Lexi Ainsworth Talks General Hospital, Pristina, exciting new projects, and much more! Check it out here --->>>
Photo: ABC
This past week we got the honor of speaking with General Hospital actress and yoga extraordinaire Lexi Ainsworth. And yes! She is just as sweet as you’d expect her to be. Check out our interview below as we talk about her career beginnings, General Hospital, her newest passion, and some exciting new projects!
Lexi grew up in Oklahoma and was a very energetic child. “I had a lot of energy as a kid. So, my parents put me in everything, and performing was always one thing that stuck.” At three she started with ballet and moved onto musical theater which ultimately leads her to an on-camera acting class when she was eleven. While there she met with a manager who was going to do a workshop in Los Angeles. “I somehow convinced my mom to go to LA for the summer to do this workshop.” What they didn’t know was at the end of the workshop would be a showcase attended by agents. At the end of the showcase, she signed with an agent and was surprised at what that meant for her life going forward. She had to leave her life and school in Oklahoma. She was homeschooled by her mother, who was a teacher, while she auditioned for roles. Lexi booked her first audition, a Barbie commercial. The luck of landing the part so early on brought instant gratification and a false sense of just how difficult the business could be. “I thought this is easy! And then I quickly learned that it’s not that easy,” she laughed.
Over the next couple of years, she would land parts in several projects like Criminal Minds, Gilmore Girls, and Wild Child. Nothing major was happening for her though. So, she decided to give herself one last summer in LA and then planned on moving back home to Oklahoma. But as luck - or fate - would have it, she was about to land her biggest role to date. When she was sixteen and on the same day as she got her driver’s license she got the call that she had got the part of Kristina Corinthos Davis on General Hospital. “I thought this is meant to be. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
Lexi described how she had gone in three times during her audition process for the ABC soap opera. There was the initial audition, a callback, and then a screen test with Steve Burton who plays Jason Morgan. In 2011, she earned her first Daytime Emmy nomination for Kristina’s teen abuse storyline. Kristina began dating Kiefer Bauer, and the audience watched as their relationship turned violent with Kiefer abusing Kristina. The storyline remains one of Ainsworth’s favorites due to the care and time the show gave the material.
Her other favorite storyline came in 2016 when Kristina developed feelings for her female college professor, Parker. Watching as she struggled to come to terms with her sexuality and the impact that would have on her family provided the audience with some heartfelt and insightful scenes. Her beautiful performance earned her a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series. “That was probably one of the best days of my life.” Lexi was excited to share the accomplishment with her parents who have done so much to support her on this journey. “Having them be there meant a lot to me.”
The relationship between Kristina and Parker quickly became a fan-favorite, but like things often do in the busy world of soap operas the story was dropped. The fans were left with a less than satisfactory end to their relationship, and have been looking forward to the day when the two will reunite. Lexi says that she doesn’t know when or if the show will circle back to them, but she sees all the love for them and hopes their story can continue. Not just for the fans, but for the importance of representation. “I think there need to be more members of the LGBTQ+ community visible on television.”
Recently, Kristina’s story has shifted to a darker place with her finding herself involved with the Dawn of Day cult run by the evil Shiloh. With the material of the story becoming so dark we wondered what that can do to the psyche of the actor. “You definitely have to go to that place. It’s knowing how to bring yourself into it and then how to bring yourself out of it.” For Lexi, that means listening to happy music and taking the time to breathe in the hopes of not bringing that darkness home after filming.
Getting the chance to work on lighter material helps as well! While on hiatus from General Hospital she got to work with Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson on the comedy series “The Guest Book” from My Name Is Earl creator Greg Garcia. “I love doing drama, but it is nice to do something more light-hearted. It’s different energy on set.” Lexi noted that her favorite shows are based in the dramedy genre, and her love of shows like Amazon’s Fleabag has inspired her. She recently has taken up writing as her new passion and is in the process of writing a pilot script! The plot revolves around a girl who moves to New York and works to figure out the city and herself as well. We can’t wait to see it!
That’s not the only exciting thing Lexi has going on! She is also set to begin filming for a new TV movie this month in Canada! She couldn’t release too many details about that project yet, but we are excited! She let us know that she was back filming for General Hospital last week too! So get ready for more Kristina!
With such a busy schedule what does she do for fun?! Yoga! If you follow Lexi on Instagram you can see her pulling off some pretty impressive poses. “I like to do that when I’m not working. It keeps me sane.” She has taken her love for Yoga and turned it into something more than a hobby. It was recommended to her to take the training courses to become a teacher, and she thought “why not?” First going through the 200-hour training course and then the 300, Lexi has learned that “...doing it and teaching it are very different things.”
Whatever Lexi is doing it’s safe to say that she is going to put her all into it. We can’t wait to see what she does next! It’s great to talk with someone who just loves what she is doing and is so grateful for the opportunities. And to the soap viewers, she had this to say: “Thank you for watching. Thank you for supporting the show and accepting Kristina.”
Thank you to Lexi for a wonderful interview. We wish you continued success in everything!
Tori
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