General Hospital Comings & Goings: Parry Shen Returns as Brad — ‘You Will Not Be Disappointed’ (Exclusive)
It was back in May that Parry Shen last appeared on General Hospital as Brad Cooper, who skipped town after Drew Cain (Cameron Mathison) paid him a cool million dollars to blab Portia Robinson’s (Brook Kerr) big secret (namely, that she’d tampered with Heather Webber’s test results), giving the congressman major ammo against G.H.’s chief of staff. A lot has happened in Port Charles since then, including the return from the dead of Brad’s longtime BFF, Britt Westbourne (Kelly Thiebaud) — and this week, Shen return to the canvas, meaning that “Bratt” fans will finally get to see the duo on-screen together for the first time since January 2023, when Britt took what appeared to be her final breath. The actor spoke to Soap Opera Digest about reprising the role he first began playing in 2013.
Brad About You
Shen sums up what prompts Brad to blow back into town thusly: “One, word has gotten out that his bestie is somehow back from the dead; two, he needs a way to make some money since he’s out one million dollars, and as always, three, Lucas [Van Hansis] is in Port Charles.” Asked how he thinks Brad managed to blow through such a large sum of money in such a relatively short amount of time, the actor jokes, “Three words: Gunther, male model.”
All kidding aside, Shen was, of course, happy to get the call to head back to the show. “When off the GH canvas, I’m constantly hopping in and out of roles like every other journeyman actor — whether it be doing voices for an animation job/audition, guest star on a show or dubbing four different voices for subtitles in a Japanese or Korean series,” he muses. “So it’s always nice to just be able to slip back into a familiar role, be trusted I can do the job, and not have to work out a character’s backstory, characterizations, et cetera from scratch. With Brad, the work has already been done over the past 12 years… or,” he winks, “maybe I’m just realizing that I’m incredibly lazy.”
There will be no shortage of drama for Brad to step right back into, given that the ex-husband he has never quite given up hope of winning back, the aforementioned Lucas, is getting serious with his new paramour, Marco (Adrian Anchondo) — in fact, they’ve just recently taken the major step of moving in together. “Lucas is over the moon,” Shen notes, “moving into Wyndemere with Marco, everything seems to be finally going the way Lucas had always hoped for in a relationship.”
Which is, of course, going to be a bitter pill for Brad to swallow. “Brad’s pretty taken aback,” the actor says of how his character reacts to the news of Lucas’s change of address. “He assumed — or hoped — that Marco was just a rebound fling and that the relationship was long over by now.”
Shen took the news much better than Brad. “I personally love that Lucas has branched out,” he enthuses. “It’s great to see a different dynamic unfold with Van and Adrian. But I also think you’ve still got that great shared history with Brad and Lucas to still tap into. They might not reunite on a romantic level, but having them get back to the foundation of what innately connected them in a friendship situation would be a cool side to see as well.”
Though he hadn’t shared a ton of scenes with Hansis in the past — he primarily played the Brad/Lucas relationship back when Ryan Carnes held the role — the two actors picked up right where they’d left off. Declaring it “great” to work with fellow comic book aficionado Hansis again, Shen teases, “But our pesky scenes kept getting in the way of my geek mode and trying to hear his thoughts on the latest live-action comic book movies, Fantastic Four and Superman, that had been released since I last saw him!”
As for whether he thinks Brad deserves yet another shot with Lucas, given all the ways he’s let him down in the past, Shen says, “If we’re going with the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule, I think Brad’s got like one more swing left… or maybe a half swing?”
For many viewers, though, Brad’s most highly anticipated reunion is the one he is poised to have with Britt, who allowed him to think she was dead for years. Shen promises “delicious” scenes between the pair, noting, “If you are a fan of #Bratt, you will not be disappointed, because we come out the gates with guns blazing.”
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