Just when she thought she was done with daytime, GH sucked her back in.
Budig started her soap career in 1995 as Michelle on GUIDING LIGHT, exiting in 1998. The following year, she joined the cast of ALL MY CHILDREN as Greenlee, who she played more on than off through to the show’s cancellation in 2011. When AMC went off the air, she received an offer to join Y&R in a plum role. Budig turned it down, she explains, not because she wasn’t interested in staying in soaps, “because my husband was going back to New York for a job, and I was going with him, obviously. I was really sad because there were no shows in New York anymore; I thought, ‘I don’t know if anything [in the soap world] will ever happen again.’ I did think I was done with it.”
But in 2015, after Budig’s stint co-hosting the syndicated talk show THE BETTER SHOW, which taped in Manhattan, had ended, the Bensons (now parents to daughter Charlotte) moved back to Los Angeles, and Budig’s phone rang with an intriguing offer from Frank Valentini, GH’s executive producer. “We’ve known each other for a long time, so he just called me up,” she recalls. “He said, ‘We’ve got this really fun part, it’s for a couple of weeks, I know you just had a baby, and you can bring her.’ ” She was surprised by his interest. “I didn’t think I’d ever be asked to do GENERAL HOSPITAL because of the whole Prospect Park thing [the company’s ongoing lawsuit with ABC over the rights to AMC and ONE LIFE TO LIVE],” she explains. “I knew that made things kind of tricky. But I was ready to go back to work, so it was the best timing.”
And so, in March 2015, Budig hit the Port Charles scene as the troublemaker Ric hired to pose as amnesiac “Jake Doe’s” wife — and before long, Valentini asked her to sign a multi-year pact. Her reaction? “I was happy! Definitely happy. And flattered and grateful, for sure.”
Budig was paired romantically with Tyler Christopher (Nikolas), but their storyline came to an abrupt halt when the actor exited GH last summer, and she wasn’t sure where that left Hayden — or her. “I was nervous when Tyler left,” she admits. “I really enjoyed working with him; he’s so talented and he’s really sweet and funny. But Frank kept saying, ‘We’re going to put you with Michael Easton [Finn], it’s going to be amazing.’ I was like, ‘[hesitantly] Okay.’ I was open to anything, but I didn’t really know Michael that well, so I was a little nervous about that, too.”
Steven Bergman
She needn’t have been; the Finn/Hayden pairing quickly earned a fan base, and behind the scenes, Budig learned that she had originally misjudged her leading man. “I knew Michael peripherally before GH,” she explains. “I knew he played a cop [John] on ONE LIFE TO LIVE and I saw him and his wife semi-socially at a couple of things. We even spent a Thanksgiving together at Thorsten’s [Kaye, ex-Zach, AMC; Ridge, B&B] one year. But we’d never really chatted. I thought he was a bit aloof, to be honest! I laugh at that now, because I started working with him and getting to know him, and he is one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met in my life. He’s kind, sincere, funny and very soulful. I mean, how lucky am I with the guys I’ve worked with? Josh [Duhamel, ex-Leo, AMC], Cameron [Mathison, ex-Ryan, AMC], Tyler and now Michael — I’ve been super-fortunate.”
Outside of her coupling with Easton, GH has slowly expanded Hayden’s universe to include a half sister, Liz (“but I don’t see her that much, which bums me out! I really hope I get more to do with Becky [Herbst, Liz]”), a new job (“I do love that Hayden is working at the hospital and gets to interact with these different people; I do not like that she is in business attire all of the time. I am done with the blazers!”), and, of course, a surprisingly tender friendship with prickly Tracy Quartermaine. Budig is a huge fan of her portrayer, Jane Elliot, who she met a few years back at a party at Ian Buchanan’s (ex-Duke). “I recognized her from the show and we started talking and we just really clicked,” the actress says. “When I started working on GH, we got to spend more time together, and she’s become one of my very dear friends. I adore her.”
JPI
As delighted as she is to be ensconced back in the soap world, things are even better on the home front. She describes her hubby, Michael, as “an incredible human being; he’s kind and he’s present and he’s a great dad. Jane said to me, ‘I have such a crush on your husband and it’s because of how he treats you.’ That says a lot about who he is.” Adding Charlotte to the mix has made their union all the sweeter. “She’s talking up a storm, she loves animals and singing and dancing and playing shopkeeper with her little cash register,” her proud mom reports. “I can’t imagine my life without her! My life was pretty great without a kid, but it’s so much better with her.”
And with GH, of course. “I really did think it was just going to be a short-term thing,” she marvels of Hayden. “I didn’t think there was any opportunity for it to turn into anything bigger. But I am so glad it did!”
Just The Four Of Us
Rebecca Budig recently had an adorable reunion with her one-time AMC leading man, Josh Duhamel, who played Leo to her Greenlee, in the company of their offspring. “It had been years since we’d seen each other,” she marvels (the last time being when he popped in to reprise Leo for a dream sequence in 2011). “We text occasionally, on random occasions, and he was in town, so about three or four weeks ago, I met him and Axl [Duhamel’s son with pop star wife Fergie] at a park with Charlotte on a Sunday and it was really, really fun.”
Their kids’ first meeting was … relatively successful. “Charlotte wanted nothing to do with Axl,” she chuckles. “Axl wanted nothing to do with her at first, but then he came around. Axl had been, like, open to riding the slide with her and she was having none of it. My daughter said, ‘I don’t like guys.’ But our kids played for a little bit and then they had to go off to a birthday party. It was brief, but it was sweet, because there’s such a connection between us after working together for so long. It was really nice to see him.”
ABC
Did You Know?
• Budig, who grew up ice-skating and won ABC’s short-lived competition show SKATING WITH THE STARS, wears her own skates on GH when Hayden hits the rink.
• At her wedding to Michael Benson, Budig was escorted down the aisle by Finola Hughes’s (Anna) husband, Russell Young.
Just The Facts
Birthday: June 26
Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
Family Valued: Married to Michael Benson since 2012, Budig has one daughter, Charlotte Jo, born on September 8, 2014, and two stepkids, Jack and Olivia. “I lucked out as a stepmom; they are both great kids.”
Appointment Television: “VEEP is pretty much the only show I watch. It makes me laugh, it’s smart and I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus.”
Puppy Love: The actress describes her dog, Woody, as “amazing, yet annoying,” and says that the pup’s relationship with Charlotte is “love/hate for her. He is constantly up in her grill because she smells like food!”
Sounding Off: “The last concert I went to, because I was invited by friends, was Hall & Oates. I’m not the biggest fan and didn’t know all the songs, but it was fun. Before that, I saw the B-52s.”
Gimme A V: “I love Vinessa [Antoine, Jordan] and don’t get to see her enough. She’s just got something about her. She’s sassy and sexy and cute and funny and hardworking and there’s no
bulls—t there. I appreciate that in a woman.”
Bonded For Life: Several ALL MY CHILDREN castmates remain in her orbit. “I keep in touch with Alicia [Minshew, ex-Kendall] and Cameron [Mathison, ex-Ryan], who I usually see once a month. I text with Missy [Claire Egan, ex-Annie; Y&R’s Chelsea] and Chrishell [Stause, ex-Amanda] and Ricky [Paull Goldin, ex-Jake], as well.”
