Sean Kanan is feeling the sting of growing pains. Although he is reluctant to dive into the particulars of his inner turmoil, he makes it clear that he is in a time of soul searching and of making major life decisions. "You think you're finished with your growing pains at a certain age, and then you realize they don't stop," says Kanan. "There have been a lot of periods in my life where I've had growing pains. I'm going through some right now, and it's difficult."

Kanan - who is in his fifth year of portraying the troubled A.J. Quartermaine - uses any turmoil he suffers in real life to enhance his work on camera. "Part of my job as an actor is to walk that razor's edge between keeping it together and not," he says. "I can bring whatever demons I have - of which there are many - to my work."

Knowing it is much more interesting to play a tortured soul than a prince charming, Kanan is delighted that GH provides him a role with the tortured complexity of A.J.

"I've really tried to bring a humanity to him, so he's not this smarmy little jerk who is trying to get over all the time," says the actor. "Here he is, this guy with a half brother who is all but perfect. A.J. is Alan Quartermaine Jr., and here's his half brother who is basically the bastard son of some other woman. And here's the fly in the ointment: I can't even hate this half brother - I love him, but he's better than me, and that's real tough."

It is also tough in real life for Kanan to undergo personal transitions under public scrutiny. "It's incredibly hard," he admits.

"I've learned some tough lessons," he says, without disclosing the details of the error of his ways. "I've made mistakes that have come up in my face and have been duly noted by lots of other people by virtue of the fact that I'm on television. It's been my own fault: I have no one to blame but myself. Live and learn," he adds.

At times, Kanan admits, he hasn't quite known how to deal with the attention being on a soap opera has brought him. "It's uncomfortable and awkward," he says. "It's great to get a table at a restaurant, but most of the time, it's weird. It's bizarre that everyone knows who you are, but you kinda don't know who they are.

"It's disconcerting," he says, finally settling on that word to describe his discomfort. "I've had a tough time getting used to that. There's no handbook that prepares you for it. This last year has been especially hard on me, and I'm trying to come to grips with it.

"I try not to be aloof, but if it comes off that way sometimes, I apologize to those people. It's very awkward when I'm having dinner with my girlfriend and someone comes up and says, 'So A.J., are you going to wind up with Keesha? And when's Jason going to get his memory back?' It makes it difficult, because there's a part of me that feels I owe it to the person to talk to them because they watch the show. But to what point do I owe it? And they're talking to me as some fictitious character I play, not to Sean, which is a very weird thing.

"I have a tough time bullshitting," he says, frankly. "I'm far from a perfect human being. I'm nobody's role model, yet I've kinda been thrust into this position where I'm expected to be one - and I've made a lot of mistakes. I've had to learn that, because I'm an actor on network television, certain things are expected of me, which I have to adhere to. That hasn't always been easy, but I'm trying.

"My fans think the stars of daytime live a certain type of life, but they would be amazed to realize that most of us - all of us, probably - have the same human frailties everyone has, and when we learn from them, we grow."

Kanan is concerned that expectations for celebrities are often unrealistic. "Take what's come into play with our politicians, for instance," he explains. "Yeah, they're running for public office, and, yes, they're representative of supposedly the finest leadership qualities in our nation, but so what if a guy got drunk and took a leak outside a frat party?" he asks bluntly to make his point. "Does that mean, by virtue of the fact that when he was 22 years old he did something like that, he's not fit?

"Did Bill Clinton take a puff on a joint? Of course he did, and who cares? I'm glad he did - he can relate better to what the world is about, I think. We're creating in this country a scary level of an ideal for people to live up to."

Kanan writes scripts, poetry, kick-boxes and does stand-up comedy to ease the intensity he has felt since childhood, when he was a precocious boy growing up in Pennsylvania. And looking back at his early years, he recalls the ambivalence he felt about going to a boarding school for junior and senior high.

"It was my choice, for the most part, but it was a very difficult period in my life," he admits. "It put me in a much more constrictive environment than I was used to. My parents wanted me to get into a good college and they felt it would better my chances.

"I received a fine education there, but I was not a kid who fit in well, which may be partially what drove me to want to be an actor - to be able to express myself. I felt stifled there - it was very regimented.

"I resented authority - and there's still a part of me that does. I'm working on that. But in boarding school, a lot of my teachers had a very myopic, parochial view."

By the time he was 15, Kanan knew he wanted to be an actor, but he majored in political science at Boston University, before transferring to UCLA, where he studied acting.

"Initially, when I told my parents I was going to become an actor, it was tantamount to saying, 'I'm going to be Jo-Jo the Dog-faced boy in the circus,'" recalls Kanan. "After I started getting some acting jobs, they began to believe I could do this for a living. I think after I finished my college degree, I had satisfied the parental pre-requisite for continuing independently in my life."

Kanan's roles in Karate Kid 3 and the TV series The Outsiders brought him attention, but he cites his role as A.J. as his greatest challenge. "It's given me the chance to play some very dificult scenes," he says. "I've had to bring some parts of myself to the role and it's really helped me grow as an actor."

The actor insists A.J. wants to quit drinking and get his life together, but doesn't know how. "Alcoholism is a disease," Kanan points out. "That's why they call it a problem. If it were readily fixable, he would quit drinking and that would be it. He needs to find an impetus to get himself straight and stay there. That would take somebody to truly believe in A.J. so he could believe in himself.

"He's had those opportunities, but even the city council seat was handed to him and the whole Charles Street Foundation was set up for him," adds Kanan. "I think he needs to find his own reason for being and make it work for him."

Kanan notes that even Keesha was inherited because of the accident A.J. caused. "A.J. is the consummate con man," says the actor. "He's conned himself the most and I think he's certainly conned Keesha a bit, maybe not consciously, but he has and I think he knows he has. Because of it, on some level, he lacks an innate respect for her. It is that philosophy of, 'I wouldn't want to belong to any country club that would have me for a member.' If A.J. were to overcome some of his demons and were to see the light now that Emily's overdose has hit him hard, the character would be fascinating. "I think it would be interesting to go through the healing process. As an actor, it's my job to be a conduit to express my vulnerability to people," says Kanan, who credits GH acting coach John Homa with helping him shape A.J. "Nobody is interested in seeing an actor who appears to be totally in control of things on screen; that's boring. You want to see someone who appears to be in control, but can fall to pieces at any minute.

"One of the reasons I love playing A.J.: Here's a guy who has been to the finest Swiss boarding schools, is handsome, well-bred, well-dressed, and is always a stone's throw away from catastrophe. There's a lot I can relate to."

But if Kanan struggles with his own demons, his seven-year relationship with live-in love Athena Ubach helps keep them under control. "She's a really good barometer for keeping me grounded," he says of Ubach, a graduate student and former restaurant owner. "She's been with me for this whole ride and she has a really good understanding and perception about the art vs. the business and what is and what is not important in this business. She keeps me focused and grounded, and keeps my head pointing in the right direction."

Ubach is studying for her master's degree in psychology, "which will cut down the bills," Kanan jokes.