General Hospital: January 2023 Discussion Thread

[janea4old]

I just read Kelly Thiebaud's interview in SOD.   She said had left GH a few years ago.  Then they asked her back for what was supposed to be a short temporary stint, but they ended up doing her pairing with Steve Burton which gave a lot of storyline, and she stayed.  But she never wanted to stay permanently.

KT says that yes she got the primetime stint on Station 19, but she knows she could have worked that out with Frank V., since both shows are ABC/Disney and he works things out with other actors doing primetime. 

KT said she left GH because she is in love ... and her partner or significant other lives in London, and he can't move to the US at this time, so she decided to go live in London with him.  Her instagram has pics of them in London at Christmastime.  She told Frank V, that she had decided to leave, and then they worked out a storyline exit for her, and agreed that Britt dying was the best choice.

KT said two pieces of information were mentioned by Deadline: 
1) that she was leaving GH and that her exit would be near the end of 2022;
2) that she would do a stint on Station 19.
Somehow readers of Deadline assumed that Station 19 was her reason for leaving GH, but that was a false assumption.

It's a really long article, she talks about the evolution of Britt, what it was like working in soaps, her castmates, etc.  I won't put all that here, but hopefully SOD will put the full interview up on their website in another week or two.

Edited January 8, 2023 by janea4old

[dragonflies]

Nope DEADLINE flat out said she WAS leaving to do Station 19 and they said she was leaving in November too....

[janea4old]

https://deadline.com/2022/08/station-19-kelly-thiebaud-returning-abc-drama-eva-vasquez-season-6-1235094635/

No it doesn't say that she left GH for Station 19.
 If you read it closely, it says
KT of GH and DAYS is going to Station 19.
It talks about her role on Station 19.
Then in a *separate paragraph* it says KT is leaving GH in November, but it doesn't say Station 19 is the cause of her exit from GH.

That being said, when I first read the Deadline article months ago, I myself assumed that's what Deadline was saying. But now that I read it again, I see that they don't say that.

But yeah Deadline had the wrong date for KT's exit from GH, since they said November.

Edited January 8, 2023 by janea4old

[dragonflies]

My guess they got the info from her publicist...

[janea4old]

Checking to see if Deadline changed the story ...
I found a copy on archive.org from Aug. 17, 2022.
That version said she'd already finished taping at GH!  LOL.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220817184422/https://deadline.com/2022/08/station-19-kelly-thiebaud-returning-abc-drama-eva-vasquez-season-6-1235094635/

Then they edited it later that day to say she was leaving in November.

Edited January 8, 2023 by janea4old

[Liberty City]

Not surprised by this; pretty sure she was only coming for a longer recurring gig, signed to a one-year deal, and she ended up staying an additional year.

[Darn]

She would have stayed if Steve hadn't left. Clearly she was enamored with being with one of the stars of the show and the pairing had fans. They show was prepared to go full throttle with them.

They tried to give the character something to do and keep Kelly around after her Emmy by bringing on a love interest just for her (Rebecca Herbst meanwhile solely gets everyone else's leftovers) but FoF Josh Kelly didn't click with her and she was just understandably ready to go.

[Vee]

Thiebaud has never been very interesting to me no matter how much they've tried for years to dress Britt up as queen bitch of the universe and push the astroturfed friendship with Brad. Like I said before, in pushing Britt they traded on a gay sensibility without bothering with any actual major LGBT content. When she got her first shot at earnest romantic material in the mid-2010s, with Nikolas, she sucked at playing the heroine - it was all vague looks and a lot of whining. She had a little heat with Steve Burton when he was way past it but she was never going to work in the big leagues IMO because I feel she's a very limited performer beyond bitchy lines.

Plus, whatever the hell happened BTS with the show swiftly pivoting away from Jason/Sam after years of refusing to back down and forcing them on the audience - shoving Sam and Dante together and spinning Jason towards both B/C-player Britt and then Carly in record time in the same year, when Jason has almost never had any kind of quickie romance since the accident - still fascinates me. It was a very strange time.

[Liberty City]

Part of me feels like that's due in-part to Kelly Monaco. Don't ask me why.

[Darn]

Speaking of that dude, whoever that actor is was horrible in the scenes last week with Maxie and Nina after Britt's death. They were all pretty bad actually. It felt super shallow. Lots of "crying" voice but no tears. And the dialogue was pretty atrocious.

[Vee]

I like Parry Shen going way back to his indie film Better Luck Tomorrow, but yes, he was quite bad.

[carolineg]

It always seemed Kelly was checked out of Jason/Sam once SBu returned.  She seemed to enjoy working with Billy Miller/Drew.  Maybe she though that a Dante pairing would give her more to do?  It didn't though lol.  I am just not sure if Kelly who is someone who cares enough to push an agenda or a new pairing when Jasam earned her most of her fans.  I always thought it was SBu.  He did seem to be into the Britt/Jason pairing.  That was the most I have seen SBu into a love scene in years.

No idea why they shifted to Jason/Carly.   I would assume for maximum impact when Sonny returned, but it really just fizzled instead.

[AbcNbc247]

Wasn’t there some tension BTS when Billy Miller was fired? Someone, I think Kelly Monaco, tweeted something that implied that people were upset about it.

Edited January 9, 2023 by AbcNbc247

[Vee]

I don't think Kelly's ever had that kind of power. That's why she was notably pissed BTS when Billy Miller was unseated and then let go. If she could dictate her pairing she'd have stayed with Drew, who she had more chemistry with.

Steve OTOH had historically resisted any attempt to re-pair Jason and Carly since the late '90s, and he had the power to do so. So going back there in '21 was a huge shock. I have to assume things got very bad between both of them somehow in the last couple years. I think having him very swiftly bang and fall for Britt - when it was deeply OOC for Jason to move so fast, let alone then bounce to Carly - was the result of some sort of very hasty decisions. I wish we knew more.

[carolineg]

Yes, I seem to recall KeMo tweeting a few things about it and perhaps passive aggressively speaking to mags in a way you knew she was unhappy about his firing.

The Carly/Jason thing is perplexing.  Steve was so against it like you said.  I wonder if he thought going along with Carly/Jason when it was written would help him with his vax stance since he was being a team player about storylines.  Or he lost his power after they fired him the first time and his objections were ignored.  As to why it was written the way it was, I can't even begin to speculate.