General Hospital's Emma Samms Teases Her Return, Talks Suffering From Long COVID

Ahead of her return to Port Charles, General Hospital star Emma Samms is opening up about the sudser and her experience with long COVID.

The actress is returning to our screens as Holly Sutton this week. It will be her first time on the soap opera since 2023. However, Emma‘s played Holly since the ’80s, making her a very familiar face to fans.

In an interview, she teased some minimal details about the role that she would be playing and one character that she will be filming with for the very first time.

Keep reading to find out more…

Speaking to Variety, Emma teased that we’d be getting a mix of good and bad behavior from Holly when she returns.

“It’s the perfect part in that regard,” she said. “It’s so fun, and really interesting. It’s that depth, all those different colors that Holly has to her character.”

While we don’t know many details, it has been confirmed that Emma filmed with Jonathan Jackson‘s Lucky Spencer. It’ll be their first time together on camera. However, she said that they found an easy chemistry.

“It’s such a gift that Frank [Valentini, executive producer] has given me, working with Jonathan, who is, obviously, a very, very good actor,” she gushed. “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].”

Emma also teased that her character was collaborating with “a brilliant, strong, powerful, interesting villain.” Her return will introduce “some interesting twists,” too.

The actress also reflected on her experience with long COVID.

“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 explained. “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.”

She continued, saying, “I got some really good scans done and they found that at some point I had had myocarditis, which has scarred my heart.”

Thankfully, General Hospital was able to work with her to make her experience filming easier.

“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 said.

“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,” Emma added.

Check out all of the recent General Hospital casting announcements.