Inside the Rise of Gio & Emma, ‘General Hospital’s New Emmy-Nominated Couple

General Hospital‘s Braedyn Bruner (Emma Scorpio-Drake) and Giovanni Mazza (Gio Palmieri) were in Las Vegas when they learned they had both been nominated for Daytime Emmys as Outstanding Emerging Talent in a Daytime Drama Series.

The duo was at an early morning soundcheck ahead of a violin performance Mazza was preparing for when their executive producer, Frank Valentini, called. “Our boss called at 7:45 in the morning, and we initially missed it,” says Mazza. “We called him back thinking there was some storyline thing he wanted to talk to us about. We had no expectation that it was going to be about the nominations.”