'General Hospital' Temporarily Recasting Role While Actress Recovers From Surgery

Alexis Davis will look slightly different for a few weeks at General Hospital starting in late April. True Blood star Stephanie Erb will play the role while longtime star Nancy Lee Grahn recovers from surgery, reports Soap Opera Digest. Erb's first episode will air on April 25.

Grahn, 65, told fans she needed back surgery earlier this month, reports Soaps In Depth. On Tuesday, she gave fans an update on her recovery, calling the surgery a "godsend" and praising her doctor. "The brilliant Dr. Matthew Chong at Kerlan Jobe swiftly removed the pesky cyst that parked itself on my facet joint in between a cluster of nerves on top and one seriously mean one on the bottom," Grahn wrote. "I tell ya, surgery and the aftermath was a cakewalk after lugging around my little friend for 3 months. I didn't take even one of the lovely painkillers. Just 2 Tylenol in all."

The actress said she would miss over two weeks of General Hospital filming. "Every day is better than the next. Except when I watch the news. Oy," she assured fans. At the end of her message, she thanked fans for their support. "As always, I appreciate your patronage. Every TV show wishes they had the likes and the loyalty of you guys in their family," Grahn wrote.

Grahn's career started on One Life to Live in 1978. She joined General Hospital in 1996 and has starred in over 1,000 episodes. She also appeared on the GH spinoff Port Charles and had a recurring part on 7th Heaven. Last year, she celebrated 25 years at General Hospital as Alexis, the daughter of Mikkos Cassadine and Kristin Bergman.

In an interview with TV Insider last year, Grahn said she was a GH fan before she was cast, so she understood the importance of playing a Cassadine. Grahn got the part because she called and asked producers for the chance after her daughter Kate was born.

"I knew all about the Cassadines and the freezing of the world," Grahn said. "I'd joke, 'My father almost froze the world. What has yours done?' I knew GH was where I belonged even though, at the time, there were a lot of other soaps on the air. The point was to have Kate and to raise her. GH put her through college. I couldn't have imagined it working out better."

Erb has dozens of television credits to her name, stretching back to a 1992 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Erb also starred as Camille Owens in Port Charles. Her many other credits include NCIS: Los Angeles, Therapy with Pami, 9-1-1, Bosch, NCIS: New Orleans, Ray Donovan, NCIS, The Young and the Restless, The Fosters, Bones, and True Blood.