Michael Easton Puts His GH Exit Into Perspective

Fans were stunned when Michael Easton announced his exit from General Hospital and immediately wondered what happened. With rumors flying around social media saying all sorts of things, the actor stepped into his Instagram comments to clarify that he didn’t leave the soap for another role. “Not my choice,” he wrote, “but it’s all good.”

Coming to terms with GH writing Finn off the show, Easton was able to put things in perspective when he thought about how he lost one of his best friends, One Life To Live castmate Kamar de los Reyes (Antonio). “I’m the same age my mom was when she passed away,” the actor confided to Soap Opera Digest , “and then Kamar passing on Christmas Eve… He was the best man at my wedding, I was godfather to his son, Michael, and we saw each other for a lot of days for 30 years, and then in the end, I was seeing him almost every day.

“And it does put your life into perspective and you feel so grateful just to get another day because I know he would give anything to have another day,” he continued. “Another day with his family, another day in the sunshine, another day at work. And although I understand that I have mouths to feed, at the end of the day, it’s a job, right? And I’m still here and I get to wake up tomorrow.”

Easton has been on GH since 2012 when he brought his OLTL character of John McBain over to Port Charles when that soap was canceled. Legal issues forced the soap to cast the actor as a new character so they created Dr. Silas Clay . And when that character was killed off in 2015, Easton went on to play Dr. Hamilton Finn .

“So the lead up [to leaving the show] has been very introspective,” he admitted. “Thinking about my time there, I would think about Sonya Eddy (Epiphany)… I remember giving Tyler Christopher (ex-Nikolas) a hug on his last day on the show. And when I was Silas, I remember walking out the door to the parking lot my last day, and the last person I saw was Billy Miller [ex-Drew], and in true Billy fashion, he said something wonderful about, you know, ‘How dumb are these people [for letting you go],’ which was his way of saying ‘Hey man, I like you.’And I liked him, and Billy’s not here anymore.

“That perspective has given me a lot of strength in dealing with this,” Easton added. “And honestly, when I walked out [of the studio for the last time], I was just filled with gratitude and love for my castmates, love for the crew. I got to work on General Hospital for 10 years and I’m so grateful for that. I think if you let anything else enter your heart, it just becomes like poison to you, and that poison in your heart will halt you from creating beautiful things going forward.”

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