Exclusive: General Hospital’s Alexa Havins On Making Lulu Her Own
Back To Life, Back To Reality: Alexa Havins’s Lulu has emerged from a nearly four-year coma.
Alexa Havins, who made her General Hospital debut last week as Lulu Spencer, had made the decision in 2023 to put her acting career on hold while she focused on raising the four children she shares with her husband of nearly 20 years, Justin Bruening. The duo met back in 2003 when the duo was cast to play Babe Carey and Jamie Martin on All My Children, Havins’s last foray into daytime.
The Comeback Trail
Having last appeared on AMC in 2007, the actress describes it as “very flattering” that GH thought of her to play the role of Lulu. “It was not on my radar in any way, shape or form,” she says. “But when this came about, I can see that it does make sense. Even some things they were first telling me about Lulu, I was like, ‘Oh, man, that has a little of an essence of Babe. I can see where somebody could draw the throughline of, “Oh, maybe I could handle this time of character.” ‘ But I had not a clue that there were even rumbles or talk about her coming back or that my name was in the ring; I’m not on social media and neither is Justin.”
Her hiring kicked off with an email landing in her inbox from GH Casting Director Mark Teschner. “I literally told Mark, ‘One, I never check my email, and two, I saw your name and was like, “Oh, this has gotta be spam.” ‘ I seriously almost didn’t open the email! I told Mark, ‘I’m happy I did open your email, and of course, let’s talk.’ ”
Havins got on the phone with Teschner and Valentini to talk more about the prospective role and, needless to say, she ultimately decided to embrace the opportunity to come aboard GH as Lulu. But preparing to take on the character was not without its challenges. “It’s difficult when the character has already been established,” she notes. “You want to honor what’s built, the overall essence of who they are — what Julie [Marie Berman, who played Lulu from 2005-13] created and what Emme [Rylan, who was Lulu from 2013-20] built upon, you still want to have that throughline. But I didn’t want to watch their clips and fall into accidentally mimicking them. I actually went the opposite route, and watched a lot of Luke and Laura, so I’m a new 1980s Luke and Laura wedding fan [laughs]. I just wanted to see that material because these are her parents, and she has some of their qualities.” On top of that, “I had a lot of conversations with Frank and Mark and we had a big, long meet with [Head Writers] Elizabeth [Korte] and Chris [Van Etten]. They were filling me in overall about where she is in her relationships. That, to me, was a priority — where was she with Dante? where was she with Tracy? where is she with Laura? Because in Lulu’s mind,” given that she’s been unconscious for nearly four years, “she is picking up right where she left off” at the time of the blast that rendered her comatose back in 2020.
Havins originated her other daytime character, Babe, and when she left the show, Amanda Baker took over the role. “I’ve been on both sides of a recast,” she points out. “I’ve done the one where you’re like, ‘Okay, I’ve created this.’ I mean, obviously, the writers created it, but I poured my whole essence into this person. It was like, ‘She’s pretty much an extension of me, have fun!’ You’re happy for the next actress and you wish them well, but you’re kind of protective of your character, and it was my choice to go, so it was a happy occasion. And then this is interesting, stepping in to [as Lulu]. I think you just have to take it and run with it and make it your own.”
The actress also did some online research and polled colleagues to try to answer the question, “What did the fans love about Lulu? That’s what I was really interested in: What do the fans want to see continued with Lulu? Obviously, I can’t be somebody else and I can’t be Julie and I can’t be Emme, but I can give them who Lulu is. I’m relying a lot on the writers to write that for me and to lead me as well, and to [explain] where we’re going next.” Havins points out, “There are options for them to make some pivots and maybe mature her a bit, but I still want to have that spark in her, but then still a love and a softness, but then, you know, be ready for anything, that jump-into-action side of Lulu that’s like, ‘Let’s go!’ That ‘jumping in before you think’ quality.”
Havins knows there is likely to be an adjustment period for fans as they get used to seeing her as Lulu, “but hopefully, they’ll give me time to show what I can do and I can grow in the role,” she says.
Waking Life
Her first big task as Lulu was deceptively simple: actually waking up out of that coma. “I was asking myself, ‘How do you wake up from a coma? What do I do?’ A lot of it is, what does the director want? I come prepared with what I think and what I want and then it’s very collaborative.” Before she got to set, “I was chatting with Justin’s mom, who is a nurse, about liver transplant incisions and I was thinking about things just from a medical standpoint to bring as much realism to it as a could, like, ‘Your eyes haven’t been open for four years, so the lights are bright.’ But they wanted that quick [opening of her eyes] like, ‘Hello! Here I am!’ ”
The actress cops to first-day-of-school-esque nerves the day she filmed that, which was her first time walking into the GH studio. “I was trying not to overthink it, but then you start going, ‘Oh, no — I’m feeling nervous! I haven’t done this in a while!’ You’re meeting new people, figuring out how the hair and makeup departments run things. You’re just trying to fit into this very large family, meeting one person after the next very quickly. The first person I worked with was Jeff Kober, Cyrus — although I shouldn’t say I worked with him, I should say, he worked over me! I laid there with my eyes closed and he did his magic [laughs]. But she’s waking up and hearing that voice, which is not a friendly voice, and there’s that history there, so her mind is not quite clear and jumping to, ‘Why am I here?’ It’s that fight-or-flight, ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’ But once I got through day one, I went, ‘Okay, I feel good, I know what I’m doing.’ ”
With her storyline just getting started, Havins enthuses, “I feel like there’s so much to explore with Lulu, so many places to go. She’s got to pick up the pieces. How does she move forward? Where is her heart, what is her love going to be other than her children and her family? I’m excited to find out where the writers take me. I’m along for the ride and the adventure and just trying to bring the words off the page and hopefully bring the audience what they’re wanting to see.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.