Anna had been locked in a cell on General Hospital, listening to a voice that sounded exactly like Faison and trying to convince herself it couldn’t possibly be him, even as it reached back through years of shared history and pressed on every bruise she thought she had healed. It wasn’t just frightening, it was personal in a way only Faison ever managed to be, dragging Anna back into memories she’d spent a lifetime shoving aside. When Finola Hughes talked about stepping into that space again, it didn’t sound like the show rehashing a twist so much as choosing to open a scar that was never fully gone.
Kay Takeaways
- Anna’s terror comes from recognition, not surprise.
- Hearing Faison again reopens memories Anna never fully buried.
- Playing Faison’s dialogue live on set made the fear immediate.
- Hughes leaned into discomfort rather than smoothing it over.
- For Anna, Faison isn’t back — he was never really gone.
When the Past Starts Talking Back
Hughes talked about the storyline with Soap Opera Digest, describing an experience that felt oddly familiar despite the years that had passed since Anna and Faison last crossed paths onscreen. When she mentioned his portrayer, Anders Hove, the warmth came through immediately. “I love him so. He is one of my favorite scene partners of all time,” she gushed, clearly understanding exactly how rare that kind of chemistry is.
Although Hove recorded his dialogue from Europe, the production made a point of playing his voice aloud on the studio floor, allowing Hughes to react in real time instead of pretending the menace wasn’t there. That decision mattered because Anna’s terror isn’t abstract; it lives in tone, timing, and recognition, the sound of a man who knows exactly where to press.
Hughes didn’t pretend the setup was normal or comfortable, laughing as she recalled the experience and admitting, “it was nuts!” but that discomfort fed the scenes rather than undermining them, letting Anna’s fear feel immediate instead of theatrical.
Why Anna Can’t Escape Faison
The Anna-Faison history is too dense to shrug off, stretching back to betrayals, false identities, and a fixation that crossed borders and decades, and Hughes leaned into that psychological minefield instead of trying to tidy it up. She talked about how hearing Faison again wasn’t about plot mechanics so much as tapping into Anna’s memory, the part of her that never quite believed he was gone.
That’s why the voice works, even now, even without a physical presence, because obsession doesn’t need a body to feel real. Hughes explained it simply, calling the process “a really cool method to tap into Anna’s past, her psyche,” and treating the distance between actors as texture rather than limitation.
By the time Anna was vomiting in her cell, insisting it was all a trick while still listening for the next taunt, the point had been made. Faison doesn’t need to return to ruin Anna’s peace. He never really left. (Did Faison leave behind a digital doppelganger?)
