Sean Kanan Gets Blunt About What Doomed a Key Character
Some guys have all the luck. The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Deacon really isn’t one of those guys, but hey we’ve got to hand it to him for always keeping it interesting. Because that’s about the only word we can figure out to describe the chemistry he and Sheila share!
At the end of the day, Deacon’s come a long way from his earliest days as a schemer, manipulator and kind of a gross human being. He’s grown and tried to learn from his past mistakes, easing into the roles of father, grandfather, businessman and charmer. He doesn’t always get it right, but that’s what happens when you’re a complex character, rather than a one-dimensional scumbag.
That’s probably why Deacon, while he has spent time in the slammer, never fails to come back for more. The same certainly can’t be said for Sean Kanan’s first daytime character, General Hospital’s poor, twice-dead A.J. Quartermaine. A.J.’s been gone for over a decade, but neither the fans, nor his portrayer have forgotten him — even if, when you get right down to it, his death may have been a mercy killing!
He wasn’t an easy character to like or to play, Kanan admits on former General Hospital co-star Maurice Benard’s vlog, State of Mind, and that wasn’t because it was his first daytime role!
“I worked very hard in the show,” Kanan recalls to Benard, noting how it was “a really amazing time to be a part of the show. Working with you and Ricky Martin and Vanessa Marcil, and we had that whole group. It was a very special time on the show. It wasn’t the heyday of General Hospital of the ‘80s, but it was a big heyday.”
But there was so much about A.J. that he struggled with, which, in turn, made things more difficult in general. For one thing, there was Kanan’s battle with alcohol. As he proudly shared with Benard, he’s nearly two years sober now. But that’s a long way from where he was 30 years ago when he started on General Hospital, or even nearly 10 years ago when A.J. died. (The second time!)
“I was definitely struggling with my alcohol issue at the time,” he shares, “and I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I was playing a character who was an alcoholic. So there was a lot of life imitating art and art imitating life.”
It was difficult, it was frustrating and as a young actor, it wore on him and may have made things tougher for those around him. “I think probably there were times when I allowed myself to feel resentful and use that as an excuse to act out,” he explains, “which is being a victim. That’s playing the victim, which is useless.”
But it wasn’t just how close to home some of A.J.’s struggles hit that Kanan struggled with. The very nature of the character he was asked to play was just downright problematic from the start.
For one thing, he notes, he “felt like the character of A.J. never got a fair shake. I mean, I was kind of told I was there to play the asshole. And, you know, as an actor, you can’t play an asshole. The actor’s going after what his goals are, his wants, his needs and you know, playing an asshole is not an objective.”
A.J. mostly just seemed to exist to cause problems and tick people off and that’s tough to play. It isn’t the first time Kanan’s opened up about how distasteful he felt A.J. could be, as just a couple months back he talked about how difficult he found the HIV storyline with Stone. A.J. was just downright horrible through it all, which is the opposite of how Kanan himself felt.
“I felt that the character was really not supported,” Kanan says, “and I suppose on some levels, it really made me feel like I wasn’t supported.”
Ultimately, how could a character no one could stand and no one supported survive? So, in 1997, he left, and Billy Warlock took over the role until the character’s first “death.” Kanan moved on briefly to the short-lived NBC sudser, Sunset Beach, before tackling Deacon Sharpe on Bold & Beautiful. In between, he brought A.J. back to life before killing him off again just two years later. It was a rough run, but ultimately, Kanan shares, “It was a good time.”
And without it, he may never have gotten started on the path that lead to Deacon, Bold & Beautiful, Young & Restless and everything in between! And we’re eternally grateful that while Deacon can be a you-know-what, that’s just one part of a character who’s charmed everyone from Brooke and Nikki Newman, to Quinn and Sheila!
