Just last week, viewers saw the demise of John “Jagger” Cates when in a major confrontation in the rain, Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard) shot the FBI agent twice in the chest ending the run of Adam J. Harrington. The actor was first seen on-screen in the role back in February of this year.

Leading up to his final days of taping, Harrington was given a juicy arc, where Cates became a man so obsessed with bringing down the mobster for his crimes and past transgressions on those he loved and cared about, that he could not think clearly, but was laser-focused on putting Sonny behind bars by any means necessary. Those “means” included getting a “confession” out of Ava (Maura West) about the night Kristina Corinthos-Davis (Kate Mansi) came to see her, fell through a window, and lost her baby, and threatening Kristina.

Now, Adam exclusively appeared on You Tube’s Michael Fairman Channel for a livestream conversation for the first time since being killed-off the legacy soap opera. Harrington opened up about his time as the recast “Jagger”, previously played by Antonio Sabato Jr. and more. During the streaming broadcast, Adam appeared clean-shaven and with shorter hair as he teased a new role he was prepping for, that for now, needs to remain hush-hush.

Courtesy/ABC

During the conversation, Harrington spoke on “Jagger’s” climatic scenes with Sonny, working with many of his GH co-stars, how he met and worked with the late Billy Miller (ex-Jason/Drew, GH) when they appeared together on Major Crimes, and how the GH co-head writer shake-up affected Agent Cates story on the canvas.

Courtesy/ABC

Last Day on Set

Harrington revealed what it was like to finish his job at GH, when Cates was shot by Sonny and left soaking in the rain, and then having to say his farewells to the cast and crew. “I finished on a Friday,” Adam shared. “The shooting was filmed on a Wednesday, and on Thursday, I was partly laying on the ground, soaking wet with rain going up my nose. On Friday, it was wonderful and sad, and bittersweet and everything. But, it was a really intense day because it was a last day before everyone goes on hiatus for a month. Everybody was working really hard. I had 70 pages of dialogue to do that day, and the cast and the crew, and the producers, were all amazing just to try to get me through it. Then, we all had a big, and really sweet hug fest at the end. I jokingly said, ‘It was my time at soap opera school,’ because it was kind of a semester.”

Photo: ABC

Stone and Michael Sutton

One of Adam’s biggest regrets was not getting the opportunity to work somehow with Jagger’s brother, the late Stone Cates played by the incredible Michael Sutton. “I’m just making observations on my own. I’m not a writer, not paid to be a writer. I’m not executive producer. I wouldn’t want those jobs. They’re just high stress and a whole other skillset,” Harrington began. “But, I personally would’ve loved to have gotten the chance to work with Michael. I do understand though, that visually it might become difficult for an audience to keep investing in a new ‘Jagger’ when you are seeing Michael and I, unless it’s (under) really dim lighting. He added, “I think it would have been cool if ‘Jagger’ visited Stone’s gravesite. I often wondered that for myself and my own back stories, has ‘Jagger’ gone to the grave or not?”

Photo: ABC

Writing Regime Changes

As viewers watched Cates’ storyline, it evolved from what seemed to be a more upstanding FBI to thinking he is doing his job, to a revenge-filled, single-focused man, who is driven by his desire to make Sonny pay for his crimes. Harrington clarified, “We have to remember that there was three executive head writer changes. I think in the six months I was there, I only shot four and a half months because of the breaks (the show) would take. I think the first writers were gone within a month. And then, the second writers, I don’t know how long they lasted. And then the third came in. So, every time a new writing team comes in, they’re going to want to put their own stamp on it to show their bosses why they got hired. So, I knew after the first writer change, everything might be up in the air as far as why I’m there, because ‘Jagger’ was so newly re-introduced. I didn’t know ahead of time that there were changes in his motivation, but I understood why they were once I clued into them and why they were happening, just because it was coinciding with the writers changing.”

Photo: ABC

Finding Out He Was Going To Be Killed-Off

I had a friend point out to me, who said, ‘Listen, just so you know, two things are going to happen. Either, half the town goes to prison, or you’re going bye-bye,'” shared Harrington. “So you bring in an FBI agent, two things are going to happen. People are going to go to jail, and/or he disappears, right? They had let me know in May, I think, that I was going to be done. So that final chunk of story, I knew it was going to wrap up. It was just a matter of how. That final arc was just backtracking from the confrontation with Sonny and how to plot that. ‘How do we get the audience to buy into the conceit that an FBI agent would show up without a gun?’ And the other one for me personally, was, ‘What happens to my son Stone?”

Courtesy/ABC

GH Co-Stars

Adam shared his thoughts on working with several of his key scene partners, chief among them Maura West as Ava Jerome, whom he felt that if he had stayed on the show that Ava and Cates would have potentially had a budding on-screen relationship that continued.

On Maura West: “I just absolutely loved, absolutely loved working with her. I think my favorite moments with her were the most tender I think of his interactions with the other characters.  I always saw Jagger, and it got supported in the script, as incredibly lonely. I thought Ava could try to kill him and Jagger would still forgive her and understand.”

On Maurice Benard: “Maurice and I had very few conversations and when we did, they were really lovely. We would talk when we got to set … we’d figure things out. It just kind of clicked right away. I trusted it, he trusted it. The intense hatred they had to play in the world of Port Charles, which culminated in Sonny unloading his gun on Jagger, ended when the cameras stropped rolling. There was a big hug after we shot the final (scene). I have an enormous amount of respect for him and he is such a delight to work with.”

On Steve Burton (Jason) “I love the back and forth between the characters, but working with Steve, he’s just such a pro and has such amazing energy. I always looked forward to the scenes we had together. I think my first real chunk of scenes was with him and it almost felt like a ‘Bourne Identity’-style interview sequence. That was a ton of fun to play.”

On Finola Hughes (Anna): “Everything Jagger was saying was right, and she wouldn’t budge. I was trying everything including pleading with her, then being argumentative, and she never budged. That’s why Finola was so much fun to work with. She is just a wonderful person. We had a lot of endless conversations about stuff. But man, did she make me angry in those scenes…”

Photo: JPI

Working with Billy Miller

Adam had the opportunity to work with the late, great three-time Daytime Emmy winner, Billy Miller, when they both appeared on the series Major Crimes. Harrington offered up the highest praise to the beloved star. “There are people that come along in your life and they just make an impact right away. Billy was one of those people,” expressed Harrington. “I remember there was a lot of laughing between takes and then watching his work, I was like, ‘Wow, this guy’s good. This guy is really good.’ And then we would see each other around town every once in awhile and have a conversation. But I’d always thought, ‘Man, I’d love to go toe to toe with him again in some work.’”

John Cates/Jack Brennan

While Adam was playing John Cates, at one point Brennan (Charles Mesure) was known as John Brennan before having his first name changed to Jack, causing some confusion on the show. Adam shares what went down behind the scenes on the name change. “I had met Charles, we got along really well, and then I decided to stick it to him and steal his name!” laughed Adam. “I had auditioned (for GH) and then there was a lot of conversations and them wanting to find me something (on the show). So, the mix-up could have just simply been they had John Brennan or Jack Brennan, and then they realized they were going to bring ‘Jagger’ back, because they were trying to find something for me and that’s where I stole his name!”

You can watch the full conversation with Adam below.

Now let us know, will you miss Adam as John “Jagger” Cates? Do you hope GH might bring him back down the line as a new character with a new look? What did you think of the way the series killed-off the character? Would you have been intrigued to see an Ava/Cates pairing? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.