Maurice Benard's Sonny Days

Car bombs, gun fights, blown-up exes... ah, but a few of the hair-curling horrors that soap star Maurice Benard has faced in his nearly 12-year career playing Sonny Corinthos, the hot-blooded don of General Hospital's mob. Offscreen, happily, the Daytime Emmy-winning actor's life is slightly less Sopranos-esque ‑- though it's not necessarily without its daunting tasks. There are, after all, dirty diapers once again in his California household, now that son Joshua James, five months, has joined Benard, wife Paula and daughters Cailey, 10, and Cassidy, six.

"I'm not going to lie," grins the actor, "I think I've changed maybe one diaper this time around. I mean, I've done maybe seven in my whole life." Benard is nonetheless a devoted dad, especially of late. "I love all my kids," he stresses, "but I'm doing a little bit more with [Joshua], as far as holding him and playing with him and talking to him and singing to him."

Not that there's even much time to do that, given the actor's demanding schedule on GH, which often requires at least two hours of line studying after work every night. "It's hard, but it's fun," he notes, especially considering a recent grueling story line in which Sonny deals with the return of his kidnapped/brainwashed stepson, Michael ‑- a tale that was actually born of a suggestion from Benard himself.

"I was at home watching TV and [the 1996 movie] Ransom came on. I said, 'You know, they do kidnapping stories all the time on soaps, but to have Sonny go through that, the stakes would be so high.' The next thing you know, we're doing it."

He's also busy on the show with a new costar, since Jennifer Bransford took over the wildly popular role of Carly in April from Tamara Braun. "I love her," enthuses Benard. "I don't know what she's going to do from one moment to the next."