Van Hansis Interview

AE: You do a really good job of portraying a kid who is torn by all sorts of forces. He wants to be out, he wants his family to love him. It seems like he really wants Holden to be proud of him. Do you use anything from your own personal experiences to draw on to play this? Do you talk to the writers or is it from you?
VH: The writing, especially with the soaps since you get so many scripts so quickly, you're doing your best to make sure you're saying the lines in the right order. (Laughter.) I think the writers are giving me a really good base to start with. Especially with a soap, you have to bring a lot of good ideas to flesh out your character because you're usually only on for eight minutes an episode.

So I just try to get into Luke's head. I remember when I was sixteen years old. And no matter whether you're straight or gay—you're trying to figure the world out. You have so many things pulling on you—popularity, pleasing your parents, hanging out with the cool kids, growing up and being your own man. Luke's experience is definitely very heightened, but I try to get myself into his head.

AE: So you're drawing on the universality of being a teenager. Do you have gay friends? Did you talk to them?
VH: God, yes. But as an actor I don't want to feel like I have to sit down and be like talk to “a gay person about being gay” because, I guess, underneath it all we all have the same feelings.

AE: That's not quite what I was driving at. It was more if you've known gay people your whole life—
VH: I went to a performing arts high school, so I've known gay people.

AE: That right there gives you an insight into what's going on as opposed to sitting down and doing research.
VH: (Laughs.) I was doing an interview once and the reporter asked if I'd done research on gay people. It's not like biology going on a safari into Chelsea.

AE: I thought it was interesting when Jade tried to test Luke 's sexuality, trying to manipulate him. It made me nervous the show was going to waver on Luke 's being gay. When you were creating the character did you talk to the writers—
VH: You don't get to talk to the writers.

AE: So it was the writers then who decided Luke would know for certain he was gay, that Jade couldn't get him to say he was confused.
VH: Yeah. One of the really interesting things when the speculation started that Luke was going to come out of the closet was the audience was saying on some of the message boards, “I'm not going to watch this show anymore”. Then after the story line got going and people got into it and people thought the show was going to backpedal and make Luke bi or straight, again that's when the fans again said no, no, no. He should be gay.

AE: The fan's said that?
VH: Yeah. That's what I read on some of the boards, but I try not to read too much stuff on the internet. It's just everybody else's opinion of you and if you just listen to that you're going to go nuts. But I check it out sometimes and when the fans started not digging the story too much was when Jade was meddling too much trying [to get him to think he was straight].

It's strongest when it's a family story. That's the strength of it. It's not just Luke 's story. Yes, he's the center of it, but it's also Lily and Holden, Lucinda, Will (Jesse Soffer), and Damian (Paolo Seganti), who is my birth father and is coming back now. He's part of the Maltese mafia. Kind of debonair, suave, very James Bond. Soap fans are just like any fans. They want a good story and a well told story. They're willing to go along. One of the really cool things the writers did was to make Luke really identifiable to a wider audience.

AE: He's just a typical teenager.
VH: Yeah. And that's a very important thing. He's probably the worst dressed kid on the show.

AE: If you could project Luke out ten years from now do you he think he'd want to get married and settle down?
VH: Yeah, yeah. This is what I think Luke is going to grow up to do. I think Luke is going to become a novelist and write about his crazy family. But one of the things about Luke [he] is one of the most normal people on the show, you know what I mean? He's not crazy. His issues are very normal issues. I don't think Luke is going to be a wild and crazy party kid. In the real world he would move to Chicago

AE: And meet Mr. Right?
VH: Yeah. Yeah. Something like that.

AE: Well, thank you, Van.
VH: Thank you. I just want to add the show has been a blast. Thanks for all the great response from everyone. It's been great.