GH's Laura Wright On Daytime Emmy Nomination: 'I Was Really Proud (EXCL)

This year, as Laura Wright is set to mark the 20th anniversary of her debut as Carly on General Hospital, she is also celebrating her eighth Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress for her work on the show. The actress, who already has one win on her belt, enthuses, “It’s always fun! I’m excited about it and I’m excited for the show,” which this year will take place on Friday, October 17. “I love getting to go and celebrate daytime and it’s going to be a great night!”

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When it came to constructing her reel, Wright says that she focused on isolating “stuff that I’m proud of and stuff that I like.” From there, she ponders “what order I should put it in, and then I end up cutting a couple of scenes.” Having judged before, she explains, “Just because I can make you watch 15 minutes doesn’t mean I need to make you watch 15 minutes of me! When I was judging and I would see [that a reel was] 15 minutes, or 15 minutes and 45 seconds, I would be like, ‘Oh, my God, this better be the best [work] I’ve ever seen in my life!’ “

In her opinion, a well-constructed reel begins with a scene that grabs the audience’s attention. “I want to be able to catch people right off the bat, to make them want to watch me and see my material. You think about, ‘Okay, if I was [judging] this, what do I want to watch?’ So, that’s kind of what I did.”

During the period of eligibility for this year’s awards, Carly mourned the loss of her mother, Bobbie, played by the late Jacklyn Zeman, “I did the scenes of Carly finding out that Bobbie was gone, and then I did scenes with Steve Burton [Jason] in his apartment above Bobbie’s, saying good-bye when Jagger was going to send him away, or make him go away again, and Carly was like, ‘I can’t lose you again.’ I didn’t want them all to be scenes of her crying over her mom’s passing, you know? I just wanted another level. I really wanted something funny,” she adds, “but I didn’t have that [to choose from]. There’s not a lot of comedy in daytime!”

Overall, though, “I was really proud of the reel, really proud of my work in the reel, because I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t think I’d seen those scenes [with Burton], and we didn’t know that we were shooting them until the night before and we’d worked late the night before at the studio and we were getting ready to go on a break, and I just remember it being kind of crazy.”

She was thrilled to get the good news of her nomination. “I think I was at home when the announcement was made, and [Executive Producer] Frank Valentini loves to call and tell people. I was at home when Frank called me and I was like, ‘Oh, yay!’ And then I was like, ‘Who else?!’ I always like to know who else got nominated because I love and celebrate the show.”

As she anticipates Friday’s ceremony, Wright doesn’t know whether she’ll be battling major nerves waiting for her category to be called. “It’s different every time,” she notes. “The first time it was total jitters because I’d never been nominated before. But since then, I’m like, ‘Whatever happens, happens!’ You’re excited, but i don’t know if I have ever really expected to win. They can call anyone’s name! It’s so subjective, and everyone who is up there [among the nominees] has earned it and deserved it and kicks ass, so it’s like it could be anyone’s game.”

One thing she is doing differently this year is prioritizing comfort. “I’m wearing a black jumpsuit, and I’m pretty sure — if they don’t look awful — that I’m wearing Sarah Blakely’s line of high-heeled sneakers called Sneeks,” she reports. “I’m like, ‘I do not want my feet to die!’ I am so concerned about my feet hurting, and worried about that and I showed them to Shawn [Reeves], our costume designer and he was like, ‘Oh, my God, go for it!’ So, I just got them, but I have to try them on with the jumpsuit to make sure that everything works. I do have a backup of regular heels, but if they don’t look too weird, I’m going with my Sneeks!”

Laura Wright General Hospital

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General Hospital’s Laura Wright On Daytime Emmy Nomination: ‘I Was Really Proud’ (Exclusive)

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