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A Method to His
Madness "An accent, an attitude and a vice-they're the stuff of which soap opera villains are made. Enter Anders Hove (pronounced Anurs Hov), an actor who masters all of the above as General Hospital's scoundrel Cesar Faison. A native of Thisted, Denmark,
Hove attributes Americans' passion for casting him as a menacing madman to his foreign
intrigue. 'If you have an accent, you automatically get cast as the bad guy,' says
Hove wryly. Not that he minds capitalizing on this stereotype: 'I think the
bad guy is the more interesting character. It's more fun. I don't believe in
that good guy baloney... [a character that's] so unbelievably good that he can take over
everything. Give me a break!' Fortunately, Hove prefers the devilish to the godlike because, like all daytime viewers know, any character who succumbs to a vice- a la Faison's stogie smoking- would never be a candidate for sainthood anyway. 'John Beradino (Steve) told me that I'm the first character to smoke on the show in 25 years. So I must be really bad,' he laughs. Nonetheless, Hove maintains that there's a method to Faison's madness, which was best explored during Hove's initial run on GH, from March through August 1990. 'What was nice about Faison was that he was a person who had a conflict with himself and with what he was doing,' he says. 'There was a lot of complexity to him that I found rewarding. I think the audience loved it, too.' 'I really hope [the writers] put that element back into the character, so that he's not plain evil or plain good,' he continues. 'I really hope that I can make him turn into a thinking human being. I don't think that he ever did bad stuff just for the fun of it.' Hove's GH debut- also his debut on American television- came soon after the actor arrived in the United States. He'd already had a lucreative film and television career in Denmark, but anxious to broaden his professional and personal horizons, he decided to move to Los Angeles. 'I've always thought it was a fascinating place,' he explains. 'I like it, because the whole world's here- Italians, Koreans, Chinese... it's fascinating to see so many different attitudes and looks getting along amazingly well.' The major career risk of moving, and the personal upheaval of relocating his wife and two sons, didn't phase Hove: 'I think it's very important that now and then in your life you say, "Well, I've done that, now it's time to try something else. If it doesn't work, you can always go back." I always wanted to act here,' Hove continues. 'It was a challenge for us to cope with something new. I had to start from scratch, but it was fun.' His wife has taken a three-year leave from her job with a government-supported dance company, just in case. Within four weeks of arriving, Hove had landed an agency to represent him. 'They looked at my [audition] tape and they accepted me,' he says. 'But they didn't promise me anything. They just said said they would do what they could. I didn't realize until I'd been here for a while that there are a lot of actors in this town who didn't even have an agent.' Hove credits his rapid success here to three things: a good agent, the acting experience he'd acquired in Denmark and, most importantly, solid training at Denmark's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. 'You can't become an actor in Denmark if you don't go to the academy. 'Over here you can take an acting class for $60, and they you can call yourself an actor,' he muses. 'This town has nothing to do with talent; it has to do with a look and a little luck. I believe acting is a lifelong education, and that you have to keep it sharp, so to speak, all the time.' Hove is finding his daytime work at GH to be quite enlightening. 'I know there are a lot of people who look down on soaps, but I don't think there's any reason to do that. I have a lot of respect for the whole game. You only have one day to put a whole show together. It takes a lot of preparation and teamwork. It's an exceptional chance to be on-camera two or three times a week and learn the craft. And besides, you get paid for it,' he laughs. In August 1990, the fiendish Faison was run out of Port Charles by the resident good guys, Sean Donely and Robert Scorpio (John Reilly and Tristan Rogers). Hove admits he was sorry to see that run end. 'I thought we had something going there. It became, as far as I was concerned, better and better- the writing, too, for that matter. I think [Faison's departure] left the audience [hanging].' he notes. Now that he's back on the show, he's adjusting to the recognition generated by American soap stardom. "Back in Denmark, there's a different attitude toward [celebrity]. Even the Queen does her own shopping now and then,' he says. 'I never had a fan letter in Denmark, for instance. Well, maybe one or two, but that's it. People are a little more relaxed about it... or they don't really care, but it doesn't mean they don't appreciate what you're doing.' Perhaps that's why Hove was so taken with his first batch of GH fan mail. 'It was a total surprise,' he says. 'I do read all the letters, and I answer as many of them as I can. It's been wonderful this time around. I've gotten so many letters from the same people who wrote me the first time I was on the show.' Despite Faison's mile-long mean streak, Hove insists all his mail has been quite favorable. 'I have not had, honest to God, one nasty letter. That's nice,' he smiles. 'Although [Faison's] a son of a gun, people like him. They really do.' And so does Hove. 'It's fascinating to work with that sort of darker part of yourself. I like that,' he notes. 'But Faison is pure acting... believe me. He has nothing to do with me.' Indeed, Faison's intensity, superciliousness and boldness are nowhere to be found in Hove. The actor is mild-mannered, down-to-earth, een a trifle timid- a genuinely nice guy. However, since he portrays the epitome of evil on GH, Hove often has to explain his character's shady actions to his rather impressionable 3- and 5-year-old sons. We talk a lot about "Daddy's pretending", says Hove, 'because Daddy pretends a lot, and I don't want them to pick up on any of the things [Faison does]. My little one doesn't really care about any of it. He's the "Let's play; Let's have a ball" type. My older one is the thinker. He'll ask, "Daddy, why did you say that? Why did you do that?" So I have to explain that I'm pretending... it's acting.' Surely things would be a lot easier if Hove played the hero a bit more often. The question is, though, would he ever be chosen to forsake the devious for the dashing? 'I would have to work with Dianne Wiest,' Hove says. 'I like her. She's definately one of my favorites. She always has small, beautiful parts- Hannah and Her Sisters, Parenthood. She's very precise in [her acting].' Would he opt to be good? "I'd be anything,' he smiles. Trying everything and anything is, after all, what has taken Hove from Denmark to the United States. He's a man who thrives on taking chances. 'I think it's good to do that. Everything tends to be measured in money- in terms of success or failure,' says Hove. 'I don't really believe in that. My family and I have been here for two years, and maybe we'll stay one or two more... But whatever happens, we will come out of it having had a great time. Nobody can take that away from us.' Hove preserves a solid sense of perspective about his career and his field. 'Success is being able to deal with your failures. It's wonderful to have success, but you don't really learn much from that. The only thing you can learn from, certainly as an actor, is failure,' he insists. 'You have to challenge yourself constantly in order to grow as an actor... and as a human being.'" |
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