Ryan Paevey made his latest exit from General Hospital on Monday, July 6, as his character, Cassius Faison, was presumed dead following last week’s dramatic shootout that also claimed the life of Ross Cullum (Andrew Hawkes). The below contains major spoilers for the July 6 episode.

“Ryan’s return was always planned as a short-term arc,” executive producer Frank Valentini tells TV Insider exclusively. “He did incredible work, and we loved having him back.”

When Paevey returned to the soap in September 2025, he revealed that his conversations with Valentini were never intended to lead to a long-term stint. “We started talking a little bit about what he had in the works for story, and would I be willing to come back for a little bit?” Paevey recalled at the time. “The initial conversations were about really short periods of time, and I was like, ‘OK, well, look, if we’re going to do this, let’s really do it. I don’t want to come back for three weeks and be a ghost.’”

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

Paevey also had little interest in reprising Nathan West, the character he played in Port Charles from 2013-2018. “I didn’t want to do a resurrection story,” he told TV Insider last year. “So not to put too fine a point on it, if the intention was to revive this whole machine just to do the same thing over again, I wasn’t going to do it. I mean no insult to anybody, or no betrayal, but we did that already, and it was fun. Don’t undo that. So, then they were like, ‘Well, what if we made everybody think it was Nathan for a while, and it turned out to really not be?’ And I was like, ‘Okay, well, that sounds much more interesting. Let’s talk about what that might be.’ And so that’s what we did.”

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The prospect of introducing Nathan’s previously unknown twin brother, Cassius, was what ultimately convinced the actor to return. “This character is not the strait-laced nice guy, which opens up a whole new slew of activities and things to play with, which sounded like a lot more fun,” he explained. “So, I’m super jazzed. I think it’s fun. I think it’s good, soapy goodness, not only the return, but then the return under a certain pretext, only to find out later on that there is a new thing to learn. It wasn’t what you thought it was, and I’m not who you think I am, and there’s going to be all kinds of nefarious doings and goings on. I’m told. Nathan was like a pillar of goodness, and this guy is not. I don’t want to go so far as to say he’s a straight villain, but we’ll definitely call him morally ambiguous.”

The opportunity to create an entirely new character on the soap was especially meaningful to Paevey. “It’s wild to me,” he marveled last year. “That level of accommodation in Hollywood land is a big deal, and it’s fun, because you get to go back to a place that you’re familiar with, work with people you love, and people you’ve been friends with now for a long time, but it’s different, and that’s cool. It’s really, really fun to explore a new dynamic, not just in the character, but a new dynamic in our fictional relationships.”

Disney/Christine Bartolucci

Ultimately, Paevey was grateful for the chance to return to the series that launched his acting career. “Nostalgia has been a big thing in my life lately,” he reflected last year. “Going back to places I’ve not been in a long time seems to be the flavor, and there’s something nice about it. You see the passage of time, and it gives you more reflection and introspection. I think it’s good.”

While Cassius survived the shootout, his final scene saw Z (John Oliver) offering him a job, leaving the character’s future open-ended. “The door is always open for him to return,” says Valentini.

General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC, Check Local Listings