GH Exclusive: Eden McCoy Knew ‘For A Really Long Time’ That Josslyn Would Kill Cyrus
Eden McCoy has been keeping quite a secret for many months now: She found out last year that her General Hospital alter ego, Josslyn Jacks, would be the one to ultimately take down Cyrus Renault, the villainous killer played by Daytime Emmy-winning actor Jeff Kober.
Point of No Return
Explains the actress, “I found out that Josslyn would be killing Cyrus at the same time I found out that [Joss’s love interest] Dex was getting killed off. . So I’ve known for a really long time.” It’s fairly atypical for actors in daytime to get a heads-up about such a major plot twist so many months in advance, and McCoy says she’s glad she was looped in. “That just made it so much more fun for me, because I just knew where it was going, and I was obviously really excited [to film] that, and to do something I had never done before. I was just super honored that [the powers-that-be at GH] thought I should be the one to end Cyrus’s reign of terror.”
However, her behind-the-scenes affection for Kober did temper her anticipation of shooting the climax of the storyline (no pun intended). “I was sad because Jeff was leaving,” she admits. “I adore him, and it was a bittersweet thing, killing Cyrus, because obviously, that was Jeff’s last day. But it was special to be a part of that, just because I think he’s so fabulous. He’s so amazing to work with because he’s such a wonderful, warm presence, and then so scary the second we have to get into it [on camera]!”
For McCoy, filming the intense episode made for a memorable day at work. “Obviously, I knew what was coming,” she says of the build-up to Joss firing Dex’s gun, “and in the moment, I just took it kind of moment by moment, scene by scene, because you need to build up to the climax of the shootout. We had so much to do that day—not just the sequence of Joss killing him, but all of the sequences that come after that didn’t air until later. It was a huge, huge day for everybody. So it was a little overwhelming, but mostly just exciting.”
She received specialty training on set as well. “I had an ex-officer with the Los Angeles Police Department teaching me how to shoot the gun because I really shot it. They were blanks; I shot blank bullets. But we had to clear the set and everything. It was a real gun, not like a fake prop that didn’t fire bullets. There were no special effects at all; when I shot that thing, [the blanks] were really coming out as I was shooting it. I thought it was a real privilege to be able to really feel it.”
The actress had only recently shot a gun for the first time. “I wasn’t even thinking about how this [episode] was coming up, but a few weeks before, I went to a gun range with my boyfriend and some friends and shot a bunch of different guns. I had never shot a gun before, so I felt super cool when the LAPD officer was like, ‘Have you shot a gun before?’ And I was like, ‘Yes!’ Even though I’d only done it for the first time a few weeks before. But I guess it really helped, because I was a lot more comfortable having done it in my real life.”
When it came time to film, “Jeff was amazing and so generous, and because I had so many scenes when Josslyn was still in the cabin, Jeff just had to lay there ‘dead’ for so long until we finished the whole segment because we needed his body [to be on camera]. I felt so bad, but he was lovely.”
McCoy notes that the fallout from Cyrus’s death is poised to be just as juicy as the villain’s demise itself. “The stuff I’ve gotten to do since then has been super fun and amazing and very fresh and new,” she enthuses. “It’s all things I haven’t done before, starting with [my character] killing somebody with a gun. I’m just really excited about it because I’ve done the storyline of ‘my boyfriend died’ before, and this is a very different journey of grief. Josslyn takes action here and makes a lot of life-altering decisions.”
Although, she points out, Joss did not premeditate her fatal shooting of Cyrus. “She didn’t go there to kill him,” she says of Joss’s trip to Cyrus’s remote cabin. “She did go there with a gun to defend herself if need be, but it definitely wasn’t her plan to kill the guy.”
Regardless, McCoy continues, “That’s what ended up happening, and it just unleashes an entirely new reality for Josslyn, forever.”
On top of that, it gives Joss something more in common with her mobster ex-stepfather, Sonny Corinthos, whose life of violent crime she has long denounced. The actress agrees that now that Joss has taken a life, it will “one million percent” change her viewpoint on Sonny. “And thank God, because I’m so tired of the hypocrisy!” she exclaims. “I’m happy that Josslyn now has a personal struggle and has to readjust everything. She’s like, ‘Okay, I get this now.’ “
Friendly Fire: McCoy and Kober on the GH set the day her character took the life of his.
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.