General Hospital Exclusive: Alexa Havins (Lulu) On Genie Francis, Jonathan Jackson
Mother And Child Reunion: Lulu (Alexa Havins) is back in the loving arms of her mother, Laura (Genie Francis), on GH.
Hot on the heels of Lulu’s reunions with Rocco and Dante, the no-longer-sleeping beauty met up with her General Hospital brother Lucky and her mother, Laura. For the show’s new Lulu, Alexa Havins, this marked her first time working opposite these two key members of her on-screen family.
The Ties That Bind
To hear Havins tell it, establishing the Lulu/Lucky bond was easy to do with Jackson right off the bat. “He is a phenomenal actor,” she praises. “And we actually have quite a bit in common, which we learned right away. We were sitting on the couch together and just chatting and catching up, and it seemed like a lot of our lives and our lifestyles have a lot of parallels. And that was kind of nice; it made me feel like, ‘Okay, this will really work, because there’s a lot of who he is that is similar to who I am.’ ”
Jackson has actually been on Havins’s radar for years. “I have to tell you a funny story,” she says. “This is such a mom instinct, but when Justin [Bruening, her husband, who played Jamie Martin opposite her Babe Carey on All My Children] and I were on All My Children, she sends me this article of Justin, and she’s like, ‘You should date him. He just seems so sweet in these articles. And when he’s on screen, he has such a sweetness.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Mom, what are you talking about?!’ Like, ‘Mom, I am literally not dating him. Nope. Nothing there.’ And, of course, who do I end up marrying but him! So, mom was right.
“A few months ago,” she continues, “when Jonathan was coming back [to GH], my mom sends me this article about it. She was like, ‘Look! Jonathan Jackson is coming back to General Hospital as Lucky!’ I was like, ‘Okay…. I don’t really know him, but I’m really happy for him!’ It wasn’t like she was sending me an article about a friend I knew, you know? It was just kind of a weird thing, and she told me that her neighbor or one of her friends is, like, distantly related to him. Anyway, what happens after that? A few months later, I get a job offer to play his sister! I said to my mom, ‘Hey, remember that article you sent me about Jonathan Jackson?’ And she was like, ‘Yes, of course.’ And I told her, ‘Well, I’m going to be playing his sister!’ I mean, what are the chances of that?!”
Havins also teases that her mom “may be his fan club president. She was like, ‘I’ve heard him singing and he is such a beautiful singer!’ I’m like, ‘Mom, you’re maybe gonna fan out a little bit too hard when you come to set and meet him!”
The actress describes working with Jackson on their first scenes as “really fun to do. Just acting with him and what he brought to it was really special.”
While Lucky was, of course, overjoyed to see his sister, he had the difficult task of informing her that while she was comatose, their father had passed away. “There’s so much bad news that she has to process,” Havins notes of her character. “The way that Jonathan delivered it, and her trying to process it with him, was so interesting to play — Lulu putting up that wall of, ‘No, no, no, I’m going to be in denial about what you’re saying. To me, it wasn’t like a complete, soul-shattering, crushing sob fest because it was more of her wrestling in her mind of, ‘Is this real? ”
Mom’s The Word
The actress’s first meeting with Genie Francis was also a special one. “She is amazing,” beams Havins. “She’s just so warm and her smile is just so beautiful and infectious. I could see exactly why the fans fell in love with her the way they did. When I was watching [early Luke and Laura scenes to prepare to embody their daughter], I was struck by just the innocence of her and the way she played the character, I was just like, ‘Yes! This is just perfect!’ ”
Francis instantly put Havins at ease. “She was so sweet and just hugged me and said, ‘Is this my daughter?’ I just felt very welcomed. I wasn’t nervous; that kind of took the ‘Aaaaah!’ out of the first scenes, because I was stepping into something that’s hers, her world and what she’s created, and Genie has had a lot to do with the success of the show.”
Havins loved “that we have scenes that just open with me in her arms. I thought that was such a wonderful writing and directing choice [communicating a feeling of] home, and the warmth between the two of them.”
Conversation
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