Nathan Varni joined ABC eight and a half years ago in current programming. Two years ago, he began overseeing General Hospital for ABC, in addition to working with primetime series The Middle and Once Upon a Time. On Thursday, Varni was a guest on podcast Daytime After Dark, where he talked about his career and previewed what's ahead on GH, whose new head writers Shelly Altman and Jean Passanante started at work this week.Varni addressed the online discussion, good and bad, of GH in recent weeks.
"It proves that General Hospital fans are very passionate," Varni said. "My boss (Vicki Dummer) said the same thing recently in an interview. Regardless of whether they're people are hating or loving it, at least people are talking about the show, and that gives us a lot of exposure."
"We're trying to get back to the emotional storytelling for the show ," Varni added. "Just a lot more romance, and really kind of honing in on our core characters, and making it the show everybody has loved over the years. I feel like we got off course just a little bit over the last year or so, but we're really trying to bring the focus back to our core central characters. We do have a lot of characters but I think you can tell stories in a way that characters are coming and going, and the stories are relevant. I think you'll miss people as much as fans have missed people in recent months. Our goal is not to tell stories then drop stories. Our goal is to tell really detail emotional type stories with our main characters, and bring the families together. Shelly [Altman] and Jean [Passanante] have a lot of work to do."
Varni said there is a story in the works to bring the entire Corinthos family together.
"September is going to be a really great," he said. "We have a central Sonny and Carly story coming up. They're going to be picking out a [wedding] date pretty soon. It's about bringing that Corinthos family together."
Anthony Geary may be back as Luke Spencer at some point.
"I don't think it would happen anytime soon, but that character is very important to the history of General Hospital," Varni said. "The door would remain open for Tony to come back. Sometime down the road, in the next year or two, it would be feasible for him to come back."
There are no plans for Kristen Alderson to return as Kiki Jerome at this point.
"I have a lot of faith in the role of Kiki moving forward," Varni revealed. "I think Hayley [Erin] is doing a fantastic, admirable job as Kiki. I hope the character becomes more layered, and perhaps gets a job, and becomes more involved."
Varni chalked up Robb Derringer returning to Agent Kyle Sloane to Grayson McCouch's "scheduling issues" with no mention of the rumor that McCouch didn't want to return because the character was about to be killed off.
Could the Jake is Jason reveal finally be about to happen?
"I know we've angered a lot people over the past year because we've had a couple of very slow moving stories, one being with Luke and the next one with Jason," acknowledges Varni. "But if you can stick a little longer, all that reveal will be coming soon. We are addressing it, and the wait is getting close to being over. I'm really excited because I love Billy [Miller] as an actor and I think he is going to knock it out of the park when that reveal is finally made."
Varni also explained why we're seeing less of GH's child actors.
"The kids are wonderful and they're so talented, and Nicolas [Bechtel] who plays Spencer is one of the smartest, most articulate kids I've ever met. What was happening is we were giving too much weight to child actors on the show. this is an adult show and kids are mean to be ancillary characters and not center stage, so we took a little break from the kids. But Spencer is going to be back; he shot some scenes recently. I think it's all about using the kids sparingly so you don't get sick of them and appreciate the days they're on."
Listen to Varni's complete interview below:
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