Kate Mansi on Her New Big ‘General Hospital’ Gig & Being Intimidated by Laura Wright

The November 18 episode of General Hospital has a very special director: Kate Mansi, better known onscreen as Kristina Corinthos.

Mansi says she first got the directing bug years ago on Days of Our Lives, where she played Abigail Deveraux. “I had a storyline with Ali Sweeney [Sami Brady] and James Scott [EJ DiMera], and I had been working with Ali quite a bit,” she recalls. “We became good friends, and she started to observe the directors. I watched her go through that process, and then she directed her first episode that I was actually in. She was Ali Sweeney, the director, but also seeing how she transferred the attention to detail that she has as an actor to when she was directing was so inspiring to me. I remember I called my dad afterwards, and I was like, ‘Ali Sweeney directed today, and I want to do that someday.’”

A motivated Mansi began shadowing the directors at Days and eventually helmed a segment herself. When she joined GH in 2023, Mansi let executive producer Frank Valentini know that it was one of her passions. “Fortunately, Frank allowed me to shadow in the booth, and I spent the last year really working on shadowing as much as I possibly could,” she relays.

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On her birthday in September, she received an unexpected gift. “Frank called me and said he had the perfect episode for me to direct and that I was ready,” she recalls. “And I was scared sh**less, but I said to him, ‘OK, I think I’m ready, too, but please, the only person I don’t want to direct is Laura Wright [Carly Spencer].’ He was like, ‘Why? She’s amazing.’ And yes, she’s amazing as a human and friend and actor, but I was really intimidated to direct her.”

Her nerves only grew when she heard the rest of the cast she’d be working with that day — Genie Francis (Laura Collins), Maurice Benard (Sonny Corinthos), and Steve Burton (Jason Morgan). “I took a minute to sort of freak out, and then I just got right to work,” she says.

Mansi received immense support from her costars. “Genie Francis looked over and saw me, and whispered to me, ‘Are you shadowing?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and she gave me a huge thumbs up, and it was so sweet,” Mansi says. “And afterwards, she gave me a big hug and said, ‘We need more female directors. I’m so proud of you and inspired by you that you’re taking on something new. My husband’s [Jonathan Frakes] a director.’ And we talked about that quite a bit, so it was just like so nice to have that the day before I did her scenes.”

Mansi’s on-screen sister, Kristen Vaganos (Molly Lansing), proved to be her secret hype woman. “She asked if she could come up and watch me direct, and I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I don’t want to see anyone. I know it’ll make me too nervous. I need to stay focused,’” Mansi relays. “And it turns out, at the end of the day, she sent me all these photos and videos that she had taken. She said, ‘I was hiding. Sometimes you came up to me, and I was hiding in a bookshelf, because I was trying to stay out of your eye line.’ And then when I had lunch, she was like, ‘I ordered you lunch downstairs.’ So that was really sweet.”

Eventually, it was time to face the one actor she’d been most anxious about. “Laura Wright had the last scenes of the day, and I was admittedly nervous, and she could tell,” Mansi says. “And it was also a really important scene. There were a lot of layers. There are some intimate moments with her and Brennan [Chris McKenna], and I really wanted to push the boundaries on that, so I needed this passionate make-out scene. I wanted them to take it as far as they were comfortable, but I sort of hesitated and said, ‘And then you guys can kiss, and I’ll cut out whenever you’re comfortable.’ And Laura, which was so great, just gave me complete permission. She said, ‘I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I think we should just, like, go at it.’ So, she really allowed me to be bold with my choices, which was so awesome.”

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One of those choices was rooted in tradition. “I had been watching old episodes of soaps, just to really get the energy of what fans love so much about our genre,” she explains. “And I think it’s the romance, and the push and pull of, ‘Will they or won’t they?’ and playing all these multi-dynamic levels in a scene, and that’s something that Laura Wright does so well. So, I asked Frank if I could do something a little bit different, and he said yes. And then when I went back to the booth, our producer that day, Michelle Henry, and Frank, told me that Laura had called up right after blocking and said, ‘Oh, my gosh. I love those scenes! Her blocking is amazing. I can’t wait to do them.’ So that really made me feel so confident.”

The day ended with a moment Mansi won’t soon forget. “Laura is someone who, I can honestly say, practices what she preaches in women supporting women, and on that day, was so gracious and brought so much of herself,” Mansi continues. “And then when I finished those scenes, she called me and said, ‘I’ve been an actor for 34 years, and I’ve never played something that way. I could tell that you had some throwbacks of the old soap classics in that scene, but with a fresh take.’ That meant so much to me, and I really cried. I also have to credit Ali Sweeney, because I called her when I was blocking these episodes, and I said, ‘I just want to blow Laura Wright’s mind. Please help me,’ and then we sort of talked through it together. She gave me some inspiration and some tips, so that was really incredible.”

With her first episode behind her, Mansi is eager for another shot. “I would love to do it again,” she says. “Frank mentored me through this experience, and I could not be more grateful for his generosity of time and belief in me. He gave me the most rewarding experience thus far in my professional career in trusting me with this opportunity.”

General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC