General Hospital found itself in quite a pickle last year when longtime star Haley Pullos was arrested and charged with DUI. At the time, Pullos' character, Molly Lansing-Davis, was slated to become part of a major surrogacy story, so GH felt it had to recast.
Third time's the charm for General Hospital's Molly
After Holiday Mia Kriegel and Brooke Anne Smith did not catch on with fans, GH tried a third recast and hired Kristen Vaganos to play Alexis Davis and Ric Lansing's young adult daughter. Since taking over the role of Molly last September, Vaganos has made the character her own, wowing fans along the way.
Vaganos spent her first eleven months as Molly on recurring status but became a contract player in August, just as Molly began mourning the baby Kristina had been carrying for her and T.J.
The deets on Kristen Vaganos
Vaganos is a Philadelphia, PA, native who earned her BFA at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Before landing her GH role, Vaganos appeared in a variety of made-for-TV movies, including Murder & Matrimony, Secret Society of Lies, and Obsessed With the Babysitter according to IMDb.
When Vaganos was first approached about trying for the role of Molly, she had never stepped foot in the world of daytime before and wasn't sure if she should even go to the audition.
"I got the audition during the strike, so my first thought was, 'Am I allowed to do this?'" Vaganos told Steve Burton (Jason Morgan) and Bradford Anderson (Damian Spinelli) on their Daily Drama Podcast.
Vaganos was referring to the 2023 Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) strike in which soap actors were permitted to work due to having a different union contract than other small- and big-screen productions. Vaganos acknowledged the difficulties of being a recast, calling it a "process" for fans to accept a new performer in an old role.
Still, Vaganos decided to give Molly her own special touches.
"There's a little bit of like fitting the mold and then there's a little bit of taking it as my own and letting her be what she is in me," Vaganos told Burton and Anderson.
A fun time in the summertime
Vaganos has been busy in the summer of 2024. The actress took a Grecian vacation and documented her trip on Instagram. She also appeared in a play called Human Error, which ran for three weekends in Los Angeles. Vaganos' GH co-stars attended, including her on-screen dad Rick Hearst (Ric Lansing), and her on-screen sister Kate Mansi (Kristina Corinthos-Davis).
Vaganos also took Molly to new heights over the summer as the character found her backbone and expressed her rage and frustration at her dysfunctional family situation. Now that Molly and Kristina are enemies, anything can happen.
Catch all-new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu.
