General Hospital's Emma Samms Didn't Know What She Was Getting Into When She Started Playing Holly
Former con artist Holly Sutton (Emma Samms) has had her hand in quite a few dubious pursuits on "General Hospital," including blackmailing the city of Port Charles for the antidote to an encephalitis breakout (per Soap Central).
The English actress has played similarly interesting and multi-dimensional characters over the years, and spoke on the podcast "That's Awesome" – hosted by "GH" co-star Bradford Anderson and former co-star Steve Burton — about her career. "I sort of ended up in acting by accident, almost, because I had originally wanted to be a ballet dancer and I was at the Royal Ballet School," she said, citing her ballerina mother as her inspiration. However, an injury forced her to stop dancing. While considering medical school, she was asked to be a model, "and that just seemed easier."
Modeling wasn't very fulfilling for her, so Samms decided to go into acting and surprisingly got an agent right away, despite having no acting training. Her first film was "Arabian Adventure" in 1979, and she eventually moved to Los Angeles, working as a waitress while auditioning. During her try out for the part of Holly on "GH," Samms explained that then-executive producer Gloria Monty heard her British accent, felt this would inspire more stories, and hired her on the spot.
Now, after dealing with long COVID, Samms has returned to the role that made her a soap star, and she had some interesting things to say about her early days on "GH."
Emma Samms knew nothing about General Hospital when she started playing Holly Sutton
Despite dealing with long COVID since 2020, beloved actress Emma Samms recently returned to "General Hospital" to reprise her role of Holly Sutton, according to People. On a recent episode of "State of Mind," hosted by "GH" co-star, Maurice Benard, Samms stated, "It was huge, but, I came in post-Luke and Laura (Spencer, Anthony Geary and Genie Francis)." She explained that both Demi Moore and Janine Turner's characters on the show were failed attempts to pair Luke with another woman after Francis left the show in 1981, stating the audience wasn't ready to accept Geary with, "anyone other than Genie." She added, "I was the third attempt to find a love interest for Luke."
Since "GH" didn't play in England, she didn't know anything about it because, "I had not watched the show. Thankfully." She explained that she'd done several screen tests for "GH," and, "eventually did a screen test with Tony, who was so nice to me." She cited Geary for helping her improve her acting, particularly, "how to listen when you're acting, which is more than 50% of it." Samms said the audience finally accepted her, and the love triangle between Holly, Luke, and Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) became a fan favorite story.
"I came in very naive and that was the advantage I had, which was I didn't know how terrified I should have been," she said.