of being hurt. Again. “He is so controlled and never shows his emotions, and
that was her way of not letting any emotions get in it. So she just says wants it to be a business arrangement. If
she absolutely puts her foot down—there will be no emotions here—that way she’s protecting herself. Agewise, I
certainly think she had some more time to go before she had to worry about it, but I think she was extremely
lonely and needy of doing something feminine. When I say feminine I don’t mean dressing up and putting on
heels, but feeling like a woman because she wasn't in a relationship. It didn't seem like she had sex for years,
and she had all this need and all this love to give and no one to give it to. So I think the timing for her emotionally
may have been right, but physically I don’t think she had to panic.”
Nancy says she’s not sorry SB didn't decide to have Julia remain unattached for the long haul—“a romance
was right there and if they had ignored it that would have been a waste.” It’s unrealistic, she believes, for people
to go through life not needing or wanting someone, although some people do build up barriers and allow their
frustration and anger to make them believe they want to go it alone. Such individuals may be happier on the
surface,” she thinks, “but it catches up with you eventually. I think people who say they want to be alone are
people who just won’t get in touch with their feelings or their need to need.”
Despite the fact that Julia is, indeed, quite a catch for any man (“I wish I were her,” Nancy gushes. “Gee, she’s
great. She’s a very capable person and she’s smart and she’s got an awful lot of love to give”), Nancy is well
aware of her flaws and finds it a little unsettling that many people view her as perfect. “She loses her objectivity.
She’s a bleeding heart. She’ll get herself and all kinds of people in trouble in order to satisfy something in
herself. I think she’s a perfectionist. She has a temper. But I do think she’s a wonderful mother and a really
dedicated human being, and I think she also puts up with a lot [garbage] from Mason. And she’s always there for
everyone when they need her. I mean, if she could take on twenty things at once…”
Nancy admits she didn't have much of a handle on Julia for quite a while—that she wasn't a happy camper for
her first year-and-a-half on the show until her kicking and screaming (and threat to quit) finally paid off when she
was worked into the story with David Laurent. “People didn't seem to like him very much, they didn't like the
story. But I got to show some range. And, then, of course, one thing led to another and I got what I wanted,” she
says. “I fight for my character like I’d do for my own kid.” She says she’s also prepared, if necessary, to fight
harder for herself when contract negotiations come around again in October. “I had to quite frankly eat dirt a little
bit to stay [last time] because it was important to me to stay longer with this character I’d just got working. I wasn't
ready to give it up yet. But I didn't get a great contract. I had to just bite it a little. I feel I've done a lot of things
with the part now that I’m satisfied and happy with, and I’m willing to walk away this time. I think they should treat
me well this time, and I don’t know that they won’t. I think I've worked hard and I've earned it. This time I have to
be a better businesswoman.” Although Nancy says she frequently gets into it with the powers that be, she’s
lavish with praise for the creative atmosphere that exists at SB. “They don’t keep us harnessed. We goof around
at camera block, we just laugh at a lot of the absurdity of the scenes, we carry on, we dress up, we have a lot of
fun. They’re not doing the Nazi regime on us—they let us just be crazy and goof around and have fun and
explore and try things—they encourage us to be actors and find our own way because they know at tape time,
they say five, four, three, two, one and they get very good performances.”
Will one of those performances in the not-too-distant future be the wedding of Julia Wainwright and Mason
Capwell? “I think that may be a long way off—I really think they’re going to keep us apart as long as possible,
really stretch it out.” Nancy’s not afraid there’ll be a point of no return “because it will never be dull with the two
of them. That’s the great relief in all this. I think they’re too complex and not pat. They both have too many
problems. They’re more thirtysomething than Romeo and Juliet, and that gives them no boundaries. Anything
can happen to them. You certainly can believe he’d have an affair and you certainly can believe she’d have an
affair. Just out of spite,” she giggles. “But they have their little girl and they are undeniably in love with each
other.” Since Nancy’s a writer (she wrote a treatment for a story for herself and Phyllis Frelich [Sister Sarah’, but
SB decided to work Ms. Frelich into the already planned mission mystery), does she have a scenario in mind for
the day they do finally marry? “I don’t think it would be a princess wedding, like Cruz and Eden. I sort of see the
two of them going off to Carmel and getting married by themselves very romantically. But if I don’t have a big
wedding in real life, I’d certainly at least like to have theirs. That’s the only way I’ll ever be in a white dress,” she
says, laughing. “With a veil.”