“Before everything, it’s an absolute pleasure to be again in daytime,” says Daniel Goddard, who has been forged as Henry Dalton, a brand new character on Basic Hospital, and can make his Port Charles debut on April 15.
For the actor, who portrayed The Younger and the Stressed‘ Cane Ashby from 2007 to 2019 (and his twin, Caleb, in 2011), performing wasn’t essentially on his radar on the time GH got here his method. “I used to be probably not interested by going again to performing,” he reveals. “I had type of come to phrases with that life.”
However in December 2024, he acquired a name from his former supervisor, Michael Bruno, who needed to submit him for a task on the ABC cleaning soap. “The humorous is, about 4 or 5 days earlier than he texted me, out of the blue, I had this actually sturdy, cosmic type of second the place one thing about Basic Hospital was actually outstanding in my thoughts,” Goddard shares. “It was actually weird. It occurred a few month earlier than I met my spouse in 1998. I mentioned to myself, ‘I’m prepared to satisfy the one I meant to be with,’ and I opened myself as much as the acceptance of, ‘I need this in my life.’”
The function was the recast of Jack Brennan, beforehand performed by Charles Mesure, and getting again within the recreation put Goddard in an emotional spot. “It’s the primary audition I’ve had in a few years, and it was a weird expertise for me,” he admits. “You are feeling like, in a method, you’re going again to floor zero, again to the start of all of it, regardless that you’ve been on a unique cleaning soap opera for, like, 15 years. It was humbling, however it was extra of an awakening, and in that second, I felt terribly susceptible.”
Particularly when he realized he wasn’t the one acquainted identify within the combine. “I used to be standing out within the hallway, and there have been 4 or 5 different guys there, one among them was Daniel Cosgrove [Ezra Boyle, GH], and I used to be like, ‘Oh, wow. There’s a bunch of individuals right here and there’s competitors,’ so immediately I turn into frightened of the truth that I didn’t need to fail,” he explains. “So, I type of felt this unbelievable strain, and I walked within the room, and I noticed Laura [Wright, Carly Spencer] and Frank [Valentini, executive producer], and the writers, and Mark [Teschner, casting director] and I used to be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that is actual. That is actually occurring.’”
Disney / Christine Bartolucci
The function in the end went to Chris McKenna, however GH wasn’t fairly completed with Goddard. “Just a few weeks later, Michael known as me and he mentioned, ‘Basic Hospital known as, they usually’ve obtained this character, they usually’re writing it, they usually need you to do it,’” Goddard reveals. “I used to be like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I used to be simply gobsmacked by it. It wasn’t a recast. It was a brand new character, and I used to be so blown away. I actually felt just like the timing was proper, and I felt prefer it was meant to be. I can’t start to precise my gratitude to Frank and everybody at Basic Hospital and to Michael Bruno for actually believing in me and being there.”
Goddard reported to work in mid-March because the enigmatic Professor Henry Dalton, who works at Port Charles College. “He teaches environmental physics, and it appears there are some issues in his previous that he’s completed which have left him able of some type of investigation,” teases Goddard. “And from there, it’s an absolute thriller to me.”
And that’s how the actor prefers it. “I mentioned to Frank, ‘Don’t inform me something concerning the character,’” Goddard shares. “I do know that the characters that I’ve had scenes with know one thing about him. I don’t need to know what it’s as a result of I don’t need to play it that I do know. I’d slightly have the character be form of a clear slate to me. At Younger and the Stressed, I all the time used to learn the entire script as a result of different characters will discuss you, and also you’ll get to know extra about you than you realize about your self. At Basic Hospital, you solely get your pages, and I assumed, ‘Woody Allen would do this, the place he doesn’t need everyone know what’s happening or what the twists and turns are.’ And I assumed, ‘That is going to be cool.’ So, I’m permitting myself to go on the journey of who Dalton is from the viewers’s perspective, and from my perspective of what’s the development and evolution of him. I’ll enable it to unfold because the bits and items current themselves to me.”
To this point, Eden McCoy (Josslyn Jacks) and Finola Hughes (Anna Devane) are a few of the actors who’ve shared scenes with the newcomer, and he has rave evaluations for each. “What a blessing to have somebody with Finola’s cachet, and her worth and her expertise and expertise,” he praises. “It was simply such a beautiful expertise. I used to be like, ‘You already know what I need? I need to have enjoyable. Let’s simply have some enjoyable.’ And she or he mentioned, ‘Oh, God, I might love that.’ So, we performed these scenes, they usually had been nice. I simply love the moments along with her. Identical factor with Eden — I believe she’s improbable. With Josslyn, it’s professor and scholar, and an important push and pull there.”
Disney / Christine Bartolucci
Goddard has already encountered some acquainted faces on the set and is trying ahead to reconnecting with Genie Francis (Laura Collins) and Tristan Rogers (Robert Scorpio), who performed Cane’s mother and father, Genevieve and Colin Atkinson, on Y&R. “I’ve been ready for my second to see Genie and provides her a giant good day and a giant hug,” he says. “I haven’t seen Tristan. I’m undecided the place Scorpio is in the mean time, however I’ve seen Steve Burton [Jason Morgan, who played Y&R’s Dylan McAvoy], and we had an important chat. I noticed Eva LaRue [Natalia Rogers-Ramirez, who played Y&R’s Celeste Rosales], and we had a little bit of chat. Daytime is a household and till you’ve been in it, you don’t actually perceive how tight it’s.”
That close-knit feeling among the many forged and attending to act usually are a few of the many causes he’s thrilled to be again within the style. “Right here I’m, feeling like I belong,” he displays. “I really feel like that is one thing that’s not simply meant to be; I really feel like this completes one thing in me that’s been lacking. While you act each day, like Younger and Stressed for all these years, there’s part of you that turns into this entity that expresses themselves this fashion. While you cease doing it, there’s all the time that a part of you that’s lacking, and then you definitely begin once more, and it’s type of such as you take all these belongings you realized up to now that has sat in your unconscious for all these years, and then you definitely reapply it. And it’s higher. You’ve had an opportunity to metabolize all of it, and whenever you name again upon it, you’ve gotten this totally different understanding of how that craft ought to be utilized.”
Goddard appears again on his Y&R expertise with fondness, however his relationship with the viewers he met by the job is very significant to him at present. “I perpetually shall be grateful to the followers of daytime usually,” he notes. “It goes again to in 2010 when Cane was killed off and followers banded collectively, rented an airplane, and flew it over CBS with a banner saying, ‘Carry Daniel Goddard again as Cane.’ And I by no means realized, up till that second, how the followers of daytime are really the best followers on the earth. They see you because the character since you’re of their lives on such an everyday foundation, after which because the years cross by, they get to know you as your actual identify. And then you definitely type these relationships by social media and going to fan occasions, and it’s only a phenomenal fan base that was fantastic.”
One which he hopes follows him to Port Charles, the place he’s having a good time as Professor Dalton. “It’s been a unprecedented, fantastic expertise up to now,” Goddard enthuses. “I simply obtained new scripts, and I’ve 4 episodes arising in a single week, which I’m so enthusiastic about. It makes me really feel needed, within the sense that all the pieces that I’ve gone by on this course of up till now’s meant to be. I couldn’t be extra grateful to be again in what I believe might be probably the most beloved style in all of leisure.”
Basic Hospital, Weekdays, ABC