Why Cynthia Watros Is Beloved as Nina Reeves on General Hospital

General Hospital scored a casting coup when the role of Nina Reeves came open in 2019. The show was lucky enough to get Daytime Emmy-winner and Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Cynthia Watros to take over the role. As a result, the drama in Port Charles has never been more potent!

Cynthia Watros Brings Heart, Humor, and Humanity to Nina Reeves

Stepping into someone else’s shoes is never easy in the world of daytime drama. When stylish Watros assumed the part of stylish Crimson magazine editor Nina Reeves, she didn’t immediately make headlines. Rather than bang out some unfounded histrionics in order to hit the ground running, Watros got used to living in Nina’s skin and waited for stories to play out before viewers were reminded of just how powerful an actress Watros is.

Guiding Light fans fondly recall Watros’s memorable turn as nurse Annie Dutton, who started out as a young heroine, eventually becoming a woman on a ledge. Annie’s lies about Reva Shayne (Kim Zimmer) pushing her down a staircase, causing her to lose her baby, were exposed on the witness stand. In beautifully acted, written, directed, and lit scenes, Watros turned in a tour de force as Annie’s world crumbled. In 1998, Watros won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Her departure from daytime was a loss for the soap world. Watros went on to star in the series Titus, The Drew Carey Show, and Lost. The latter earned her a SAG Award for Drama Series Ensemble.

In 2013, Watros returned to daytime in the recurring role of Kelly Andrews, a woman who bonded with Billy Abbott in an emotional support group. Like Billy, Kelly had lost a child, too. The actress left Genoa City to play the lead in the MTV series Finding Carter. Around this time, she won an ISA (Independent Series Award) for her comedic in the web series Cynthia Watros Gets Lost. Check it out to see Watros’s display her comedic chops.

As her Instagram and Facebook followers can attest, Cynthia Watros will hop onto social media live and converse with her supporters while she’s in her dressing room. The actress is kind, supportive, and talks with (not ‘to’) her fans. “You guys are amazing, and I’m sending you a lot of love,” she said in a recent chat that she posted on Instagram.

Watros has great taste in talent, too! Eagle-eyed viewers have spotted the Bette Davis movie posters hanging on the wall in her background, including one for All About Eve. How nice. Watros is an admirer of the late movie star; ironically, Davis, who passed away in 1989, herself was a fan of Guiding Light in the early 1980s when the late Lisa Brown played the indomitable Nola Reardon! We’ve no doubt she’d have been a fan of Watros too!

Last year’s rivalry between Carly Corinthos (Laura Wright) and Nina, which is still playing out, went to new heights after it was revealed that Nina had known Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) was alive and well and living as a man named Mike in Nixon Falls. Both Watros and Wright received Daytime Emmy Award nominations this year in the Outstanding Lead Actress category. Also, the Carly and Nina rivalry won the Soap Hub Award for Favorite Feud last year. Both Watros and Wright appeared on The Talk to accept their statuettes.

That feud shows no signs of ending either. Right now, Carly knows that Nina is Willow Tait’s (Katelyn MacMullen) mother, only she’s keeping her mouth shut. We have no doubt that Watros will deliver the goods — as she always does — when the truth comes out!

General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Port Charles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on GH spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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