General Hospital's Carolyn Hennesy explains how fans are key to the show's success

General Hospital released on the show’s official YouTube page a video in which star Carolyn Hennesy, who plays powerhouse attorney Diane “Killer” Miller, gave her opinion about why the show has lasted so long. Judging from the background, the clip was recorded backstage at the ABC studio during the show’s 60th anniversary celebration in January 2024. Her co-stars Maura West (Ava Jerome) and Laura Wright (Carly Spencer) can be seen in the background, dressed in their formal attire for the event.

Hennesy stated,

We have the smartest, the brightest…the streetsmart, the most booksmart, the loyalest, the funniest, the best educated fans of anything anywhere. So, it’s the fans that keep this show going.

She referred to the actors as being “quintessential,” and the most outstanding and skilled in the soap opera world. She continued by praising the writing,

You’ve got great stories. You have wacky stories. You’ve got stories where people…tune in and they go, ‘I’m sorry, what? The brain is in a mayonnaise jar? Or the organs have been harvested and they’re still back on the show?’

While those storylines never occurred on the series, Hennesy was illustrating the point that soap operas can tell wildly outlandish tales—sometimes involving science fiction—and the fans will accept it and continue to watch, no matter what. She continued,

The fans go with it and then they make it work. And the writers make it work, and the actors make it work. So, it’s this wonderful symbiotic relationship. That’s exactly what it is.”

Diane has had more serious storylines

Carolyn Hennesy’s character, Diane, hasn’t been involved in too many crazy storylines and has been in more serious scenarios that usually involve helping clients like mob boss Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) and his enforcer, Jason Morgan (Steve Burton), getting out of legal jams.

However, Diane has been adjacent to some wild stories including Jason returning from the dead twice: he was presumed dead in 2012 after being shot and dumped in the Port Charles River, but turned up alive in 2017. In 2021, he was presumed dead again after a cave collapsed on him in Greece. However, he escaped and turned up alive in 2024.

Probably the wackiest story Diane had as a lawyer was when serial killer Franco Baldwin (Roger Howarth) learned that he had a brain tumor that was causing his murderous ways. Diane used that as his defense in court, successfully preventing him from going to prison for killing and torturing people. She held up a mayonnaise jar with the tumor in it in court to prove her case, and that’s what she was referring to in the video.

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Diane was also a victim of the Hook serial killer in September 2022 on General Hospital. The murderer wore a black hoodie and used a rather large hook laced with serpent venom to kill their victims. Fortunately, the authorities had figured out what the poison was, and Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) was able to acquire the antivenom needed to save her life.

While seemingly outlandish, that particular story is not beyond the realm of possibility, and fans were glad that Diane survived the ordeal. As Hennesy stated, the fans are accepting of many wild story concepts, and it’s only a matter of time before Diane gets embroiled in a truly wacky tale.

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