You have been busy these past few months! Have you been enjoying how much Olivia has going on? “It’s been great. I mean, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Escapism from real life right now is just a very rare treat, to be able to go to work and go into this other world. I love it in the best of times, but to have this really fantastic storyline that the writers have put together right now has been wonderful. At first, it was a little bit nerve-wracking to rev up those muscles to 100 from zero, because we’d all been out of work for such a long time [during the production shutdown]. You really go, like, ‘Wow, this is hard!’ People say, ‘How do you memorize all those lines?’ And then you get one of those fat, two-or-three-episodes- in-one-day scripts and you’re like, ‘Jeez, they’re right! How do I memorize this all? I’m not really sure how I did this!’ So, that was an interesting challenge, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. And I’ll take more!”
You must have had a blast shooting Olivia’s Monte Carlo adventure with Tristan Rogers (Robert). “Oh, absolutely. People do ask, like, ‘Do you maintain that feeling of your 9-year-old self [who was a Tristan Rogers super-fan] when you’re in the middle of shooting a scene?’ And I say, ‘Well, you know, when it actually comes down to shooting a scene, you do have to put on your big-girl pants and be an actor and remember your lines and know what you’re doing.’ But he really is just such a delightful person and a dream to work with and very, very giving. And outside of that, the context of the storyline was just so classic GENERAL HOSPITAL for me, that escapade, that adventure, which is something I think people are keen to have right now. Delivering something that would be fun for the viewers to take in, that always adds to the fun of it for us as actors. It’s escapism for me as an actor, too, to just focus on body glitter and false eyelashes and just have a ball. Those days were really a lot of fun.”
There’s been a lot of meaty material for you to play with Wally Kurth (Ned), in particular. “I have been so blessed with my scene partners on this show and watching Wally play — because I know what he’s playing is intense guilt — is like, ‘Wow, he’s really good at that!’ Playing drama between Ned and Olivia is great because we do spend so much time being happy and lovely and being the talk-tos for other characters, always having the right answers to things — which is great, and is also very important on the canvas. But you do have to shake things up a little bit, and he’s such a great person to shake things up with because he has a great ability for pathos and emotional availability. It really has been great and I’m sure there is more of that coming up. I think they’ve written the conflict between them very realistically, when Olivia was feeling, ‘You haven’t been there for me.’ ”
What was it like to reunite on set with Jane Elliot (Tracy)? “Jane and I are close off set, so getting to share scenes with her only gets better as our friendship has grown in real life. Even though Olivia and Tracy aren’t supposed to be terribly warm with each other, they get closer this trip through. It was a new dynamic to play and Jane is just the best of the best. I adore her and I adore working with her as an actor.”
