Tyler Christopher

Actor Tyler Christopher is leaving 'General Hospital.'

The star, who has played Nikolas Cassadine on and off since 1996, is moving on to another Disney project, the ABC Family series, 'The Lying Game.'

On Friday, Tyler was given the news that he was being let go, but the network would not immediately comment about the story. SoapCentral was able to confirm the exit from source.

Christopher's departure overlaps Rebecca Herbst being retained on the show. Their on-screen coupling, Nikolas and Liz, produced a son, Aiden, and Liz is on the verge of learning that he's not Nikolas's biological son after all.

That means 'GH' has a perfect way to write the Nikolas character off the show. He can leave Port Charles when he learns the bitter truth.

Christopher won't be off air any time soon, however. Nikolas remains in story lines through most of April.

As we previously reported, James Franco made his big debut on 'General Hospital' this afternoon -- and we have the full scoop on what went down.

We already know that the movie star's run on the ABC soap opera is going to be loaded with surprises. For starters, although his debut was supposed to be today, regular 'GH' viewers noticed that the Golden Globe winner actually popped up on yesterday's episode (what would a soap be without twists?)

'GH' has done a great job of setting up Franco's introduction. From today's episode, we've gathered that his character, Franco, has photos of Claudia's dead body. Since A.J.'s Sonny's son Michael killed Claudia, the mobster is very interested in silencing the shutterbug/artist.

Read on for an analysis of Franco's official daytime debut.