At the time of this interview, Gina Tognoni was knee-deep in plans for her wedding, which took place on May 16th. "I've been crazed!" she says, "Planning my wedding has been quite an undertaking. I’m doing okay with it, I haven’t had many meltdowns! I just take a breath and… I have no idea how people do this! But I’ve been learning a whole lot and for us, it’s really sort of just celebrating the fact that we believe in marriage and we want to share that with our friends and family, and we’re grateful that they want to come and share that moment with us. We’re having it in Florida, it’s a destination wedding, and we’re thrilled that people are getting on a plane, making hotel reservations and all that fun stuff! The plans are going well – thank God! I just want everything to be done. I want to make sure there are forks on the table and menus. Little stressful things but it will be fun!"

"I get nervous about the craziest things, I really do," she laughs, "I don’t get nervous about the things you’d think I’d get nervous about, it’s the little stuff! I just kind of breathe and I get some rest. My fiancé has been great, he’s just cool as a cucumber. I’m just kind of looking at him and trying to draw strength from him. I’m excited about seeing our friends and family there with us. Weddings are such a beautiful experience, they’re fun."

Tognoni, a two-time Emmy winner, is always up for a challenge. And a challenge is what she found when she took on the complex role of Dinah nearly six years ago. "I’ve worked a long time in daytime now that I add it up! (But) Dinah is so much fun and I can put in as much light and generate as much joy as I could. I truly enjoy playing this character, she has so many different sides to her. She got to be smart, and silly and funny and serious and tragic – I never was bored, I never got bored with this character." When asked to describe Dinah, Tognoni ponders for a moment and says, "A walking oxymoron! She is somebody who is capable of great light, of great darkness and still, with all of that, an open heart. She continues to fall forward, she falls forward. When she does fall, it’s forward. Her intention is to be the best version of herself of wherever that is on the scale of character. Sometimes it’s low, sometimes it’s high, but she is always trying to be the best version of herself. She is a contradiction, constantly. She may be light and then she may go down and that was why this character is so good. She’s a little heavy, a little dark, at times, but I try very hard to keep her up and I try to think up ways to make myself at least vulnerable so people could relate. It was a little hard and sometimes it was heavy but it was a joy. It taught me a great bit."

"You never knew if she was lying or telling the truth and you think you know her and she does something else. Those are the things that, day to day, would keep me motivated, keep it interesting and keep it entertaining. She knows when she’s doing wrong and actually cares. We’ve really seen her develop into a strong young woman."

Over the years, Dinah has found herself in many a romantic entanglement and Tognoni certainly has her favorites, as far as pairings go. "I definitely think it’s a tie! I loved Dinah and Mallet because it had a lightness and a trueness, and I love Shayne and Dinah because I think they’re beautiful to watch, I think that they have a lot of rhythm. I can tell with Jeff (Branson; Shayne), there’s listening skills, you have to listen to one another. I think we work very well together. It’s a different type, it’s a different quality… but I think it’s a tie. I’ve had so much fun with both guys."

"You’re going to subtly start seeing these stories having more richness. Some of these will be the last scenes we’re doing," Tognoni previews, "Dinah and Shayne, they get each other, they really do get each other. Shayne is real, he has a realness to him. A bit heavy, much heavier than Mallet but she can deal with it. The chemistry is terrific, it’s not just physical chemistry, there seems to be something spiritual there. And that’s been really fabulous, working with Jeff Branson is terrific. Obviously Dinah wants Shayne to face whatever he needs to face (in regards to Lara and baby Henry) and Shayne is going to handle it his way, and that’s where the conflict begins. We’re going to see if they’re strong enough to walk through that, which they should be able to because they get very real with one another."

"She has such fire and she wants so badly to be in a better place. And she has that right now with Shayne, he sees her for who she is."

Aside from Shayne, Tognoni, who acknowledges the wide variety of stories written for Dinah since the character was introduced, still believes the role has plenty of mileage left in her. "I think she should… this is very interesting because she owns a television station," the actress states, "I’m wondering if Dinah sort of pulls the plug on WSPR, but I don’t know. I don’t know how they’re going to end this. But it’s kind of painful in the TV business and it’s kind of ironic, very close to real life. I would love to see her and Bill and Lizzie finally make up, have that acceptance and that unconditional love and trust, and let bygones be bygones. But not because of something she did but because they want to forgive her so she can forgive herself. I think she’s in the process of forgiving herself, I think she is setting herself free." Of Dinah's tumultuous relationship with her brother, Bill, Tognoni says, "They have great brother and sister chemistry. They really and truly worked well together. I think she was really devastated that they didn’t keep them together as a working team. From a writer’s point of view, I think they could’ve written more for Dinah and Bill. But I love Lizzie and Bill. I think they are so terrific and I think in the end, Dinah was so happy for them. When you look at Dinah, she would say, 'I wish I could get my brother’s approval' – I think they were setting it up like the Alan/Alex setup. I wish I had more scenes with Danny (Cosgrove; Bill), he’s so great!"

One highlight of Tognoni's tenure on GL has, of course, been her two Emmy wins. "I’m most proud of the phone call (to Ross). I’m proud of that scene," she shares, "When we did the storyline where I was shot and I had a traumatic brain injury. I learned all about what they symptoms were, how life is and how you gain life back through reading. Reading lots of case reports and actual work books for people who had brain trauma and worked through it, and just reading, I really got a great sense of what these people go through. I think I worked very hard to try to convey that and won the Emmy for that one. I’m proud of that and proud of my hard work. I try to make it as authentic as I can, having a reason to sink my teeth into something."

And as with everyone involved with the show, Tognoni took the news of GL's cancellation hard. "Devastating news. A lot of people were surprised by it," she says, sadly. "But on the flip side of that, it’s really profound. The way I’m kind of seeing is that we’re the last graduating class, we’re the last group to go. It’s really heart wrenching because I’ve been with them over five years now. We had just gone to Universal and P&G just gave us this great push, really got behind it and it felt good and at this point, we were so proud of our product. We were so proud of our show. It had some a long way from the first time we saw the model changing, which was in 2008. A lot of the (Emmy) submissions were of this new model. We have solid actors! We have actors who know what they’re doing. That part is just unbelievable."

"It actually feels like a death," Tognoni admits, "It has the hollowness of a death. But everything happens for a reason. You’re on a path.... Nothing would make me happier than to see the show continue and to do well. It’s just a great group of people. The role (of Dinah) has so much freedom. That is what I will absolutely miss." The actress, however, remains optimistic about the future. "I’m just opening my heart, waiting for all the opportunities to come my way. I hope so. I’ll know what to do when the time is right."

Another thing Tognoni will miss is the show's fans and, in closing, wanted to let them know how much they have meant to her. "Thank you so much! You’ll never know what it meant to us how you wanted to turn us on every single day," she states emphatically, "Thank you for keeping the light on for us. When we went to work, we did it for you. We wanted to entertain you and make you happy and we hoped you loved the stories. We fought so hard for this show, especially in the last year and we thank you for sticking by us."

"That type of energy, that type of love, that goes somewhere in the universe, it isn’t lost. All that love and support we take with us."