GH Exclusive: Daniel Goddard On Dalton’s First Meetings With Anna, Josslyn And Emma
Daniel Goddard, the former Young and Restless star (ex-Cane) who made his General Hospital debut earlier this month as Professor Henry Dalton, was thrilled to share his first scenes with one of the show’s long-running stars, Finola Hughes (Anna). The encounter between the characters that kicked off at the Savoy on the Monday, April 28 episode, continues into Tuesday’s show. “I was really looking forward to those scenes,” enthuses the actor.
Making The Rounds
Goddard says he’d found out through the grapevine, before he got his hands on the actual script, that his on-screen path would cross with Hughes’s. “I’d heard that I had scenes with Finola and then I met her in the hallway maybe a week before we shot those scenes,” he recalls. “I bumped into Steve Burton [Jason, who played Dylan on Y&R during Goddard’s time there], so Steve and I were having a catch-up. I hadn’t seen Steve since he was at Y&R and we were chatting and then Finola came around the corner and we had a brief chat.”
Though that was his first conversation with Hughes, Goddard was already familiar with the daytime legend. “I’ve had scenes in the past with Michelle Stafford [Y&R’s Phyllis, who played Nina on GH], and I know that Michelle and Finola are close friends,” he explains. “When it got released that I was coming to GH, Michelle basically spoke to Finola and said to her, ‘Daniel’s coming over.’ So, when I heard that I would have scenes with her coming up, I was really looking forward to it, but I hadn’t yet gotten the scenes. Anyway, I got the scenes and I read the scenes, and then the second time I saw her was on set, when we were rehearsing the scenes. She came in and we ran the scenes.
“Fast forward to, we were about to shoot the scenes,” Goddard continues. “And we did kind of a fast rehearsal — which, in soaps, is like, ‘Rehearse, take [shoot on camera], rehearse, take.’ And she said to me, ‘Is there anything you want from me?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is wonderful!’ Like, that’s what you want. You’re new to a show, working with new actors — you want that sort of gracious, welcoming, ‘How can we make this work?’ kind of mentality. And I said to her, ‘Let’s just have fun.’ And she said, ‘Oh, my God, I would love that!’ ”
However impressed Goddard was by Hughes before they started filming, his esteem only grew from the experience of working opposite her once the cameras were rolling. “It’s interesting because she’s such professional and she’s so good at what she does that you can play the moments in between the dialogue,” the actor observes. “You can play those little moments that kind of make it more than just, ‘You speak, I speak. You speak, I speak.’ That’s the way I like to act, so that it’s more interesting to watch and the scene constantly has an energy, and it’s not just, ‘Start, stop. Start, stop.’ ”
Goddard not only had a blast working with Hughes, but gives high marks to the other two female cast members with whom he’s interacted thus far, Braedyn Bruner (Emma) and Eden McCoy (Josslyn). Of Bruner, he marvels, “Braedyn’s young and she just started on the show last year, and it’s very, very difficult to get thrust into such an important role where you have deep roots on the show and Anna Devane is your grandmother! It’s so much to take on, and [when I worked with her] I thought, ‘She has such an incredible levity about her.’ She’s fun, she’s kind, she’s sweet — she’s just an absolute pleasure, and I’ve really enjoyed the scenes we’ve had. There’s sort of a rivalry between Emma and Josslyn Jacks, and somehow Dalton is getting wedged into the middle of it, from an academic point of view, so I was really curious to see how Braedyn would play everything, and she brings a real, genuine truth to everything. She’s just so professional.”
Ditto McCoy. “I really enjoy working with Eden because Eden’s an old soul,” he smiles. “You can feel it when you talk to her and when you’re in her presence. She has a depth to her that you don’t find in a lot of young actors, and an incredible sort of humanity to her. We have little chats — we’ll just chat about life, the universe and everything, and I have a sense that she has a deep, philosophical soul. And I like that very much.”
Getting to know his co-stars a bit off-camera has only enhanced their on-screen dynamics. “I think there’s a really great duality between Braedyn and Eden, and the difference between them as humans, I think, parallels the difference between Emma and Josslyn as characters, which is great because then as an actor, you get to kind of take those little things you know about them as a real person and then play those into the scenes with them. That gives you more than just two characters talking; it brings the depth of who you are as humans, as well, into the scenes.”
There was a subtle streak of humor in Goddard’s first scenes with McCoy and Bruner, as Joss attempted to pull Goddard’s focus off of Emma and onto her, which Goddard leaned into. “I like to try to find the humor,” he notes. “It was hard because not knowing much about Dalton — just that he’s a professor and they’re the students — I didn’t want to just play it like, ‘I’m a professor, you’re the student.’ That’s boring, you know? How do you take the professor/student relationship, make it professional, but still make it entertaining and fun and bring a levity to it? That’s what I was kind of going for; I wanted to see how much levity I could bring to it with them, but at the same time, without knowing where the character’s going, not have it set up in a way that’s kind of anti the direction that they want to take the character. So,” he sums up, “I’m kind of like trying to walk a fine tightrope at the moment!”
Drink Up! Hank, as Dalton called himself when introducing himself to Anna (Finola Hughes), chatted up Emma’s grandmother under Josslyn’s (Eden McCoy) watchful eye.
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.