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INTERVIEW

Quick Take With Nicholas Chavez

So, Spencer’s last hurrah before reporting to Spring Ridge — his cabin trip with his buddies and Esme — was hardly the fun-filled getaway he’d anticipated, and he got a strong sense of Esme’s true colors. How would you describe Spencer’s perspective on Esme now? “Spencer is in a completely new headspace about her after the cabin. He’s like, ‘Okay, my eyes have been opened about who this person is.’ But the fact of the matter is, he’s going to prison for 30 days, and Esme is basically going to be his liaison with the outside world. She has that internship at Spring Ridge, so he’s going to be seeing her. There are a number of political and social reasons to keep on good terms with her for the time being. But make no mistake, Spencer has zero blinders on about who she is. He just has to use their relationship in as tactical a way as possible.”

Spencer clearly feels a strong connection with, and emotional pull to, Trina. What is your take on where they stand as Spencer begins his sentence? “The relationship that Spencer has with Esme is a very dangerous, Mr. and Mrs. Smith-esque relationship. It is passionate and I think they are physically attracted to one another, but they have none of the characteristics of a healthy relationship when you look at it closely. And so it is far more along the lines of, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ with her, whereas with Trina, she is just that really, really good friend who I think Spencer could see having a very healthy relationship with in the future, so long as he is able to improve himself. He is in a tough situation right now because the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of tactical benefits to staying with Esme, but what Spencer wants deep down is to foster this relationship with Trina. After what happened at the cabin, he was incredibly and genuinely concerned about her. I don’t think he knows exactly what happened, but he has his suspicions. He knows that Esme is at fault, and Spencer vouched for Esme to come on the trip, so I think in Spencer’s mind, in some way, that fault traces back to him, you know? Like, ‘I vouched for this person and this person ended up hurting Trina, who I care about more than anyone else in Port Charles, and who cares for me, probably, more than anyone else in Port Charles.’ ”

On a totally separate note, how fun was it to film the scenes where Spencer and Esme watched Victor and Laura trade barbs as though they were watching a tennis match? “Oh, my God, so fun! It really was like a tennis match. Genie [Francis, Laura] and Charles [Shaughnessy, Victor] are just so good. It was cool because what I realized is that there isn’t really one single tone to the show. Different shows have different tones; the tone of FRIENDS is very different from the tone of SUCCESSION. And GENERAL HOSPITAL’s tone isn’t one thing. It can be many, many things, and sometimes the tone can shift many times within one scene. So I can come off of having these really heated scenes with Victor, and then when Victor and Laura sit down, all of the sudden, the point has become comedic for Spencer and Esme and you get to lay more into the comedy aspect of how funny it is that these two are just hurling these insults back and forth. I really enjoy that aspect of working on the show.”

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