ABC/Todd Wawrychuk
Roger Howarth Talks New General Hospital Character Austin: "It's Exciting to Me"
He played Franco on General Hospital until very recently, but fans of daytime superstar Roger Howarth are thrilled to see him back on the ABC soap. However, the ABC soap vet is playing a new character: an enigmatic doctor named Austin. Howarth spoke to Soap Opera Digest about diving into a new character on a familiar show and teased what's to come for the MD.
The Daytime Emmy winner is still hashing out all of Austin's quirks. He explained:
Even five or six weeks in [to taping episodes as Austin], there are still things that I don’t know and still things that I’m trying to figure out. But what I do know for certain is that I like him. I hope the audience enjoys him, because there is some great story coming and it’s exciting to me.
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He added:
In terms of figuring it out, what’s been really kind of fun is that as soon as I think I have it figured out, I’m reminded that I just don’t. So there’s been some trial and error. I’m learning to juggle and sometimes I drop the ball. But I have a lot of support; [Co-Head Writers] Chris [Van Etten] and Dan [O’Connor] have a lot of great ideas and Frank [Valentini, executive producer] has chimed in with what he needs, and so for me, at the risk of overusing ‘juggling exercises’, I am trying to juggle a lot of different inputs and trying to stay on track and do what’s expected. And it’s been fun. It requires some concentration from me and different parts of my brain that I wasn’t using.
Although his character is getting to start fresh with Port Charles residents, Howarth is working with some old friends. He dished:
In the life of the character I play, they’re all new faces, but it’s a big ask, I think, for Becky [Herbst, Elizabeth] and Michael [Easton, Finn] to have Elizabeth and Finn say, ‘Yeah, I don’t know who this person is.’ But that’s what the ask is.
