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Not as Scary As He Looks
GH's Anders Hove is really a genteel, soft-spoken family man- until he starts talking about how his character has been mishandled
by Robert Schork, Soap Opera Weekly 11/2/99

"One needn't look any further than Anders Hove for a living example of 'first impressions can be deceiving'. While Anders trades on his funky looks, offbeat style, European sensibilities and imposing countenance to bring some of his characters to life- most notably General Hospital's Cesar Faison- Hove's no-nonsense candor, dry humor and gentility swiftly and effortlessly disarm those who take the time for a second look.

Perhaps it's a perverse compliment for his convincing portrayal of Faison, but while Hove counts his interactions with fans as being overwhelmingly positive experiences, he says fans are often intimidated by him. 'I don't undestand; why would they be that way?' he asks earnestly, his words in English filtering through the kaleidoscopic cadence of the native Danish accent that's become inextricably linked to Faison.

A few brazen (albeit unhinged) souls have even taken Hove to task in public for Faison's evil machinations. 'I've had a few nasty experiences. I've had one or two at a restaurant shout at me. Not that I really give a damn, but still, it's been a little scary, quite frankly.'

Hove has been on both ends of wrong first impressions, as his latest stint on GH demonstrates. Now six months into his fourth time playing what pal Anthony Geary (Luke) calls 'the best villain in GH's history, period,' Hove sounds dispirited and tired, for good reason: To date, things haven't gone the way Hove had hoped, or at least the way he was first led to believe they would go when he agreed to make a surprise return after a seven-year absence.

'I guess I'm surviving,' he says unconvincingly. 'I don't know what's going on. But beyond that, I'm fine.' Images of the old joke, 'Besides that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?' quickly springs to mind.

An apt association, considering that Hove is doing the best he can, within his limitations as an actor, to keep his assassinated character propped up on the screen. 'It's nice to be back, but I mean it hasn't turned out the way it was promised, which pisses me off in a senxe. I'm actually trying to get off the show in November. You can spread the rumor that I'm leaving. That is from the horse's mouth,' even though the horse is under a two-year contract. 'That's the same old story. They make the same contract with everybody, so I'm not too scared about that.'

Despite his disappointment, Hove explains that his impetus for catching the next bus outta town comes down to the practical matter of dollars and cents. 'They don't work me enough so I can live a decent life out her and at the same time pay for my family back in Denmark,' he reveals. 'I can't go on working one for two days a week. I need to make a living. Either do it or not. When you have a job like this you should be able to take your friends out to dinner once in a while without counting every goddamn nickel. So I either want to leave, or find some other sort of solution. They promised me it would be an intense six months; it has not been at all.'

Indeed. All of the momentum generated by Faison's much-hyped return dissipated like air hissing out of a punctured tire as he did nothing but lurk in the shadows of the Port Charles periphery for the first few months. 'That was almost too much, wasn't it? It was like, "we got the point now," so to speak. But that's their way of telling it. The last two months I worked more that I did the first four months,' Hove continues. 'That's just to give you an idea of how tame and lame it's been. John York (Mac) said he was told in January that I would come back and he would have this huge storyline going with Faison, and so forth. But we didn't even meet [on-screen] until June, and it's slow. But the potential is there to get more out of it.'

'But, you know, the people are nice, it's good to be here among old friends. It's great to be working with Tony Geary again.' Hove holds particular fondness for Geary, with whom he first worked back in 1991, when then-executive producer Gloria Monty brought back Hove for his second tour of duty in Port Charles, to play opposite Geary's Bill Eckert character in the cartel storyline. 'He's a dear friend of mine, so that's the good side. And the people on the floor are wonderful. But if I were [the writers], I would crank it up and get out with a big bang, you know?'

If Hove and Geary have their way, Faison definately will go out swinging. 'I know Tony is going to pitch a story to Guza where I kill Lucky. I mean, that would be sort of outrageous,' Hove concedes, 'but at least that would get some reaction. I mean, it still seems like it's going nowhere since Tony came back [from his summer vacation]. We would both like for it to take off and have lots drama and action going. But it isn't. Like today, I'm coming up with this threat again, and Tony, his character's response is, 'You're repeating yourself.' I couldn't help laughing, because it's so true. That's what I've been doing for the last two weeks.'

Given that Hove has played Faison four times under four different regimes on two different shows (wisely observing Hove's popularity, ABC crossed Faison over to Loving for a stint in 1993), the actor brings both a historical as well as a more objective outsider's perspective to examining how both GH specifically, and the daytime genre in general, have changed over the past decade. From Hove's vantage point, it hasn't been for the better.

'This political correctness has really taken over within the last nine years,' Hove notes. 'There's a whole other tone on the set. They came down to the floor and informed Tony and I that we can't smoke cigars anymore. I don't really mind, but it's a shame for the character; it was a big part of the character. But they keep doing those things. When Faison was arrested by Mac, and he came storming in, John (York) wasn't allowed to have a gun anymore, either,' even though Mac is the police commissioner who was apprehending a criminal who had killed his own mother. 'I see the point, but on the other hand, how far can we go with this?'

It's certainly a lot different than it was when Hove made his debut in 1990. Faison was introduced as the former head of the DVX, who still carried an obsessive torch for his double agent Anna Devane (played by Finola Hughes, who is now Alex on All My Children). At the time, Hove had just pulled up stakes in his native Denmark and brought his family to Los Angeles to pursue acting on this side of the Atlantic. His American wife, Ann, a professional dancer and choreographer, and their two sons, Anders Jr. ("The American way," he jokes of his son's moniker), and Elliot, now 13 and 11, respectively, accompanied him because Ann wanted their children to spend some time in the States at that age. 'It was an experience, but I must admit that if I'd known it would be that hard psychologicially, I wouldn't have come. I love L.A. when I'm here alone (this time around he's bunking with good pal Kin Shriner- Scott, Port Charles- while his family remains in Denmark), but it's no place to have kids, for crying out loud. The fact that you have to have them on a leash all the time, that was hard. I remember one thing that really hit me, especially as a father, was on the cartons of milk you would have these pictures of lost kids. Then we experienced the big breakdown out here in '92- the riots- my goodness. We were home. I remember the first night we went up to Mulholland and looked down on L.A. It was war.'

Pounding the pavement looking for acting jobs was no easy battle, either. But after reading the sides for Faison, Hove's agent sent him to GH, where he met with casting director Mark Teschner and then-executive producer Joe Hardy. 'Then it came down to the screen test, and there were two other guys. That was so nerve-racking,' Hove recalls. But he beat out his competition, both of whom, interestingly enough, were American actors. When he signed on the dotted line, Hove didn't know a thing about soap operas ('they didn't have any in Denmark. They do have one now. And yes, it takes place in a hospital,' he comments wryly.) much less that he'd be starring in a groundbreaking storyline: a sci-fi and espionage tale involving daytime's first extra-terrestrial character (Casey; played by Bradly Lockerman).

'It's funny... as stupid as it was in a way, I still think it was well-written. It was a little fantasy. Extremely popular.' And critically acclaimed. In 1991, the story won the Soap Opera Award for favorite storyline, beating out two more traditional soap sagas from other shows, and both Hughes and Kimberly Mccullough (ex-Robin Scorpio) won Daytime Emmys for their work in that storyline, as well.

'I was so lucky to be working with Finola and Tristan (Rogers, ex-Robert Scorpio) and John (Reilly, ex-Sean Donely). It was a good training camp. They taught me a lot about the genre, how to do it- and not to do it.' Lesson no. 1: 'Be on top of your lines, and play with it. Don't be stiff about it, and improvise if you have to.' The pace of the genre was what struck Hove the most. 'I have a lot of respect for it. Some people really look down on it, and that's a shame, because it's very hard work, as far as I'm concerned.' Especially then, because Hove started at an historically significant time: his first week, the Teleprompter was abolished. 'I didn't have any adjustment, because I'd never used it. But a lot of the others had to adjust. And Tristan, oh, man. He was a master in using them.'

Hove left the show by the end of the year, only to be summoned back by new executive producer Gloria Monty several months later. 'In a way, I miss Gloria- her will to be outrageous in scenes and in the writing. We would go to the limits sometimes. I don't think they take risks anymore- not as they used to.

'You could have a great fight with Gloria Monty,' Hove continues, 'There was nothing more satisfying, actually. If you could convince her, she'd say, "You're damn right, that's the way we're going to do it." If not she would say, "F--k you, we're gonna do it my way." That doesn't exist anymore. People are afraid of losing their jobs, there's cutbacks. It's not as happy as it was. We'd socialize a lot more my first time around. Nobody smokes anymore, nobody drinks anymore. Everyone's just a little bit uptight, quite frankly. I would never be the advocate for drinking on the set. But I remember way back then as a much more fun time. Everything is pretty straight nowadays.'

When comparing the way stories were told then and now, Hove notes that today, the intrigue and adventure stories are all talk, no action. 'The problem with Faison right now is that he doesn't have any confidante. No one he can [interact with],' as he had during his previous storylines. 'Instead, there's a lot of one-way phone calls,' which steal the energy out of the scenes. 'And out of the actor, too, believe me.'

Without question, the nadir for both character and actor came during the crossover to Loving, when the show sent Hove running all over Florida's Universal Studios wearing a smiley-faced 'Don't worry, be happy' t-shirt during a remote. 'That was painful!' Hove exclaims with a laugh. 'Thank god Faison went to jail.' Hove regretted having his complex and substantive character bastardized into a cartoon. 'Yeah, and if they're not careful, it's gonna happen again.'

While Hove is obviously not afraid to tell it like it is, the actor has kept a healthy perspective on the PC climate in PC. 'I can sit here and be disappointed, but nobody gives a damn,' he concedes. 'And keep in mind the actors, myself included, are damn good about bitching about the show. I've been around in different roles. I've played a vampire; a big-time loser, the romantic leading man, more serious characters like Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet. I've played Hamlet. But the most important thing is that if you have a good character and story to tell, everything else will fall into place.'"

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