MARK LAWSON ON GH EXIT

Mark Lawson had a lot on his mind the day he learned that GH was killing off his character, Dustin, who he had been playing since July 2019.

Explains the actor, “I was actually a victim of the Hollywood Con Queen hoax [an elaborate grifting scheme targeting actors and showbiz tradespeople]. I had about a 24-hour window where I thought, all of a sudden, my life was going to change; I was going to be the fourth lead in this new Tom Cruise movie, I was going to fight him and have all these scenes with him — and then I found out the next day, 24 hours later, that it was all a hoax. So, I get that call, I’m devastated, and five minutes later, Frank [Valentini, executive producer] called me to let me know that unfortunately, Dustin had to go.”

Lawson took both pieces of news in stride. “When Frank kind of gave me the gist of what was going to happen, I was fine with it,” he says. “I’ve always been recurring; I always knew [my last day] could happen at any time.” As for the con he fell victim to, he muses, “There were people who were really, really grifted. There are just terrible stories. I got off really lucky and, in fact, I feel like I took something good away from it. There was a moment where I thought I was on the phone with a studio head who was basically offering me this role, but making me commit to whether I wanted to audition for the role and at some point, I finally said, ‘I’ve been out here since 2013. I don’t want to audition for the role. I’m ready for the role. I want the part.’ And I’m going to keep that [determination] with me. So, there was some good that came out of it.”