Courtesy/ABC

Five-time Daytime Emmy winner Jonathan Jackson will finally debut this Wednesday, October 10th (10PMEST/PST) in ABC’s highly touted new dramatic musical series, Nashville! 

After needing a break from playing the day in and day out emotional ringers of General Hospital’s Lucky Spencer, Jonathan decided to leave GH at the end of last year, and quickly was cast in the new ABC primetime series as aspiring singer/songwriter, Avery Barkley! Now anyone who has followed Jackson’s career knows that not only does he act, but he is indeed a singer/songwriter, and has his own very popular band, Enation.  So with Jonathan being cast in this most buzzed about of new series, television fans nationwide will get to see the many talents of this young star.

On-Air On-Soaps caught up with Jonathan to get his thoughts on: his new character, getting the opportunity to sing in the primetime series, if he will share screen time with another soap alum, co-star Hayden Panettiere, and taking a brief stroll down memory lane to the red carpet at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmys this past June. 

Soap fans are looking forward to seeing you and Hayden Panettiere (Juliette Barnes) together on-screen in Nashville.   In the pilot episode, you two literally bump into each other!  Will the two of you have more scenes together as the first season of Nashville progresses?

Courtesy/ABC

JONATHAN:   I think that is somewhat inevitable, and our characters do bump into each other in the pilot.  We had shot the pilot a while ago, obviously, and then started filming all-new episodes on August 3rd.  But in terms of the long term projectory, I don’t know where the two are headed.  It’s pretty mysterious right now.

You have said in interviews that your character of Avery Barkley is not a good guy, nor a bad guy.  Any change in that philosophy?

JONATHAN: One of the things that Nashville creator Callie Khouri is good at is character development, and having the characters have complexities and contradictions.  I think there are going to be a lot of surprises thrown at us as actors through the season … who are these characters and what is going to come out of them in certain situations and with certain other characters.  So I am just really excited to be a part of that.  I am interested to see if he is a gray character, and not black nor white, or not!

So I hear you and the cast are performing some Elvis Costello tunes in Nashville?

JONATHAN:  Yes. They are all originals.  These are all songs Elvis Costello wrote, but they had never been recorded before, and T-Bone Burnett is producing the music.  It’s pretty crazy!

Courtesy/Enation

Would you try to get a song from your band, Enation on Nashville, or the soundtrack for the series?

JONATHAN:  Well, only God knows, right?  But they are open to hearing some stuff.  I am trying to schedule a day in a studio in Nashville to record some demos, because some of the songs that I think would fit with the show I haven’t demo’d … ever.  I have a lot of songs that I have written that I had not recorded with the band that I could send to them.  Hopefully, I will get a couple of days to record some of them and see if something can fit for Nashville!

It has been so cool to watch your career.  You started out as a very young boy with this knockout performance on General Hospital as Lucky Spencer, left the show to do feature films, your music, your writing, came back to GH to reprise the role of Lucky and won two more Daytime Emmys for it to add to your collection.  Nashville seems, on paper, like the perfect storm for you … acting and music colliding in a big way, where both your passions come together in a role on a major network television series!

JONATHAN:  It’s amazing to do this type of show, and for me it’s incredible!  I have had conversations with my brother, and even my father who said to me a few years ago, “You know, what if there were a show about a young musician?  And you guys should write that!”   And I said, “Yeah, that would be great.  But … do you have any idea how hard it is to get a show on the air?”  And then, this show happened.  It’s crazy!

So you and Lisa and the kids moved to Nashville?  Everyone is moving to Nashville: Steve Burton (Jason, GH), Scott Reeves (Steven, GH) has home in Music City, etc.

Photo Credit: Kathy Hutchins

JONATHAN:  We did make the move to Nashville.  We are renting a house, and we are on blow-up mattresses! (Laughs)  It’s an adventure.

When I last saw you, it was at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmys and we were on the red carpet doing our interview, and all of a sudden we heard all of this commotion. We turned around and saw an alligator (thanks to Jack Hanna) coming at us, among other things!   Have you seen the video interview?   It is really quite funny!

JONATHAN:  No. I haven’t, but I wanted to see it!  I just couldn’t believe how close Jack Hanna was getting to us.  He was bringing these animals towards us!  And, I am not an animal expert.  I don’t know what they are going to do!  I am a human being here. (Laughs)  I thought, “What the heck is this?”  Wasn’t it a porcupine and an alligator that went by us?  Oh, man! (Laughs)

So soapers, will you be tuning-in to see Jonathan in his new role on Nashville? Are you looking forward to seeing him sing on the series as well?  And, would you like to see him return for a guest stint on General Hospital?  Let us know!