Disney/Bahareh Ritter

Daytime veteran Chris McKenna has taken over the role of WSB honcho Jack Brennan on General Hospital, a surprise move precipitated by actor Charles Mesure’s decision to exit the soap. The sudden recast was put into motion fast and furiously when McKenna received word that the soap’s executive producer, Frank Valentini, wanted him to do a chemistry test opposite GH star Laura Wright (Carly). McKenna had worked with the EP decades earlier, when he was playing Joey Buchanan on One Life to Live from 1990-93. During McKenna’s time on OLTL, Valentini was the show’s stage manager, then an associate producer.

Ready For Action

In an interview with  TV Insider, McKenna shared that he was quick to answer Valentini’s call to duty, and two days later, he arrived at the studio ready to audition. “Laura saw me in the hallway and ran over. We hugged and said hello and we caught up really quick and she wished me luck,” the actor recalled. The pair had first become acquainted during McKenna’s OLTL days, back when Wright was playing Ally Rescott on Loving.

Initially, McKenna had no clue about the identity of the role GH had in mind for him. “They wrote a scene for the audition that was in the spirit of Brennan, but they didn’t use the name,” explained McKenna. “So, it was a unique scene just to get the feel of the character and to see how the chemistry was between Laura and me, and it was great.”

Valentini, who had last been on a soap set with McKenna when the actor was a teenager, and after he and Wright finished their scene, McKenna divulged, “Frank said, ‘You were not this good when you were 12.’ And I said, ‘No s–t!’ ”

Once the role was his, McKenna received warm congratulations from his former OLTL mother, Erika Slezak (ex-Viki), who had heard the big news from Valentini. “I feel like we reconnected again because of that, so that was really cool,” McKenna said, describing Slezak as “my second mom.”

McKenna hasn’t appeared on a soap in nearly a decade — he played Dr. Hayden on Bold and Beautiful in 2016, a follow-up to his 2014-15 run on Young and Restless as killer cop Mark Harding — but wasn’t fazed by the task of jumping into the fast-moving production train at GH. In advance of shooting his first episode, which contained some 40 pages of dialogue, “Laura very sweetly wrote me a message and said, ‘Listen, don’t be daunted by the amount of pages,’ ” McKenna recounted. ” ‘I’ll work with you and Eden [McCoy, Josslyn] will work with you and we’ll read together and it’ll be great.’ ” The actor responded, he said, with a text that read, “Not daunted. Looking forward to it. Bring it on.”

Since starting his new gig, McKenna has enjoyed diving in to the psyche of his complex new alter ego. He noted, “I don’t usually play the guy in the suit; I’m in a tank top in the jungle, that kind of a CIA agent. So, this is a fun little twist on it, the more Bond-ian guy, if you will.”