‘General Hospital’ Icon Emma Samms Talks Latest Return to the Show Amid Her Battle With Long COVID (EXCLUSIVE)

Whenever “General Hospital” fan-favorite Emma Samms reappears in the Port Charles macrocosm as Holly Sutton — as she is once again doing this week — loyal viewers are eager to learn one thing: Is she going to be a good girl or a bad girl this time around? Characterizing it herself, Samms tells Variety most assuredly, “Both.”

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“It’s the perfect part in that regard,” she says. “It’s so fun, and really interesting. It’s that depth, all those different colors that Holly has to her character.” In possibly a tiny hint of an answer to the question, Samms adds that she is working with “a brilliant, strong, powerful, interesting villain now” and there’s “going to be some interesting twists with Holly coming back to town.”

Representatives for the long-running ABC show — led by executive producer Frank Valentini — are remaining characteristically tight-lipped about Holly’s latest return, only throwing out the crumb that she will be working with Jonathan Jackson, who is back as Lucky Spencer after exiting in 2015. Despite their longevity on the show — Samms joined the ensemble in 1982, Jackson was cast in 1993, and they’ve both been on and off since — they have never worked together until now.

“It’s such a gift that Frank has given me, working with Jonathan, who is, obviously, a very, very good actor,” Samms says. “That’s undisputed — but he’s also really nice. And we have a very similar way of approaching the work, and we realized that that is because we were both trained by Tony Geary [Luke].”

While Samms stepped in as love interest for Luke after Laura went missing, Jackson first arrived on the scene as the 11-year-old son (and first-born child) of the iconic supercouple. That scenario of a woman other than Laura stealing Luke’s heart could have annoyed the fans to the point of a revolt. But instead, Holly (and Samms) were wholeheartedly embraced.

“I didn’t realize when I started that I was the third attempt to find somebody for a new romantic relationship for Luke,” she says. “They had tried really amazing people, like Janine Turner and Demi Moore. So I was sort of the last-ditch attempt in that regard. But I had no clue, which is probably extremely valuable and helped me a lot. I just came in sort of innocent, and ‘I’ll do the best I can’ sort of thing. And I just somehow got away with it. I was very fortunate.”

And it has been one exciting storyline after another for Holly, which is why Samms happily returns when requested. The fans seem to adore her, which she’s aware of and grateful for: “They’ve been incredibly kind to me. They are an extraordinarily vocal group. That are very caring, for not just the show, but the actors on it.”

Emma Samms Returns to 'General Hospital' as Holly (EXCLUSIVE)

Samms’ English accent was part of her charm that drew fans in. Yet Holly was not only written to be American; Samms had to sound American when she auditioned. “My first auditions were with an American accent, and then [former executive producer] Gloria [Monty] heard me speaking and went, ‘Oh, are you English?’ And I said, yes. And they completely changed the story, and the character. More than anything, it was hugely relieving,” she says with a laugh, “because when you are doing that volume of work and dialogue, if I had to do a different accent on top of all of that, it would’ve been very stressful or even more stressful, I should say.”

Samms has had a rough few years, as she has been hit pretty hard with long COVID, and was unable to leave her hometown of London for outside work.

“I’ve been like this now for four and a half years nearly, and it’s baffling to not just the people who have it, but it’s baffling to the doctors,” she says. “They are some very smart people who are investigating and studying it and doing research, but all they keep finding is more and more damage that COVID has done to people’s bodies.

“I got some really good scans done and they found that at some point I had had myocarditis, which has scarred my heart,” Samms continues. “The consequences of COVID — I think we still have only just scratched the surface, and it’s terrifying to me that people think we are no longer in a pandemic. Because they so desperately want it to not affect them, they sort of pretend that it is has gone, and it so hasn’t.”

The possibility of anti-masking laws being legislated has Samms very concerned. “The anti-science of it all is baffling because I am the living, walking proof that COVID has been a mass disabling event. If it wasn’t for the fact that people at ‘General Hospital’ are so understanding of it and accommodating, I would not be able to work like I do. When I’m back in the U.K., and anytime I’m not on the set, I have to lie down, I have to put my feet up. I have something called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, so if I stand too long, I keel over. So the only cure, or the only thing that makes you feel a bit better, is to lie down flat.”

She continues: “The powers that be at ‘General Hospital’ accommodate that, but not every production would. They write most of my scenes sitting down. They’ve put me in a dressing room that’s really close to the elevator. Just lots of little things like that that mean I can do the job.”

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