‘General Hospital’s Eden McCoy Talks Working With John Oliver & Josslyn’s Shocking Turn

John Oliver‘s visit to Port Charles as Z gave General Hospital‘s Eden McCoy another memorable chapter to add to an already eventful year.

The actress recalls learning she’d be sharing scenes with the Last Week Tonight host.

“I was so excited,” McCoy says. “Our executive producer, Frank [Valentini], called me, and Laura Wright [Carly Spencer] was also on the phone. Getting a call from Frank scared the bejeezus out of me, but then it was the coolest news ever and so unexpected. Frank gave us the CliffsNotes version of what we were going to end up doing, and after that, I was just kind of counting down the days until I would get to meet John and do all of it.”

Once the cameras rolled, McCoy says Oliver immediately impressed her. “It was so much fun, and John was such a professional and such a trouper and so good,” she enthuses. “Obviously, he’s very much a performer, and has a ton of experience, so it’s not that I was surprised at how awesome he was, but it was definitely exciting to be around, and I thoroughly enjoyed our moments together.”

She says she was especially struck by how quickly he adapted to the fast-paced world of daytime television. “We really didn’t rehearse very much, which made it all the more impressive how smoothly and prepared he was,” McCoy praises. “I really don’t even think we needed much rehearsal space; we found it in the moment, and I feel like it was really raw and they were authentic conversations because it wasn’t so rehearsed. Definitely in the back of my head while performing, I was like, ‘Wow, he’s really good. I love this.’ He made it easy for me.”

Josslyn being shot and left bleeding out on the pavement marked a memorable first for McCoy as an actress. “Oh, my God, it was, it was a lot,” she reports. “Priscilla [Castro-Preciado], my makeup artist that I work with every day, her favorite thing is special effects, and her work really shines when she gets the opportunity to play with anything like that. She had these little goopy resin stickers premade because we were moving so quickly, and she stuck them on my stomach, and there was a lot of fake blood involved that got everywhere. We were shooting outside and on location, and I was lying down on hot pavement all day. It was totally a checklist moment. Obviously, I have never been shot before, so any time there’s a scene or a story like that where you get to be the victim, it’s really exciting and fun.”

That sense of excitement carried over into Josslyn’s latest chapter, in which she joined the WSB spy organization. McCoy welcomed the dramatic shift for her character.

“I was very surprised; it was just such a pivot,” she explains. “I’ve felt like I’ve done a lot on the show, but this felt so different than anything before, which is always really exciting. With this new story comes working with new people, and it’s fun having been on the show for a really long time and diving into a story where you get to expand who you’re on screen with. That’s always a big enjoyment for me, so I was stoked, but definitely a little confused as to how we were gonna get there. And then, it was just a really fun transition. I felt like I was going along for the ride, and I’m sure the audience felt very similar, honestly.”

The most recent story paired McCoy with actors she hadn’t shared many scenes with before, including Ryan Paevey (Cassius Faison) and Kathleen Gati (Liesel Obrecht).  “I hadn’t worked with Ryan for years and years, so it was pretty much a re-meeting of sorts,” McCoy explains. “It was great to get to know each other again and explore this new friendship/weird Stockholm Syndrome partnership, this really strange but juicy dynamic. Every day was a little different depending on the writing, and it was very complex. We just had a lot of fun discovering each other throughout the story.”

McCoy has equally high praise for Gati. “Kathleen is such a gem,” she adds. “I’ve watched her work from afar and known her off-screen forever, but to really watch her process and her commitment … she’s just so dedicated. We work very differently, but together it just clicked, at least I feel that way as the performer. Kathleen just brought it, and the comedic relief of having Kathleen and me stuck in [captivity] together was really fun and a total highlight for me.”

Carly discovered Josslyn and Liesl trapped in the secret room, and now that she knows the extent of her daughter’s WSB involvement, she won’t stay passive. “Their relationship will change forever,” McCoy predicts. “I think it’s a big wake-up call for Carly in a lot of ways. They’re both very stubborn and neither one of these women let things go very easily; it’s against their nature. Both of them are extraordinarily protective, and I think that they see the other one’s perspective. That doesn’t mean that they agree with it, but I think it’s not lost on Josslyn the position that she’s put her mother in. She doesn’t regret it necessarily, but I think it is painful for Josslyn all the same. But it’s her life and her career, and she’s going to prioritize that over what Carly may think of it and just hope for the best.”

McCoy is enjoying working with Wright in a different way. “It really is cool to have a new exploration of their mother-daughter relationship,” she shares. “It has always been very solid. They’ve had their arguments, especially over Sonny [Corithos, Maurice Benard] and things like that in the past, but that’s about another person. This is more about them, so that’s exciting.”

Looking ahead, McCoy believes Josslyn is more determined than ever to stay committed to her new career path. “Knowing Josslyn, this whole experience will make her even more impassioned and driven to continue down this line of work,” she observes. “This was her first real experience of what it’s like to really do this job, and I think at the end of the day, even though it was hurtful in a lot of ways, it’s more inspiring to her. It feeds into that need she has to serve and be in the line of fire and feel a part of something much bigger.”

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