Veteran actor Jon Lindstrom of “General Hospital” chatted about his 2023 Daytime Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.”
Walt Disney once said: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” Jon Lindstrom is living proof of this wise quotation by the cartoon legend.
Lindstrom is known for playing the roles of twin characters Dr. Kevin Collins and the nefarious Ryan Chamberlain on the hit ABC soap opera “General Hospital.”
Emmy nomination for playing twins on ‘General Hospital’
“It always feels good,” he said about his Emmy nod. “This is my fourth career Emmy nomination. It’s really my wife, Cady McClain, who reminds me that the real honor is in the nomination. I am always happy to get a nomination, I’ll tell you that.”
Lindstrom acknowledged that playing the characters Kevin Collins and Ryan Chamberlain on “General Hospital” have both helped define him in his acting career.
“Our show just celebrated its 60th anniversary, and I am nominated for an Emmy Award at the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Daytime Emmy Awards. I think that is pretty awesome,” Lindstrom said.
His three previous Daytime Emmy nominations were all for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series” for his acting work in such daytime shows as “General Hospital” in 2019 and 2020, as well as on “As The World Turns” back in 2010.
2023 Emmy reel
When asked what he submitted in his Emmy reel, he said, “It was pretty much all me and Avery Kristen Pohl, who plays Esme. I did the beginning couple of scenes where Kevin is warning Esme about Ryan because she was already starting to spend time with him.”
“Then, the last three or four scenes was Ryan and Esme, where you could just see the contrast between Kevin and Ryan, but you could also see the contrast between Esme with someone besides Ryan, and then Esme with Ryan. I thought Avery’s work this year was as good as anyone’s out there.”
Working with Avery Kristen Pohl
On working with Avery Kristen Pohl, he said, “Avery is one of the young professionals, she is just a pleasure to work with. Avery is always prepared, and she always gives everything she has. She is a lovely young lady, who I can call a friend.”
Maura West
Lindstrom also had great words about three-time Emmy winner Maura West. “Maura is one of those aces. It’s like playing in a rock band, you either learn to trust each other or you don’t,” he said. “The more trust there is, the better the band is. With Maura, you can just always trust her.”
Zoom fan event
Lindstrom opened up about doing a virtual fan event via Zoom on March 26 with Coastal Entertainment.
“Doing the Zoom fan event was great; it was well-organized, and they did a good job. I had never done one of those before,” he said.
“To do a solo Zoom event with the fans was a new experience for me. Everybody got the opportunity to ask me a question, that was important to me. I wanted everyone to go away happy,” he added.
Dialogue-heavy
When asked how he handles being dialogue-heavy on the ABC daytime drama “General Hospital,” he said, “Like anything else you need to go and learn your lines. You need to look at the scene, figure out what it’s about, what happens in it, bit by bit, and just commit it to memory.”
“Then, the rest of it is throwing it up to God, and hoping you can get through it,” he added.
The digital age
On being an actor and filmmaker in the digital age, Lindstrom said, “I’m sure it feels like it did for people in the 1930s when sound came in. This is my time, this is my age, and the time that I learned to do it in. It is what it is.”
“This is filmmaking and digital creation. Back then, they had to learn with silver nitrate film, which could catch fire and blow up at any time. For us, we could lose it all because we had a glitch in the system. For me, the digital age is the way it is, the time I came to learn it,” he said.
“Before digital came along, in order to make a good movie, you had to really learn filmmaking. You had to learn how to compose a nice shot, and you had to understand how to create a sequence,” he added.
Advice for aspiring actors
For young and aspiring actors, Lindstrom said, “Hang in there. It is true that there are more opportunities now than ever before thanks to streaming but the pay is a lot lower, it really is. All you can do is just keep going and keep making things and getting better and better. This is an inalienable truth in this business, you need to hang in there.”
“These days, it is all about versatility. I’ve accomplished the kind of image that I wanted. I never wanted to be stuck in one thing or another. I think that happens to most of us. I don’t think anyone says about Tom Hanks that he is not versatile,” he said.
If he were to have any superpower, it would be to diffuse conflict. “I would love to have the ability to broker peace between any arguing parties,” he said. “That would be a superpower worth having for me.”
Patricia Bethune
Lindstrom recalled working with Emmy winner Patricia Bethune, who played the role of Nurse Mary Pat on “General Hospital.” “Patricia was just plain funny. She is a wonderful actress, and she won an Emmy for that role,” he said.
“Patricia delivered one of my favorite Emmy acceptance speeches, partly because it was aimed at me when she said ‘Jon Lindstrom, thank you for such a wonderful last day, with the exception of you cutting off my head.’ Patricia was just great, she was simply terrific,” he admitted.
On the title of the current chapter of his life, Lindstrom responded, “Since Ryan has finally passed on, I find a bit of freedom in having more time to choose work outside of ‘General Hospital,’ but my other character, Kevin, has a sense of freedom at last.”
Lindstrom revealed that he has his first novel in the works, which will be published early next year, in February of 2024, and that will kick off a new chapter in his life.
Success
Regarding his definition of the word success, he remarked “Creative Freedom.”
Thanks the fans
For his fans and supporters, Lindstrom said, “A big, fat, wet ‘thank you’. Every year, people come up to me and tell me that they started watching me with their grandparents, when they were young. I hear that over and over again. That is probably why, more than any other reason, the shows that are left are still on the air, those audiences are multigenerational.”
To learn more about four-time Emmy nominee Jon Lindstrom, check out his official website, and follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
