General Hospital’s Emma Samms Says Demi Moore, Janine Turner Were Considered for Luke’s Love Interests: ‘I Had No Clue’

With her character Holly Sutton set to return on General Hospital, Emma Samms is reflecting on her decades-long on-again, off-again run on the popular soap opera.

The actress, 64, who returns to General Hospital in early September, discussed her highly-awaited reappearance in a new interview with Variety.

Promising “interesting twists” with her character’s return, Samms characterizes Holly as “both” a good girl and bad girl this season. “It’s so fun, and really interesting,” she told the outlet. “It’s that depth, all those different colors that Holly has to her character.”

After joining the cast of General Hospital in 1982, Samms went on to star in prime-time soaps Dynasty and The Colbys. She has since reappeared on General Hospital for multi-episode arcs in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2020, 2022 and 2023.

Her appearance will coincide with the return of five-time Daytime Emmy winner Jonathan Jackson, who will step back into the role of Lucky Spencer. However, details are scarce on what the duo will bring back into the fold this time.

Although the soap star has never directly shared the screen with Jackson, who first appeared on the series in 1993, Samms says working on the same program as the five-time Daytime Emmy Award winner has been a veritable “gift” from executive producer Frank Valentini.
“It’s such a gift that Frank has given me, working with Jonathan, who is, obviously, a very, very good actor,” she added. “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.”

Geary played Holly’s love interest, Luke, after Laura (played by Genie Francis) went missing.

“I didn’t realize when I started that I was the third attempt to find somebody for a new romantic relationship for Luke,” she told the outlet. “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,” Samms continued. “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.”

Samms and Jackson’s return to General Hospital follows several cast changes in recent months. Adam J. Harrington exited the show on Friday, Aug. 30, while Michael Easton departed in June. Along with Samms and Jackson’s reappearances, Bryan Craig also reprised the role of Morgan Corinthos in an August episode.

For Samms, her short stints on General Hospital in more recent years are partly due to her struggles with long COVID. Since contracting COVID in March 2020, the actress has struggled daily with fatigue, breathlessness, blood pressure changes and tinnitus (chronic ear ringing).

“It’s an ongoing mass disabling event, and it’s been frightening to witness,” Samms told PEOPLE in October 2022. “For me, it’s been a battle of the wills to accomplish anything.”

Despite the challenges she faced due to lingering symptoms, Samms said at the time that she felt “blessed.”

“I love where I live, I have a fantastic husband, my kids are grown and lovely,” she added. “Even with long COVID, life is very good.”