INTERVIEW
Are General Hospital’s Michael and Jacinda Headed for Romance? Rory Gibson Weighs In! (EXCL)
It’s a classic soap opera set-up: Boy meets girl, boy pays girl to give him an alibi for the night his uncle/sworn enemy was shot, boy and girl pretend to be a couple to shore up said alibi. On daytime, this scenario seems like it would inevitably lead to boy and girl falling in love for real. But is that what’s coming down the pike for Michael and Jacinda on General Hospital? Soap Opera Digest posed this million-dollar question to Rory Gibson, Michael’s portrayer.
Chemical Reaction?
Gibson thinks it’s a definite possibility that Michael and Jacinda’s alliance to safeguard Michael from possibly being arrested in conjunction with Drew’s shooting could be a gateway to romance, and credits her portrayer, Paige Herschell, with being so easy to create on-screen sparks with. “Paige is just incredible,” he praises. “She is just a great actress, and on top of that, she’s a very, very kind person. She’s very real. When we were first introduced, [our rapport] felt chill and easy. She’s just a cool girl! I think it definitely works [on screen] and behind the scenes, I know a couple of people on set who are like, ‘Oh, I hope this works out, there’s a little something there!’ And I’ve been hearing similar things [are being said] online because I have a couple of friends who stay on top of that stuff and let me know what’s going on. People seem really into it!”
But, he allows, some of the pro-Michael and Jacinda contingent might be willing to get on board with any woman who was paired with his brooding character. “I do think it’s a combination,” he muses. “Michael and Jacinda definitely have chemistry, but it also seems like people just really want Michael to have some love in his life!”
Secret Weapon
While viewers are clamoring to see Gibson get to play a romance on the show, looking for love isn’t high on Michael’s agenda at the moment, what with the obvious anxiety he’s nursing about the PCPD fingering him for the shooting — and while he insists he didn’t shoot Drew, the audience still doesn’t know what he was doing on the night Drew was plugged with multiple bullets. Not even Gibson knows if Michael’s claims of innocence — or Willow’s insistence that her ex-husband planted the gun that got her arrested for the crime — are sincere or an elaborate lie, which has kept him on his toes as an actor.
“I am not a big surprise guy, personally,” he admits. “As an actor, I want as much information as I can possibly have. But [the powers-that-be at GH] like to keep things secret from us, too — and even though I like to be in the loop and know things, I do think withholding information a little bit can be helpful because it makes for this very kind of enigmatic performance of, like, ‘I don’t know if I did this or didn’t do this!’ When you’re portraying that, I think it can come across the way it actually would in real life. If you’re on a show and you know where everything is going to lead, sometimes people have a tendency to play the outcome a little bit. But when you genuinely don’t know, it lends itself a little bit more to a realistic telling because if I was actually in the situation [Michael is in], I would be acting my butt off to makes sure I was presumed innocent! So, when we don’t know if our characters are innocent or not, I think it works for the benefit of the show.”
Which is not to say he wouldn’t love to find out definitively! “Oh, for sure,” he chuckles. “Selfishly, I still wish I knew things!”
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