During a recent interview with Michael Fairman, Van Hansis was asked about his new role on As the World Turns.

Here's what the actor had to say about portraying a darker, drunker to Luke:

On playing a bad guy: It’s a cliché for an actor to go, “I like playing the bad guy, blah, blah, blah,” but it is the truth. I think Luke is inheridently a good guy, but you can’t be good all the time. You have to tell compelling stories, and be compelling as an actor. Your character needs to have flaws, and this storyline brought out the major flaws in Luke’s character, which is based on his history. He can be self-righteous, and does not think things through. He has a tendency to think he knows what’s better for people than they do.

When things don’t go his way he gets petulant instead of trying to solve the problems. It was great to play all of that, and it was great for me. I thought everything that happens with Brian now comes out of essentially Luke deciding to run for school president. It’s a longer story arc built into chapters from the election. It’s a really good story!

On playing a good drunk: I am the best drunk on daytime? My mom would be so proud of me! Sometimes you see people playing drunk, and you cringe. I did research on being drunk. I went out in public and tried to act really drunk. There are a couple things to it: not really making eye contact, and looking really down. I heard someone tell me that somebody had to play drunk a lot and so they pretended their body didn’t really have any bones in it. It’s a lot of fun to play drunk, I’ve decided. Those are some of my favorite scenes.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.