VIDEO: Is Guiding Light's Shayne Back to Stop a Wedding?

• Dec 8, 2008 11:52 AM ET
• by Matt Mitovich

Jeff Branson — whom you likely know as All My Children's Jonathan Lavery, but who also guested on CBS' Guiding Light a few years back as a "young" Alan Spaulding — is back on GL, this time inhabiting the role of Shayne Lewis. The thing is, thus far Shayne is going by another name over in Germany, effectively eluding Dinah's radar.

Why the chicanery? "He's in a place in his life where he's hiding from everything," Branson explains in this video. Since leaving Springfield to do Peace Corps work abroad, Shayne "has lost a lot more than we know."

This week, Shayne sets foot in Springfield and quickly "sizes things up" — including his ex-girlfriend's imminent wedding to Mallet. "It's not the obvious thing, that he's trying to rekindle a Marina relationship," previews Branson. "He thinks love is a sham [so] he's trying to tell her that [the promise of wedded bliss] is not what she thinks it is." Add in copious amounts of alcohol, Branson says, and the wedding crashing "gets out of control."

Branson also ponders the likelihood of a Shayne-Marina-Mallet-Dinah love quadrangle (at the 2:30 mark), reveals who Shayne will be "stalking" (3:00), and shares the lad's current thoughts regarding mom Reva's pregnancy via Jeffrey (3:30).

As the actor surveys, Shayne "has been gone so long that home's not home anymore."