General Hospital alum Robert Palmer Watkins discusses early days on the show and hopes for Dillon's return

On General Hospital, Dillon Quartermaine wasn’t there for Monica’s funeral, and hasn’t been seen in Port Charles since 2017, when Robert Palmer Watkins last played him.

Watkins has been busy with several projects this year, but the General Hospital alum has had time to reflect on his past with the Quartermaines in the wake of Monica’s death on the show.

Former General Hospital star keeps up with the Quartermaines

The actor shared his thoughts on the Qs and his career in general in a long interview with Soap Opera News. He said he would love Dillon to come back to the show someday, both on his Instagram account and in this interview.

"I always get excited when I see Wally Kurth back on screen as Ned,” the former General Hospital star told the website. “I always loved working with him. And storylines with Monica and Tracy—those hit close, because that’s Dillon’s world.

“I think there are still a lot of interesting stories to be told with him. It’d be really compelling to explore how Dillon might react to these crucial moments in the Quartermaine family’s history. And if they ever wanted to bring him back, I’d absolutely be interested in telling those stories.”

Watkins said he still spends time with Kurth and Hayley Erin, who played Dillon’s former girlfriend Kiki Jerome on General Hospital and is now on The Young and the Restless as Claire. And he keeps in touch with several other actors on the show.

He spoke about Leslie Charleson, who played Monica on General Hospital and passed away in January. He said “Leslie had this light, sweet, almost motherly energy. She’d crack jokes, laugh off mistakes, and always brought a sense of ease to the set.”

Watkins told Soap Opera News about his early days on the soap, and how his grandmother was a big fan of the show. He said he did a lot of research into the show and watched a lot of Dillon’s prior scenes when he was played by Scott Clifton.

He said he got a lot of support early on from Jane Elliot (Tracy Quartermaine), who stopped by his dressing room and praised him on how well he was doing.

Watkins has been in a lot of projects in recent months. His most recent film is The Vale: Origins which is a prequel to a popular illustrated book written by. Abigail Hing Wen.

The logline for the film says “After a devastating loss, a grieving inventor family begins to drift apart—until their young son’s fantastical drawings spark a journey toward healing, in a magical world that only they could imagine.” Watkins plays the father in the lead family and stars with Lea Salonga, who is well known as the singing voice of Disney’s Jasmine and Mulan.

Watkins posted a lot of content from the movie premiere earlier this month. You can learn more about the novel that inspired the film at @thirdstatebooks.

He is also stars in the film The Fostered as the male half of a married couple who decides to foster children, “only to discover that what seemed like a solution turns into something far more sinister than they ever anticipated.”

In the Soap Opera News interview, he went into a lot of detail into his high school and college days. He was in a lot of acting and theatre classes at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, and was also in a singing group.

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“I got accepted into both the visual arts and theater programs, which was a huge honor,” he said. “I had to choose: do I go with the thing I’ve always done, or this new thing that’s calling to me? And I chose acting. Something in my gut just said, ‘I can see a career in this.’”

Catch new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu.

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