‘General Hospital’ First Look at Kelly Kruger as Serena: Why She Almost Turned Down the Role

Kelly Kruger will make her General Hospital debut as Serena Baldwin on Thursday, July 30, a role she never saw coming.

Kruger, who previously played MacKenzie Browning on The Young and the Restless (2002 to 2003; 2018-2019) and Eva on The Bold and the Beautiful, had submitted an audition tape to GH years earlier. By the time the offer arrived, however, she had stepped away from actively pursuing acting, having turned her attention to her thriving career as a beauty influencer on social media.

“I wasn’t really auditioning,” Kruger tells TV Insider. “I was passing on a lot of offers. I didn’t want to do guest stars; I didn’t want to do pilots. I was done. One day, I just felt like I was questioning every life decision, and my phone rings with my agent basically saying, ‘Hey, General Hospital wants to offer you a role based off a tape you did three years ago.’ I have chills talking about it because in that moment, I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m done with acting the way I thought I was. This feels right to me. I want to do this. Daytime has a very special place in my heart.’ ”

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The opportunity represented more than a return to soaps.

“I’ve always wanted to work on General Hospital,” Kruger shares. “I used to be really good friends with Kelly Monaco [Sam McCall] when I first moved to L.A. She was on Port Charles [as Livvie Locke], and she was like a big sister to me. I was driving her to work and sleeping on her couch — I didn’t have a place to live — so she was a really big presence in my early years here. I remember I used to help her run lines for Port Charles before I was on Young and the Restless, so I knew the soap world and how it worked because of my time with Kelly. This was the first set I’d ever been on, so this is such a full-circle moment for me. The stars aligned, they were inspired to bring back the character, and everything just happened really, really perfectly.”

Once production began, Kruger knew she’d landed in the right place. “It’s legitimately the best work environment and experience I’ve ever had,” she declares. “I’m not knocking the other soaps, but I cannot even express how amazing everybody is, and how much I love being on this show and how much I love Frank [Valentini, executive producer]. I’ve always wanted to work with him. He comes down on the floor, and the support is unbelievable.”

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Even so, stepping onto an established show came with its own learning curve. “I was definitely nervous being the new girl,” Kruger admits. “And the way they work over there is completely different than the other soaps that I come from, so that took a minute getting used to the lay of the land. One thing I have to say about the cast of GH is every single person has come up to me to introduce themselves and welcome me to the show. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a group of people collectively who are all this welcoming.”

One person in particular who helped ease the transition is her TV mom, Lynn Herring (Lucy Coe). “Lynn and I met, and it was the most instant connection; I felt like we knew each other for 1,000 years,” Kruger relays. “She instantly took me under her wing, and we had such chemistry off the bat. I was like, ‘This is my mom. I’m so grateful.’ Jumping back into the soap after being off for a while, you’re trying to find your rhythm, so just to have someone like that was such a gift.”

Working with Rory Gibson (Michael Corinthos) only strengthened that sense of belonging. “The second person I worked with was Rory, and I could not be luckier to be thrown into the mix with these people,” Kruger raves. “Rory and I had never actually met, but he was on Y&R [as Noah Newman], I was on Y&R, and we know a lot of the same people, so it was like seeing old friends. Once I was there, I felt like, ‘This feels like home to me.’”

Disney/Christopher Willard

She also reunited with someone she’d met decades earlier. “Kelly Thiebaud [Britt Westbourne] and I have known each other since we were 18 years old,” Kruger reveals. “We used to model together, and we have been in and out of each other’s lives for years, and so just to reconnect here was insane.

The character has proven just as rewarding as the environment, Kruger reports. “This is my favorite character I’ve ever played,” she declares. “I’m still figuring her out, but I’m excited to see where the writers take her. She’s a good person who might have made some questionable decisions. At the end of the day, she wants to do good, she wants to be good, but she loves her family, and the way she was nurtured is that maybe you do things that you have to do to get by and see where it goes.”

Kruger is enjoying uncovering new aspects of Serena with each script. “There wasn’t a ton of time from the time that I found out who I was playing to actually working, so I’m continuing to get information as I go,” she explains. “Serena’s been off the map for a long time, so there’s a lot of unknowns of what she’s really been doing or where she’s really been, so that’s cool that we can kind of develop that as we go along.”

Disney/Christopher Willard

Looking ahead, Kruger says she’d welcome the chance to share scenes with Serena’s father, Scott Baldwin (Kin Shriner). “I would love to work with him,” Kruger enthuses. “I would love to explore that father-daughter dynamic. I don’t have a relationship with my dad in real life, so anytime I get to play that dynamic, especially if it’s a fun story to play, I would absolutely love the opportunity.”

Now, with Serena finally making her return to Port Charles, Kruger is eager to put her stamp on the legacy role while honoring the character’s history.

“I’m excited, and I’m nervous because I’m my biggest critic,” she shares. “I’m hopeful that the audience will welcome me. From the initial response to the announcement of the casting, everybody’s been really excited to have the character back, and I just pray that I do it justice and that I’m what they were hoping for.”

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