GH’s Amanda Setton (Brook Lynn) On The ‘Traumatic’ Gio Reveal (Exclusive)
On the day Amanda Setton went to work to tape one of the most important days of her General Hospital career — Brook Lynn confronting her mother, Lois, for her 22 years of lies and deception after discovering that the child she’d birthed as a teen and given up for adoption was Gio Palmieri — she was missing one of the most important tools in an actor’s toolbox: Her voice! The actress opened up to Soap Opera Digest about that and a whole lot more.
The Show Must Go On
In the lead-up to these pivotal scenes, Setton tells Digest that she was feeling the pressure of the moment. Specifically, she recalls, “I wanted to deliver because I wanted to serve the story. I genuinely feel like this story with Gio is one of the best storylines I’ve ever read, let alone had the privilege to play. I truly mean that — I’m not just blowing smoke! I think it is well-crafted and deeply moving and relatable. For as sort of ridiculous as soaps can get sometimes in the theatrics — which are always so fun to watch and fun to play, for sure — this just feels so rooted and somehow so real. This story touches so many family members and extended members of the cast, and the fans have been with us on this journey for a year now! Here we are, a year after Chase and Brook Lynn’s wedding, when Gio was first introduced to Port Charles. And here’s the climax. We’re at the top of the mountain now of this story. Everything that’s going to happen after, which will also be juicy and great, will be the fallout. But this is it, and I just wanted to deliver the magnitude of this moment for the character of Brook Lynn. I wanted to give the audience and the fans this climactic moment and also serve Brook Lynn, this character that I’m so fortunate and lucky and privileged to play. This is arguably the biggest moment of her life, and by far the most emotional, to meet her child. And as a mother, as a parent, it was just so visceral for me. This story just really hit me — and continues to — in a very deep and visceral way. And I think that I was able to use that sort of pressure and energy in the scenes.”
The acting challenge that the show had presented her with got extra points for difficulty when Setton lost her voice. The actress notes, “I had done weeks and weeks of work, long days working up to this moment, and we had just shot three days of the Nurses’ Ball. I wasn’t sick, I didn’t feel stressed, but still, I lost my voice.” Her theory? “My body knew that I didn’t want to do it, that I didn’t want to go there emotionally, because I knew what it was going to take to really go there and not phone it in. And my body was like, ‘Nope, you’re done! I’m not gonna do that!’ ”
Ever the professional, “I got to work the next morning and I told the producers, ‘I don’t have a voice, but I’m here, I’m ready to go, I will give it all I’ve got,’ ” Setton continues. “They were like, ‘We could move the scenes,’ and I said, ‘No.’ The day before, we had shot Brook Lynn finding out in real time at the Nurses’ Ball that Gio is her son. These were the scenes right after, where I run to confront my mother and then Dante comes to confront me. And I was like, ‘If we push these scenes, I won’t be as in it. It just won’t be as good. So let’s just go for it. Let’s do it.’ ”
In the end, Setton thinks losing her voice actually added to the scenes. “In God’s plan, so to speak, the voice worked even better because Brook Lynn had nothing left,” she points out. “She was empty, she was raw.”
Some Kind Of Wonderful
The work Setton and Rena Sofer (Lois) did in their confrontation scenes earned some major kudos from Dominic Zamprogna (Dante), who told Digest that they “may be some of the best scenes I’ve ever seen.” When the compliment was relayed to Setton, she said, “Aw, I love him. That’s so sweet. That’s so kind and so moving. For me to hear that is really very fulfilling. I’m super-grateful to hear he thinks that and so humbled to hear Dom speak of it that way because in the moment, it did feel very, very real.”
Setton committed wholeheartedly to playing the intense cocktail of emotions swirling through Brook Lynn as she struggled to absorb not only the truth about Gio, but about Lois’s actions. “This is the angriest we’ve ever seen Brook Lynn,” Setton declares. “The level of hurt, betrayal, disbelief, trauma … It was traumatizing! They were traumatizing scenes.” So much so, the actress confides, “that when I got off set, to the wings, so to speak, I was just bent over with my hands on my knees,” nearly hyperventilating from all the emotion coursing through her body.
The actress is quick to cite how much her scene partner brought to the Brook Lynn/Lois reckoning. “Rena was amazing,” Setton praises. “She gave me so much to work with and she’s just such a professional and so in it. And she’s such an amazing team player and so supportive and generous, genuinely. That makes all the difference, especially when you’re doing something so raw and so vulnerable and intimate. I couldn’t have had a better partner as my mom. I love her.”
She is also grateful for the acting experience she had with Zamprogna when Brook Lynn finally had to face the music with Dante about concealing her pregnancy from him. It was a moment Brook Lynn had feared, but she was met by genuine compassion by Dante. “Dom is such an amazing actor,” Setton says. “He’s one of my favorite actors on the show. Acting with Dom is like ice skating — it just feels like you’re gliding together. There’s a subtlety, there’s a dance, and it’s very gratifying. He chose to play a level of compassion and not just be angry, one-note mad, you know? He chose to play it with such depth and humanity. He saw this girl who he’s known for his entire life, Brook Lynn, just breaking down and having this traumatic experience, and he’s upset and he’s mad and he feels betrayed, but he also doesn’t blame her. And I think it’s a really important distinction.”
The emotional intensity of the story shows no signs of letting up, and Brook Lynn’s first major scenes with Gio since the reveal will play out on the Wednesday, May 28 episode. Teases Setton, “I think Brook Lynn is relating to Gio, to the betrayal that he’s feeling because she’s been completely betrayed by her mother and her grandmother holding this secret from her for 22 years. So I think she feels a level of kinship with him. Of course, he is still coming from this place of anger and the assumption that Brook Lynn didn’t want him, didn’t love him, forgot about him, and obviously, he holds it against her. But as the audience knows, he doesn’t know that she didn’t know [that she was his mother]! So, there are some really beautiful scenes of her trying to express and explain the truth, and the place she was in as a 16-year-old girl who wasn’t ready [for motherhood].”
Do you think Brook Lynn can get through to Gio? What have been your favorite scenes of the secret’s blow-up so far? Let us know in the comments below!
Boy Wonder: Brook Lynn has a lot to process now that she knows Gio is her son by Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) — and that Lois (Rena Sofer) has known from the start!
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