Here's why General Hospital's Laura Wright was relieved when Chris McKenna started

General Hospital’s Carly (Laura Wright) seems really invested in her burgeoning relationship with Jack (Chris McKenna), even though her friends have warned her to stay away from the WSB station chief. But Carly’s a grown woman and can make decisions for herself. She might not be too happy when she learns that Jack had recruited her daughter, Josslyn (Eden McCoy), to become a secret agent.

Jack was originally played by Charles Mesure, and when he left the role, Chris McKenna took over. The actor had to jump right into the middle of the storyline, and thankfully had Wright to help guide him through the crazy world of making a soap opera.

He has a can-do attitude

Wright told Soap Opera Digest that when the truth about Joss’ secret life as a spy comes out, “It’s got to be just a complete smack in the face.” But for now, she’s choosing to play it like her General Hospital character and not know anything about it. It’s going to upend her relationship with Jack, but if they were meant to be together, then they’ll probably be able to weather it. It’s not like Joss is committing any crimes; she’s fighting bad guys. So the only downside would be that Carly worries about her as if she were a cop.

McKenna’s Jack has proven to be a good support system for Carly. But the actor came from the world of films and nighttime shows, where they only use one camera, and shoot many takes of a scene. In the soap world, it’s vastly different. There’s very little time for rehearsal, the actors have upwards of 100 pages of dialogue per day, and they usually only get one take (maybe two if there’s a technical issue). So when he joined the show, Wright was there to help him learn the ropes, and was relieved at his can-do attitude.

It was too complex to rewrite

Wright explained that when Mesure left General Hospital, there was no time for rewrites, as the complex Joss storyline had been woven into the fabric of the show. Considering the number of scripts that had already been written, the actress explained, “There was no choice but to recast.” She noted that because the transition from Mesure to McKenna was so fast, she didn’t have time to even ponder whether or not she would have chemistry with the new actor. “When you’re in that situation, you just go, ‘This is what it is!’ ” she explained, adding, “There wasn’t even time to think that it wasn’t going to be okay.”

Wright knew about McKenna’s background, so on the weekend before he was to begin shooting as Jack she called him up and explained that she understood it would be a lot, but she’d be there. She was surprised when McKenna didn’t find shooting three or four episodes in one day to be insurmountable. He said he was totally up for it, and she was relieved. Even with all her years of soap acting, Wright found the job to be daunting sometimes, praising her new scene partner: “He shows up, he knows [the material], he does it, anything that we want to adjust or change, he’s like, ‘Okay, great.’ ”

Trending

She also remarked that they have a lot of laughs between takes, which makes work so much more enjoyable. (Find out how McKenna defended his castmates from detractors.)

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

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback