Jonathan Jackson received a nice parting gift from General Hospital on Friday night, following his exit as Lucky Spencer from the ABC soap opera last June. He won his sixth Daytime Emmy, which was the actor’s third in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Lucky’s stories seemed to start and stop during the actor’s several-month tenure on the show. However, he says one of his main goals was fulfilled during this recent return. “One of the biggest motivations I had [in terms of coming back] was to work with Genie again,” Jackson told TV Insider following his Daytime Emmy win about getting to share the screen again with Daytime Emmy winner Genie Francis, who plays Laura, Lucky’s mother.
“The last time I was here over a decade ago, Genie wasn’t on the show,” Jackson pointed out. “I always felt like something was missing. I really wanted to get a chance to work with her at this stage in my life.”
Disney/Christine Bartoluccii
While Jackson’s stories never quite took off during this last stay, the respected actor still had plenty of material when it came time to select episodes for his reel. “[I submitted] the scenes in the prison where Elizabeth [Rebecca Herbst] returns as an apparition and Lucky was dying,” Jackson shares, “And also, the scenes with Genie in the church when Lucky was telling Laura that he wasn’t a [donor] match for Lulu [Alexa Havins]. There was also the reconciliation with [his son] Aiden [Colin Cassidy], and the scene in Bobbie’s [diner] when he was tearing the place apart.”
Lucky got quite a tongue-lashing from Cyrus (Daytime Emmy winner Jeff Kober) for being absent in the lives of his and Elizabeth’s sons over the years. The show addressed this a bit by having Aiden and Lucky leave town together so they could do some overdue bonding.
“I was very grateful that they had a sense of conscience and reconciliation as a motivation in Lucky’s heart,” Jackson says. “That meant a lot.”
The six-time Daytime Emmy-winner has quite a bit on his plate right now. He’s got a new album coming out on January 6. He is performing in Nashville: The Encore Tour in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Switzerland next year, and there will be more touring after that. Jackson is also shooting a film in March.
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But the door isn’t closed on a visit to Port Charles someday. In fact, Jackson says there’s a short-term GH story for which he would happily return: a memorial for Denise Alexander‘s Dr. Lesley Webber, Lucky’s TV grandmother and Laura’s mother, after the actress passed away earlier this year.
Should GH write this into the show and invite Jackson back as Lucky to honor his grandma? He says, “Oh, yeah. I’d be honored.”
General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC