As Nancy Lee Grahn's Alexis Davis nervously presents her case in a quest to get her law license back on General Hospital, she will meet Fergus Byrne, the brother of the psychiatrist Alexis lost her law license over. Alexis lied about her relationship with Neil Byrne under oath before he died, resulting in her law license being revoked. Now, she is fighting to have it reinstated. At her hearing, she meets Neil's brother Fergus, played by soap vet Lane Davies.
It's been nearly 40 years since Grahn and Davies first got together on-screen as bickering and bantering lawyers Julia Wainwright and Mason Capwell on NBC's Santa Barbara. After Julia enlisted Mason to father her child with no strings attached, the pair fell in love, and Mason and Julia became one of the soap's premier couples.
In 2002, Davies joined the GH cast and reunited with Grahn for the first time when he played Dr. Cameron Lewis, the father of Zander Smith and grandfather to Elizabeth's son, Cameron. He remained on the show for two years, and this is his first foray into daytime since. It was also a Santa Barbara connection that brought Davies back to Port Charles.
"I know Nancy was wanting to work with me again," Davies told TV Insider regarding how this role came about. "I ran into [former head writer] Patrick Mulcahey at [Santa Barbara co-creator] Bridget Dobson's funeral and we had a lovely lunch together and a lovely visit and I think it was just the synergy of all those things coming together that did it. Patrick saw me and realized that I hadn't completely deteriorated over the years and thought, 'Well, this would be fun.'"
Grahn credits Mulcahey with creating Mason and Julia's relationship. Bridget Dobson and her husband, Jerome Dobson, created the characters of Mason and Julia, while Mulcahey wrote their stories. When Grahn learned they would be working together again, she was "thrilled."
"We're so chemical, the two of us, and it's so fun. Later in life now, it's still the same but different," she said. "It's hard to find that with somebody else and I know he gets it. He's smart and I know he can give back as good as he gets."
Davies, who no longer lives in Los Angeles, was Grahn's guest during his stay on the West Coast. He lived in her guest house as they prepared for their scenes together.
"I counted my pages and I had about 167 pages over three days, 50, 60 pages of dialogue every day filled with speeches," Grahn explained. "So, I had been away for the weekend. I came in Sunday, and Lane's sleeping on the porch and I said, "Get up and get your script." And [Grahn's daughter] Kate played all the other parts and sat there and read with us in the living room until we both passed out."
While Davies is only slated to be in a handful of episodes for now, he hopes for more.
"They're not trying to recreate Mason and Julia, but they're creating something more adversarial, which actually could be just as much fun to play down the road if this all goes forward somehow," the actor said before adding, "I would be totally open [to staying longer], but that's all up to the writers and fans and producers and network people and I'm kind of out of that loop. But if it happens, grand."
Are you excited to see Grahn and Davies acting together again? Do you remember Mason and Julia on Santa Barbara? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
