My chat with Van Hansis of As the World Turns and Die Mommie Die!

Last week I made a rare voyage out of my apartment to see the off-Broadway smash Die Mommie Die!, which features playwright Charles Busch in the lead role as washed-up chanteuse Angela Arden and none other than Van Hansis (who of course plays As the World Turns' lovable gay teen Luke Snyder) as Lance Sussman, Angela's horny, drug-addled gay son.

I had the chance to speak with both Hansis and Busch after the uproarious performance, and of course will share with you what I learned from both (check back for the Busch interview, especially if you're an OZ fan or caught Busch's short stint on One Life to Live!).

Van shared some scoop on what's up with our favorite Oakdale gay teen (hint: he's out of the chair!), and discussed stage vs. TV, the various industry strikes, and whether Lily or Angela is the better mother.

Enjoy!

AfterElton.com: I have some kind of fun news ... we're announcing the results of this big poll we did at AfterElton.com of the best gay TV characters of all time, voted on by our readers ... and Luke placed near the top.
Van Hansis: Are you serious?

AE: Yep.
VH: Of all time, are you kidding me?

AE: Well, you had a landmark moment this year.
VH: That's awesome.

AE: Luke and Noah both made it.
VH: Really! (whispers) Am I above Noah?

AE: You are.
VH: He's newer.

AE: Well, he went through that rough patch, drinking out of a paper bag and all that.
VH: Oh, I did that in 2004. I got drunk on eggnog!

AE: Maybe he needs to push someone down the stairs!
VH: Yeah, seriously!

AE: So what's it like going from playing mild-mannered gay teen Luke during the day to playing Lance at night?
VH: Well, I've been on As the World Turns for over 2 years now, but I'd gone to theater school and started in stage and I got that stage bug and really wanted to get back to it and wanted to see if I could do both, and it's been great. It's been sort of like two halves of the coin, going from television which I love to the theater world which I love ... it's a different set of muscles. And I can see how certain actors could be good on stage but not on film or good on TV but not on stage, because it really is different ... it's a different world. It's actually not that hard. When you're on screen you really just have this [makes a box around his face], this is all you have to use.

AE: Especially since your character has been sitting behind a table for the past month.
VH: (laughs) The damned wheelchair!

AE: Are you still in the chair?
VH: No, I have this cane...

AE: Is it at least a nice cane?
VH: Well they came up to me with like six canes and were like, "Take your pick!" So I picked this old knobby, wooden, Scottish, you know, "ye olde cane" ... and then I was stuck with that cane for like three weeks.

AE: Well, at least it wasn't an orthopedic old lady cane.
VH: Well, the prop guy was telling me that in the olden times, it was a weapon, too. You could hit people in the head with the knob of it. So I have this cane, and I'm out of the chair. I have a cane.

AE: Well that's a big step!
VH: It is a big step, and I think I'm almost done with the cane. Hopefully the cane is going to be gone soon, too, and I'll be able to walk again. But it's great to go between the two. The characters are so different. (Lance) is so crazy and out there, and Luke is so not ...

AE: It's like a Jeckyll and Hyde thing.
VH: Yeah! It's fun.

AE: So who's the better mother, Angela Arden or ... ?
VH: Or Lily? Jesus ... I don't think either of them is going to be winning any mothering awards. I think Angela is actually the better mother. Martha Byrne is going to kill me for that ... Lily really really loves her children but she doesn't know how to ... I mean, it's a soap opera, nobody can really be a "good" anything on a soap opera. If she was a good mother it would be a boring show. I mean she got addicted to diet pills, she went to rehab, that's not really a good mother. She got her daughter addicted to diet pills ... I had the whole drinking thing.

I think Angela's probably the better mother, at least to Lance. I don't know, they're both good mothers, I don't want to piss either side off!

AE: Especially when one's a murderer.
VH: Right. Lily's probably murdered somebody too, at some point. She's been on that show a while, I'm sure she's killed somebody. I've almost killed somebody! I think ...

AE: I also hear that Soap Opera Digest named Luke, Maddie and Noah best ... wait, what's the word? Not "threesome"...
VH: (Laughs)

AE: Triangle! Best love triangle.
VH: That's great. I thought it was a really interesting way to tell a classic story. It's a story that happens in real life, so why not tell it on a soap opera, you know? And it uses the conventions of the soap opera, the triangle, and it's applicable to real life and it gives it a new twist.

AE: I miss Maddie, actually.
VH: Yeah.

AE: And you and she are friends, right?
VH: Yeah, she and I, and Jake and I are good friends, and Elena, who played Jade. Yeah, she was a good friend of mine too. Still is.

AE: And you guys are lucky to still be running during this Broadway strike.
VH: It kind of sucks, because there are so many people who work ... I have so many friends who are in shows on Broadway and they've been out of work for three weeks, but there are just so many sides to it. If there's anything good to come out of it it's that people are discovering off-Broadway. That's good.

AE: And you'd never done off-Broadway?
VH: No, I'd done some things downtown, down in the East Village, down in Soho, down, down, down in basements, but this is my first big thing. I did a reading of The Laramie Project last year which was cool, a benefit for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, but this is my first big show. This is the longest run of anything.

AE: It's fun.
VH: It's a lot of fun.

AE: Do you have anything lined up for after? Thinking about what's next?
VH: No, I'm not. Maybe I should! But I'm not. I figure I'm down to two jobs right now, I don't want to throw a third one into the mix.

AE: It's already put you in a wheelchair!
VH: It put me in a wheelchair! See, I'm so tired I can't walk! No, it's great doing both, and it's interesting because I love doing both and I don't know which I'd rather ... I love doing both.

AE: And what with the writers' strike and the buzz that pilot season might be sunk...
VH: I know! It's crazy! I feel like I dodged two bullets in a way. The writers' strike is terrible. Even in New York there's nothing right now, you go out for an audition and there's everyone in New York, plus celebrities in the room, waiting. Because there's so few parts out there.

AE: What's it like working with Charles Busch?
VH: Charles is incredible. Charles is absolutely amazing. He's so ... he's obviously so smart and an incredible writer, and so witty, of course, but he's very easy to talk to. There's no pretense at all. And he really cares a lot about this role and this show. He has everything down -- I mean, the moment where he's about to throw the scissors? Sometimes I just look at him onstage like, "Wow." He's so precise. And I really didn't know much about old movies, but it's just like that. And it's great and so exciting to work with someone of this magnitude.

AE: It's so much fun to watch. And it's funny because I have to watch you during the day ... I mean, it's part of my job description.
VH: That damned soap opera!

AE: Could you guys stop doing groundbreaking things so I can go watch something else, like The View or something?
VH: It's awesome to be a part of.

AE: It's a lot of fun to see you do something so completely different.
VH: It's great for me to be able to do two completely different things.

Big thanks again to Van for taking the time to chat, and definitely check out his eyebrow-raising performance in Die Mommie Die! if you want to see a vastly different performance than we enjoy as Luke.