GH Exclusive: Finola Hughes Says ‘Anna Is Terrified’ That Emma Will Be Just Like Her
General Hospital fans were buzzing online about the history-rich scenes that aired earlier this week between Anna Devane and her granddaughter, Emma Scorpio-Drake, which were beautifully performed by newcomer Braedyn Bruner (Emma, l.) and veteran star Finola Hughes (Anna). Soap Opera Digest checked in with Hughes to find out about her developing bond with her new on-screen family member and why Anna is so up in arms about Emma bending the law.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Hughes has quickly become a fan of her new co-star. “Just this morning, I worked with her on some scenes and she is shaping up beautifully,” the actress declares. “You know, it’s hard, obviously, to step into a character that someone else has played” — the longest-running Emma, Brooklyn Rae Silzer, played the role on and off from 2011-23 — “but she’s a wonderful young actress. She has a lot of specificity with what she does and that’s fantastic, to work with someone so young that has that already.”
As Anna learns more about what motivated Emma to go to extremes to help the Quartermaines — and about Emma’s previous brushes with the law — she does not, grins Hughes, “take it well. Not at all! It’s really interesting. Anna is written pretty hard with all this stuff, and it took me a while to figure out why. But I think that Anna is terrified, looking at Emma, that she is like Anna. She’s terrified! Emma has already had run-ins with the police. She has a record. She’s got this altruistic sort of ‘I’m gonna save the world’ style and ideals. And it really freaks Anna out! She does not want her granddaughter to follow the path that she did when she was that age, because Anna made all sorts of wrong choices. And I think that at the end of the day, the reason Anna really goes after Emma about a lot of this stuff is because she is terrified that she’s looking in the mirror.”
This deep-seated concern will continue to play out between the characters. “We had those scenes the other day, and we’ve since done a portion more talking about all that,” Hughes shares. “And Braedyn was fantastic in both sets. She really is a great young actress to work off.”
While Anna is nursing worries about her own history repeating itself with Emma, another character — ADA Turner — will soon begin poking around, asking questions about Anna’s past. This raises red flags for Anna, but behind the scenes, Hughes says she couldn’t be happier to be working off of Nanzeen Contractor, who plays the hard-charging ADA. “I love working with Nanzeen,” she beams. “Another fantastic actress to work off of! In fact, we have a [real-life] husband-and-wife team on our show, Naz and Carlo [Rota, Sidwell], and I love working with Carlo, as well. They are two really fabulous people. We’ve already had dinner together and I just really like them a lot. But Naz is fantastic to go toe to toe with. It’s like she’s been there forever!”
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