GH: SOD interview with Chad Duell(NuNuMichael)

[DRW50]

I thought there was a lot of speculation that Leon's firing was also due to weight gain, not just Sursok having a friend at Sony.

You never know why someone is cast, but with Disney owning ABC for 15 years now, I'd think we would have seen this type of thing happen more often on the ABC soaps.

[bellcurve]

+1

[Eric83]

This recast is an EPIC FAIL.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Who knows, corporate interference seems to have gotten stronger over the past 5 years or so. Though, even with that, a lot of these "writers" and "producers" were hacks even before that effects of corporate interference set in.

[Ann_SS]

Exactly. Apparently, all powerful Disney would choose to put its budding "STAR" in a two bit role on a network soap opera instead of placing him in his own series on one of their many other high profile cable networks or give him a starring role in a movie with one of their teen princesses. Disney is so powerful, but they let GH's cast director choose an unknown actor over their "STAR." I can't even imagine why their "STAR" has to audition in the first place. I am for indulging in soap gossip and rumor, but for goodness sake it should have some resemblance to logic.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Who said Duell was a "budding star?" A lot of actors, no matter unknown they are, have development deals with networks and production companies and sometimes have to start their way up from the bottom before they progress atop. I don't know whether that's the case with Duell, and I don't know when or if he auditioned originally for GH.

Has he talked about auditioning for GH? Was GH sending out feelers about recasting Michael weeks or months before it happened? It all seemed so sudden. Strange we never heard anything about it, when we did when Kelly Monaco was under tense contract negotiations and they sent out feelers to actresses to audition for the recast of the Sam character.

[DRW50]

I think people assume he must be seen as a budding star if they would fire an established and popular actor just to give him a role, if the idea is that Drew Garrett was only fired to give Duell a job.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

It's a fair assumption, but I also see people claiming Garett screwed up or caused trouble, hence why he was fired. But where is the proof in that?

I really don't think Maurice Benard, Laura Wright, Nancy Lee Grahn, Lexi Ainsworth, and Steve Burton had anything to gain by coming out and saying how shocked, and in Maurice's case, disappointed that Garrett was fired if he was indeed screwing up or causing trouble or had some type of bad reputation.

I'd like some info before I jump on the "Garett screwed up or caused trouble" bandwagon. But, again, we really know nothing about this situation, hence the rapid speculation.

[DRW50]

I agree with you, but there are other backstage issues besides causing trouble. Guza and JFP have huge egos and you never know what will set them off. Since Guza and JFP came onboard, how many young actors have been fired from the show after only a year or two during their run? Or they may have recast Michael because they wanted to get away from the very nasty turn the character has taken.

I guess there could be a lot of reasons.

[All My Shadows]

My theory is that it's possible that Duell and/or his people shoehorned him into the show, but to me, it seems more likely that TPTB at GH just had issues with Garrett that were out of his hands/not his fault.

But then I remember this is GH, a show that I've rarely given a damn about in my 10 years of watching soaps...so yeah.

[DRW50]

Over the past 5-6 years, GH has dumped so many actors, or had weird hate for them that had nothing to do with anything they brought to the table (Greg Vaughan, Billy Warlock, Rick Hearst). Or among the younger men, there's Jesse, Coop, Logan, etc.

[JackPeyton]

EXACTLY!

Thank you. I agree.

They did have issues with Josh Duhon tho.

Also, if there was an issue what makes people think it would leak? Plenty of things go on that we never here about. True, we do hear about A LOT, but im sure its far from everything.

[R Sinclair]

This is making me laugh! Raven-Symone? Disney STAR! Zac Efron? Disney STAR! Chad Duell? Who?!

[All My Shadows]

LOL exactly.

Now if they got the Zach and Cody twins to share the role of Michael, then I think we'd have something...

[bellcurve]

YUCK!

But I love The Suite Life!