General Hospital’s Rory Gibson Previews ‘Powerful’ Performance By Steve Burton Over Monica’s Death (EXCL)

As Monica’s grandson, Michael is, of course, one of the characters most deeply affected by her passing. “Michael’s life has been an unbelievable storm of chaos that is pretty unrelenting,” Gibson begins. “And as he’s been trying to persevere for his kids through all the things that have already been happening in Michael’s world, Monica has been one of the constant avenues of calm and peace. I’m not necessarily saying she was a calm person — from what I’ve heard, she was a firecracker like Tracy is — but she was his person. They were very close.”

 

Gibson made his GH debut several months after Charleson’s death, so they never shared scenes together, but the scripts made it clear that Michael was still keeping company with his grandmother off camera. “He’s been going and spending time with her on a daily basis, and she’s always been able to kind of bring him back down to a level place and talk him down a bit,” the actor points out. “So, her passing away kind of throws him into a bit of an emotional spiral, I think.”

Given that he wouldn’t be drawing on his own personal history with Charleson, or from firsthand experience building the close bond between Michael and Monica, “I was curious about how I was going to be able to play [Michael’s reaction],” he admits. “The scenes were very heavy but it ended up not being that hard.”

That’s because his scene partner, Burton, made it feel easy. “I was just playing off of Steve the whole time, and Steve, in these scenes, oh my God. He just really brought it. It was intense stuff, for sure.”

Drawing his cues from Burton’s performance, Gibson says that he was recalculating his own choices in the moment. “I had a whole kind of idea, a whole avenue that I wanted to go down with the scenes,” he recalls. “Most of the scenes that I have regarding Monica are with Steve, and just the depth of emotion that he brought with him made it easy work on my part because you’re just affected by what he’s doing. And it was incredible, it really was. It was quite a thing to see and experience. It’s a powerful performance.”

And it’s not only opposite Gibson that Burton was bringing his emotional A-game as Jason’s sorrow plays out, the actor hints. “He had a couple of scenes that had our directors crying up in the booth. It was really something.”