‘General Hospital’: Cynthia Watros Reveals the Challenge She Faced After Taking Over the Role of Nina
Cynthia Watros is one of the main stars of General Hospital. She plays Nina Reeves, the current editor-in-chief of the fictional Crimson magazine on the show.
Watros took over the role of Nina from actor Michelle Stafford in 2019. Naturally, it is not easy playing a character that belonged to someone else for years, and Watros is opening up about how “difficult” this experience has been for her.
Cynthia Watros was a star on other shows before appearing on ‘General Hospital’
One of Watros’ first acting gigs in the 1990s was on another soap opera, Guiding Light. Watros played Annie Dutton, a role she occupied from 1994 to 1998. She even won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
In 2008, she landed a lead role on the popular show Lost, where she played Libby Smith. Then, from 2014 to 2015, Watros played Elizabeth Wilson on the MTV series Finding Carter. She also had a short stint on the soap opera The Young and the Restless as Kelly Andrews.
Cynthia Watros took over the role of Nina on ‘General Hospital’ in 2019
In 2019, it was announced Watros would be taking over the role of Nina after Stafford’s departure.
Watros shared with Michael Fairman TV in June 2019 that she “can’t wait” to explore more of the character, saying, “She’s got stuff that she hasn’t explored for a long time because her life is going pretty well right now. What happens though when your life doesn’t go really well? You start exploring those things that you thought were sleeping a little bit, you know, that weren’t necessarily bubbling up to the surface.”
So far, Watros’ Nina has ended her relationship with the villainous Valentin Cassadine and began dating Jasper “Jax” Jacks. She is currently on the search for her long-lost daughter.
Cynthia Watros admits it was initially challenging for her to play Nina
Watros seems to be doing well as Nina, but she admits things used to be challenging for her, especially since it was her first time taking over a role from someone else.
She told Soap Opera Digest’s podcast, Dishing With Digest, “What would have helped me is if Michelle was just horrible at her job. But Michelle is awesome and amazing. So it was a hard climb up to really feel like Nina was mine because Michelle was so good.”
Watros noted that viewers’ expectations and reactions made things “difficult” as well.
“It was difficult, I have to be honest,” Watros said. “There were a lot of times I was like, ‘I might get fired today. This might be the day.’ Not that I wasn’t trying hard or the show wasn’t supportive. It was just like… it’s tough. As human beings, we don’t like change. When you love a character and an actor, when someone else is thrown in there, you don’t want change. It takes a long time to get used to that person being in that role.”
Fortunately for Watros, she did not get fired. She shared that, after about six months, things started to fall more into place and she began to “feel more and more like Nina.”
