General Hospital Exclusive: Eden McCoy on Filming Josslyn & Cassius’ Brutal Fight
Josslyn’s knockdown, drag-out fight with “Nathan,” aka Cassius, on General Hospital was about as graphic as violence gets on daytime television. But Joss’s portrayer, Eden McCoy, assures Soap Opera Digest that no soap stars were harmed in the filming of the brawl.
Let’s Get Physical
“That fight was completely insane, but we had so much fun filming it,” says McCoy. “We had awesome stunt doubles,” Matt Mullins and Heather Leah Bonomo, “but it was definitely the craziest, most choreographed fight scene I’ve ever had. It was brutal for sure.”
Behind the scenes, great care was taken to pull off the fight safely. The GH star credits the show’s production team with “being so well-prepped and making everyone feel really comfortable,” adding, “The whole crew was really into it.” She also offers high praise to her co-star Ryan Paevey (Cassius), whom she describes as “awesome to work with. We had a blast!”
Rehearsing the fight and filming it all took place on the same day. “They were generous and we had time scheduled throughout the day to talk it out and practice it and for me to get more comfortable with the choreography,” McCoy says. “Even though we had stunt doubles, anything I was capable of doing, I preferred to do myself rather than have the double do it, because I think it looks better and it’s more believable when it’s really me.”
McCoy got tips from her double, Bonomo, about how to safely and convincingly execute the choreography. “She was teaching me how to throw the punches and how to go in with the knife, that kind of thing,” she explains. “It was fun for me! I really like learning that stuff. That said, there were certain things that were better left to the double, because she knows how to do everything exactly right.”
In the end, “The body slam wasn’t me — any time Josslyn was hitting the ground hard, that was the double — but everything before and after that was,” McCoy notes.
Paevey was equally committed to performing as much of the fight as he safely could. “Ryan has done a lot of fight scenes in his career and like me, he wanted to do as much of the scene as we could ourselves,” the actress says. “At one point, he was like, ‘You can actually punch me in the face for real,’ and I was like, ‘No thanks [laughs]!’ But he was very down for the cause!”
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.