General Hospital's Jens Austin Astrup opens up about father's suicide on State of Mind

On General Hospital, Jens Austin Astrup is in the middle of his juiciest storyline on the show. His character, Kai Taylor, was in Drew Cain’s house (Cameron Mathison) along with his ex-girlfriend, Trina Robinson (Tabyana Ali), when the congressman was shot. They were trying to steal information from Drew’s safe that Drew was using to blackmail Trina’s mother, Portia (Brook Kerr).

Kai was in this position when, after several months of being Drew's intern on General Hospital, he finally realized how bad and corrupt Drew was after overhearing his boss making threats. He agreed to help Trina steal the papers to make it up to her family.

Kai has turned against Drew on General Hospital

Before turning against Drew, Kai was a loyal congressional intern | Image: ABC

While the former Port Charles University quarterback was doing some soul-searching on General Hospital, his portrayer bared a lot of his soul on State of Mind, Maurice Benard’s (Sonny Corinthos) mental health talk series.

Astrup, whose first name is pronounced “Yens,” told his General Hospital co-star how his father committed suicide when Jens was 15.

The death of his father came as the entire family struggled financially. When he was 4, his parents moved him and his two siblings from Chicago to Los Angeles to find success in Hollywood.

He said they had some success, with them auditioning for commercials, and his brother landing a major McDonald’s commercial. Jens also appeared in two episodes of the sitcom The King of Queens when he was a boy.

When he was a boy, his father bought him some new Converse tennis shoes even though he couldn’t afford them. He said, “My parents did a good job that even when we were struggling, they never wanted us to … they couldn’t hide it necessarily, but they never wanted us to feel that.”

Jens tore the shoes after getting the laces caught in the gears. He said his dad was really upset about it, which happened about two weeks before his dad took his life. Jens said a high school friend of his dad’s told him how much his dad regretted how upset he became at that.

After his father’s death, Jens and his family moved in with his great aunt and uncle.

Astrup said that was father “was the most fun guy of all time” but also struggled with mental illness at times.

He told Benard, “He was depressed for sure. I’ve got to know even more since he died. I think it was a culmination of a lot of things... I think he had a lot of regret. I think he felt a lot of guilt. Life was getting too hard (for him). I think even money was too hard for him. We really struggled growing up, we struggled pretty severely.”

Later in the interview, Astrup talked to Benard about how he finds peace through the pain in his past. The new General Hospital star, in his first year on the show, said he regularly writes in a journal

“This is a peace that I’ve had to work really hard to build,” Astrup said. “It’s taken a long long time. If you had met me three years ago, I would have walked in with the same smile, but it wouldn’t be grounded.”

Astrup said part of that is having a steady acting job and being more able to enjoy simple pleasures in life.

“With this job I have my own place and moved in with my girlfriend and I bought an air purifier,” he said. “I’m enjoying (life) and I’m here to be alive and I feel blessed to even breathe my purified air. And I can just feel it, I’m at ease. Peace is realizing when I get tired or I get home, changing my shoes into my comfy shoes and sitting down on a chair and feeling it. The relaxation… knowing that no matter what chair I’m sitting in, I’m going to be all right.”

Astrup enjoys working with Tabyana Ali | Image: ABC

Before coming to General Hospital, Astrup guest-starred in two episodes of the Gossip Girl reboot series. He has also recently appeared in short films Baby Talk and I Don’t.

Also in the interview, he said he loves working with Tabyana Ali and said he has been working out lately with Donnell Turner, who plays Trina’s father, Curtis Ashford.

You can watch new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu.