"The storyline I have now has been worth waiting for," says Grahn, who relishing the explosive new material. "There's definite conflict now. The players are set, and you know what's at stake, whereas that wasn't clear before. There is great conflict between Alexis and Stefan because it was established that they really did have a very strong love and family connection, but the axe has fallen."

The pivotal scene, in which Stefan confronted Alexis on her betrayal and banished her from Wyndemere and from all contact with the family, felt quite real to the actress. "working with Stephen (Nichols, Stefan) is very easy," Grahn says. "Of all Alexis' relationships right now, the one with Stefan is the most passionate - it's the most defined. And it's big. It's not, 'You cheated on me' it's 'You betrayed me.'

"We've all felt shut out at some point in our lives," she continues. "Abandonment pushes a huge button in al of us, so that's not hard to identify with. Even when relationships just don't work out, you feel abandoned. When your heart breaks, you feel abandoned, So the feeling of being left all alone is a strong feeling. It's a real feeling."

One of Grahn's favorite scenes was with Luke on the docks when he unraveled the story of Alexis' mother, Kristen. "It was such a rich story," she begins. "And I really felt engaged there, listening to him. I like the fact that Alexis has a mother and she knows who she is. It's very interesting to play an orphan who finds out in midlife that she had mother and that her throat was slashed. It's like a story out of a Russian novel. An actress lives for that kind of material."

Grahn comments on how much she enjoys her three male co-stars - Nichols, Anthony Geary (Luke), and Wally Kurth (Ned). "I like the different elements they bring out in Alexis," she says. "I think it's helped to shape the character because it's showing her differnt dimensions. I like her complexity. She's certainly not boring," Grahn adds with a laugh. "There's a hell of a lot of trouble you can get into when you're in the Cassadine family."

And the surface has only been scratched. The profound implications of Alexis' true identity raise the stakes considerably. And with Helena's looming presence in Port Charles, Alexis' life is in grave danger at a time when she is without effective allies. "Alexis is very loyal to Stefan, and there are things that are going to happen where she's going to have to choose him or her life," Grahn reveals.

Grahn's delight in her work is apparent as she discusses her role on GH. "When the story is good, the emotion just comes organically," she says. "It feels so nice where I work. I long to go there because sometimes my life at home get complicated. Acting is the thing in my life that I do with the most easy."