Exclusive: General Hospital's Kate Mansi On The Ava/Kristina Showdown

Disney/Ricky Middlesworthv

Kate Mansi (Kristina, General Hospital ) was thrilled when her character began interacting more with Ava Jerome, the alter ego of co-star Maura West. "I just love Maura as a person and have always had the utmost respect for her as an actress," Mansi says. "I remember when I was on Days of Our Lives [where she played Abigail] and I would watch the Emmy submissions every year. I was like, 'Finola [Hughes, Anna] is the most talented and most beautiful woman in the world.' And Maura, I felt the same way about. But she also has this sort of hauntingly eerie quality to her characters sometimes, like at any minute, she could go for your jugular or embrace you and be your biggest advocate."

Being In The Moment

The unpredictability West infuses into Ava has played out in Mansi's scenes with her. "I think that has been really interesting for the relationship dynamic between [Ava and Kristina]," she offers. "I can track it back to the scene where Kristina actually asked Ava, at the beginning of Ava moving in with Sonny, 'Hey, can you look after my dad?' And I love the way that Maura played it, because Maura was like, 'You want me, Ava, to look after your dad?!' It was actually sort of a sweet moment because what Kristina was doing was saying, 'I, too, was like a black sheep of my family and I don't care what your reputation is or what anyone else has said about you. You're going to be living with my dad, and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.' So, to me, she was, Kristina was extending a bridge for the two women."

Of course, whatever tentative goodwill existed then has effectively been blown to smithereens, first by Ava doing damage to Blaze and Kristina's privacy by leaking that recording of Natalia , then by Ava subpoenaing Kristina to testify in the upcoming court battle between Ava and Sonny for custody of Avery — and the tension between the women ramped up quickly on the August 1 episode, leading Kristina to crash through the window of Ava's Metro Court hotel room!

Working on the climactic scenes, Mansi had a front-row seat to the care West takes in her characterization of Ava. "Maura is so protective of Ava, and she was really insistent on [bringing more nuance into the moment] than just these two women having a bitch fight just so that we can get to the result of Kristina going out the window," the actress explains. "She played it as, 'I'm arguing this point, you're arguing this point, and I'm certainly not going to push you,' but [their confrontation] escalates in a natural way. I think that was really smart and it leaves it in this really sort of knotty gray area because it's like, 'Wait, did she push her, or did she fall? Whose fault is it?' The blame isn't black and white. Kristina came to Ava's hotel room so hot, you know? Off the charts! Kristina isn't attacking her, but if you think about it, Kristina comes into her space and is yelling at her and upset with her and making demands and there is all this heat coming from Kristina. Ava did not lure her there; Kristina went there willingly, on her own."

A stunt double was employed to perform Kristina's plunge, and Mansi marvels at "the absolute art and talent to their craft, which is so often overlooked." Something that was all Mansi's doing was Kristina's terrified scream as she falls. "Rob [Markham, the director] was like, 'Okay, we have to get audio of you falling.' Everyone was still on set and looking at me and I had to do this big scream, so I let out this big scream that I thought was really good. And then Rob was like, 'We need it longer.' And I was like, 'Longer?!' And they were like, 'Yeah, it's five floors!' So we did it again until we got the scream just right."