Exclusive: Scott Reeves Previews His ‘Surreal’ General Hospital Return As Steve
After being hauled off to prison for murder in 2013 — on the day he was set to marry Olivia Falconeri, as longtime fans surely remember — Steven Lars Webber is headed back to Port Charles, with Scott Reeves reprising the General Hospital role he assumed in 2009. His comeback kicks off on Thursday, October 24 and the actor tells Digest that he was “beyond excited to come back.”
You Can Go Home Again
Reeves was not even remotely expecting the call that led to his return. Explains the actor, who lives in Nashville, TN with his wife, Melissa Reeves (Jennifer Deveraux, Days of Our Lives), “I’m still acting; I’ve never stopped acting over the past 10 years since I’ve left the show — I’ve done movies and some other TV stuff — but what’s kept me really busy for the past three years is that I manage a country music duo who happen to be my baby cousins. They’re known as The Reeves Brothers, and they’ve got so many amazing things happening for them and I happened to be on the road with them. We were on a tour bus, and it was early morning, and everyone’s asleep in the back and I was in the front, in the passenger seat, and we were on our way to a show somewhere in the Midwest with a country artist named Craig Morgan. My phone rings, and I looked down, and it says Frank Valentini [GH’s executive producer]. And I’m like, ‘What in the world is Frank calling me about?’ ”
Needless to say, Reeves took the call. He recounts, “I pick up the phone and I was like, ‘Frank, what in the world?’ We talked and just caught up for a minute and then he said, ‘First of all, are you around in September?’ And I looked at my calendar and said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ And he said, ‘Well, I had this idea…’ and he proceeded to tell me his idea [for the storyline circumstances of Steve’s return]. It’s funny, because over the past 10 years, we’ve stayed in contact, and I’ve texted with Frank back and forth and I’d say, ‘Hey, is there a parole hearing anytime soon?’ And now he was telling me, ‘Steve’s gotten out of jail, he’s been released on parole,’ and when he told me the storyline idea, I couldn’t have been more excited. I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, Frank, this is great! I would love to come do this.’ And literally, I was back in L.A. on the [GH studio] lot a month later.”
When the news of his return broke, GH fans embraced the idea of having Steve back on the canvas, and that warm reaction was not lost on Reeves. “It was so humbling and so incredible for everybody to be excited about me coming back,” he smiles. “I don’t take it for granted.”
The actor had an emotional response to being back inside the halls of the studio. “The first person I saw in the parking lot was Rick Hearst [Ric],” Reeves recounts. “And then I walked in the doors and I walked into the makeup room and was welcomed by people that I’d known for years and worked with over a decade ago. And then at the same time, it was bittersweet because 11 years can bring a lot of change and we’ve lost a lot of people over the last decade, people I was close to, like Donna [Messina, who was the head of GH’s makeup department and passed away in 2018], who did my makeup, and Nneka [Garland, a GH producer who passed away in 2023], and Sonya Eddy [ex-Epiphany, who passed away in 2022]. Sonya, I loved her to death and she was just such a fixture in the [nurses’] hub, you know? So, that was bittersweet and a little melancholy, but it was so wonderful and great to see people that were still there and I could give hugs to. It was literally like a family reunion, like coming home. It felt like a place that I felt anchored in and felt really comfortable in. It was just great, and I didn’t want to take those moments for granted, you know? Because you never know when you’re not going to be able to see someone again.”
The hugs flowed freely, to hear Reeves tell it. “Every single person I saw was just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, give me a hug!’ ” the actor grins. That list includes Maurice Benard (Sonny), of whom Reeves says, “He hasn’t changed — if anything, he’s gotten funnier!” He also reconnected with his one-time Port Chuck bandmate Steve Burton (Jason). “Steve Burton is like a brother to me. We spent time just catching up in between scenes in his dressing room. Walking down those halls, it really was like, ‘Wow, it’s like I blinked and I’m back!’ It was like no time had passed.”
That feeling was particularly strong when he got to see his on-screen sister, Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth). “I hadn’t talked to her [in advance],” Reeves shares. “I talk to Michael [Saucedo, ex-Juan, Herbst’s real-life husband] periodically, but I was like, ‘You know what? I’m not gonna call Becky. I want to see her on the day.’ And it really was like getting out of prison after 10 years and seeing my sister [laughs]!” When they met up to do their first scenes together, “I’m telling you, it was like no time had passed — 10 years had passed, but no time had passed! It was so much fun. It was like one of those epic movie scenes where you see someone who you haven’t seen in that long and we just embraced and had so much to talk about [and] catch up on. I just kept thinking of that song [‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’], the one that goes ‘I’m coming home, I’ve done my time.’ ”
While Reeves returned to duty as Steve without reservation, the actor notes that his character is a little more apprehensive about setting foot back in Port Charles. “I think he was so anticipating it, but dreading [it], just a little bit, because he didn’t know what it was going to be like, coming back. Is he gonna run into Olivia? Port Charles is a small town! Even walking back into the hub at the hospital was kind of surreal, because Steve’s lost his medical license.”
And then there’s the giant matter of his mother, Heather Webber, who, thanks in part to Ric Lansing’s legal wranglings, is set to be released back onto the streets of Port Charles despite the rash of killings she committed a few years back. “Of course, you throw Heather into the mix, and it’s a lot,” Reeves notes. Of his first time working with new on-screen mother Alley Mills, who assumed the role of Heather from Robin Mattson since Reeves was last on the show, he enthuses, “That was an incredible treat for me. I grew up [watching] her and she’s just amazing. I had so much fun again. She is a hoot! She’s hilarious and such a great actress and she really ate this role up!”
Sibling Revelry: Reeves, pictured with on-screen sister Rebecca Herbst (Elizabeth) in 2012, says their reunion at the GH set “was like one of those epic movie scenes.”
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