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It’s been quite some time since Tia Carrere played Jade Soong on General Hospital. The actress, who would go on to appear in such classic movies as Wayne’s World (1992) and True Lies (1994), also played Nani in the animated Disney film Lilo & Stitch in 2002. She recently returned to her Disney roots, playing Mrs. Kekoa, a social worker in the new live-action version of the animated feature. In discussing this new film, Carerre also opened up about her time on GH.
The show was a trip
On General Hospital, Carrere’s character Jade was involved in the Asian Quarter storyline back in the mid-1980s, in which a young Robin Scorpio (Kimberly McCullough) was kidnapped because of precious gems that were secretly hidden in her doll. Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) and Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) were frantically trying to find their daughter before something bad happened to her, while also thwarting the nefarious machinations of mobster Mr. Wu (Aki Aleong).
Carrere explained to Digital Journal, “That show was a trip,” and added, “I love Finola Hughes; she is so nice.” But, as many actors find out, acting on a three-camera soap opera was nothing like filming a movie or a primetime TV show. She considered her time on General Hospital a “baptism by fire,” because, unlike other productions, “You had to memorize all of these pages of dialogue a night (30 to 40 pages), and you are doing them in one day and in one take.”
It was great preparation
She contrasted it to other television show productions that take from a week to 10 days to shoot one episode. She further added, “In a movie, you would shoot that over months. People don’t realize how hard soaps are. It was a great way to learn how to memorize dialogue.” After exiting the soap, Carrere would go on to hit it big with some of the excellent films and TV shows she’s appeared in.
However, in 2020, she revealed to Vice that she had a tumultuous time after leaving General Hospital. Her then-boyfriend was also her manager, and he swindled her out of all of the money she made working on the soap. She stated, “He ended up taking all my money and leaving me homeless. I had nothing after making $150,000 a year. I had $300.” But reflecting on that part of her life with a sense of humor, she remarked, “Note to self: Your boyfriend shouldn’t be your manager and you shouldn’t have a joint account. Bad idea.”
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With Jade’s sister, Ms. Wu (Lydia Look), on General Hospital these days, picking up the mafia mantle where her father left off, it’s possible Carrere could one day bring her character back to the show. It would be especially entertaining since Jade is Brad Cooper’s (Parry Shen) aunt, and a family reunion would be fun to watch.
You can watch new episodes of General Hospital on ABC and Hulu.
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