On the Tuesday, May 7, episode of General Hospital, Laura pays Heather a visit at Pentonville. Ahead of the chat between Ace’s two grandmothers, Digest caught up with Heather’s portrayer, Alley Mills, for the scoop on the unexpected support the jailbird has found in the mayor, the research she did on metallosis, and the recent retcon of her alter ego’s history…
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This week, Laura comes to visit Heather at Pentonville. Can you share what that sit-down is like? “I can. Before you called, I was thinking about Heather’s relationship with Laura in the past and recently. Ever since the whole hip replacement thing started, Laura has been pretty receptive and kind to her. Unexpectedly. They have this new, odd relationship based on Ace. Heather is clearly the underdog in that particular relationship. With the mayor of the town, there’s a tentative trust. ‘What is it really gonna be? Will she really protect me?’ I think Heather is really brave, she’s a little pit bull, but when it comes to intimate things, that’s where her vulnerability is. And so, she’s had this really strange relationship with Laura. Heather began to trust her and appreciate that she was coming to see her. Because she knows that she sort of deserves to be on everybody’s sh&t-list, because she confessed to some pretty heinous things. Laura is surprisingly sympathetic. She comes to visit as a co-grandmother, which is incredibly moving to Heather, who feels pretty [much] like an outcast. I really love working with Genie [Francis, Laura].”
What does Laura’s support mean to her? Not necessarily just the visit at Pentonville, but the support she’s had from Laura since the cobalt poisoning was discovered. “It means everything to her because Laura and Ace are her only family. Franco’s dead, Esme is now dead. Steven Lars is in prison and doesn’t want anything to do with her.”
What kind of research did you do for this storyline? “I read this book, Brain On Fire; it’s a true story about a young reporter at The New York Post, and she had an autoimmune reaction in her brain that caused a temporary mental illness. And then I researched cobalt poisoning and how it affects you neurologically. It can affect not just the heart, but also the brain, causing extreme anxiety and weird reactions. So, what I began to think of, with Heather, as the cobalt starts to disappear from her body, what was she in control of in her life since that hip replacement? And what wasn’t she in control of? And it makes you a little nuts not knowing.”
Now that her mind is clearing, what does Heather think about what she’d done? “She does remember absolutely everything that she did. There’s no question about the fact that she did it; she remembers all the details. But suddenly, a new emotion comes that had not been part of her scenario in rescuing Esme and always fighting for her daughter. It’s suddenly like, why on earth would that involve murder? What made me think that would be a good thing to do? It all made perfect sense to Heather, before the surgery, that she should have revenge on all those people that were trying to destroy her daughter. But now that things are clearing, it doesn’t make any sense to her that she would think that murder was the solution.
“I don’t think Heather had any idea what she was doing when she was in that hood. I don’t think she did. I think she was just out of her mind with revenge and rage at what people were doing to her daughter. And now, sitting in Pentonville, the surgery’s happened and she’s beginning to think clearly, she knows what she did to those people and to their families and to their lovers and their mothers and their fathers. It’s horrible. And I had to face it. I, as an actor, never thought about the fact that she was a murderer. It’s a horrible process to go through. It’s what really makes it hard to be an actor. I really hated it. But if you’re going to feel real remorse, you have to imagine what it meant to the people that you did it to, and especially the people that they left behind. She’s thinking about that. For her to feel remorse is like a weird new ingredient.”
Some fans have criticized the rewriting, the retcon, of Heather’s history, that the cobalt poisoning as a result of the hip replacement she had after a ski accident now accounted for her recent crimes. What do you think about that? “I’ve never heard that term [retcon] until recently, but it’s an interesting term. I’m not a writer. So, the way they do these things is so amazing. I don’t know what she did before the ski accident, because I didn’t read the writing; I can only look at what’s on YouTube. So I don’t know how she justified [her past actions]. I know how I, as the character, justified giving up Esme, because I was with Ryan at that point and that was definitely to save her life. Because having a serial killer for a father… that was the morally right thing to do. And I made sure it was with a good family where she would get an education. But in terms of pushing the envelope with the law, I think Heather always been [doing that]. I have a story in my mind that things happened to her as a child that made her an overcomer. I feel like her quirky, sarcastic [personality] comes from that same survival mechanism.”
Do you think Heather wonders what her life could have been like if the accident hadn’t happened? “Yes. Maybe her kids could be alive. If it hadn’t happened… not just the Hook Killer, but she was already on a kind of bad trajectory right after the ski accident. She was already doing some pretty gnarly stuff. She wasn’t murdering people. but she was often way out of control.”
Heather’s quirkiness, her humor, makes her one my favorite characters. Do you hope that she doesn’t lose that now that she’s detoxed? “I won’t let her. And the reason that I won’t let her is because I’ve met too many people in parking lots that identify with me, who I feel are fellow scrappers, and they love her. They love the fighter in her, they love how smart she is. They love that she’s always thinking and manipulating and winning, with a punk kind of spirit. That’s my favorite fan base and I can’t disappoint them. I won’t give it up. I’ll fight any writing that gives it up, because that’s who she is.”
