When the nominations were announced for the 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards earlier this week, General Hospital fans were thrilled to see Amanda Setton’s name as one of this year’s Outstanding Supporting Actress nominees.

It marks the first time in her career that she has ever been nominated. Setton has played Brook Lynn Quartermaine since 2019. Soap viewers first saw her in the role of Kimberly Andrews on One Life to Live during her run from 2009-2011.

Amanda received her Daytime Emmy nomination for her emotional turn as Brook Lynn learned she had been lied to by her mother, Lois Cerullo (Rena Sofer) for years, after giving up her baby for adoption as a teen. Little did she know she had a secret son living with her this whole time at the Quartermaine mansion in Gio Palmieri (Giovanni Mazza).

Photo: ABC

During an exclusive conversation live on Tuesday night, July 14, during the Michael Fairman Channel’s annual Daytime Emmy Nominations Special, she discussed her reaction to the news, her nominated reel and her GH co-stars.

GOING FOR EMMY GOLD

Setton explained how she found out she was a Emmy nominee! “Frank Valentini called me, our boss. It was such a beautiful moving moment. I’ve known Frank for 20 years and to share this with him, I’m indebted to him on a lot of levels. I was in the car with my husband. We were going for a hike. We got away for just a couple days, just the two of us. It was early in the morning and to share that moment with Frank, to share that moment with my husband, it was the best. We cried and I’m just so grateful.”

The Supporting Actress nominee shared what scenes she submitted: “My reel was obviously about the Gio storyline. It started with the scenes with Lulu (Alexa Havins) and shout out to Alexa! She’s the best. It’s when I first find out that she knows and that I had boy. Then, begging her not to tell Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) and just to leave it alone, then into the scenes with Rena Sofer, shout out to her! She is the best. I love her. I spoke to her today. She deserved to also be nominated. They are the scenes right after I find out at the Nurses’ Ball, and right after Brooklyn finds out that Gio is her son, not her cousin. Then my reel ended with the scene with Gio in the kitchen when Brook Lynn’s first sees him after the Nurses’ Ball and she says, ‘We can work this out,’ and he’s like, ‘No, we can’t,” and he walks away. It was an amazing story and kudos to the writers.”

Photo: ABC

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SCENES

It is always important in the Emmy game to put together a submission, so that someone who doesn’t watch the show day to day, can grasp the story of what’s happening to your character. Setton explained how she went about assembling the choices for her scenes. “Between Michelle Henry (producer, GH) and Frank, they said, ‘You need to tell the story. Find the scenes that tell the story.” Once I did it was clear to all of us, the story has been told,” shared Amanda.

“Anyone who’s watching this reel can get a feel for the intensity of the story. I think after even the first scene where you’re just like, ‘Wait a minute! This girl had a baby? She didn’t know if it was a boy or girl?’ Now this nemesis of her wants to … ‘What’s happening? What’s going on? And then the mom knew the story? ‘ So by the end, your heart’s just broken for this girl.”

Initially, Amanda like the viewers were trying to figure out how GH would make sense of the story, where suddenly years later we find out Brook Lynn got pregnant at summer camp by Dante! Setton said, “Once they (the writers) started building it out and you saw all the different relationships playing out between her and her mother, her and Dante, her and Lulu, her and Gio, her and her husband Chase (Josh Swickard), even Tracy (Jane Elliot), and then the fallout of all of it, it just touched so many characters on the canvas. I think it was like a huge juicy burger for the fans to just take a big bite.”

Photo: ABC

AMANDA SETTON TALKS ON HER TV SON GIOVANNI MAZZA

In addition to Amanda, both Giovanni Mazza and Braedyn Bruner (Emma) landed their first ever nominations in the Emerging Talent category. Setton shared how she and Mazza have developed such a close bond.

“Gio and I are super close. Right from the start, we just hit it off.  He is such a delight. He’s so hardworking. He’s such an eager learner. He’s always looking to be better. He always wants to grow. That’s a huge testament to his work ethic,” explains Amanda. “He’s an amazing person, and over the last couple of years, we’ve had many deep conversations about work, about life, perspective, gratitude, values, a lot of different deep things. I could not be more thrilled for Gio and this moment for him. It is well deserved. He has worked so hard for it.  I really hope he wins. Although, I also love Braedyn!”

One of the most unforgettable moments of 2025 in the soaps is when Gio takes to the Nurses’ Ball stage after overhearing Lulu and Lois talk that he is the biological son of Brook Lynn and Dante. Ready to begin to play his violin, he smashes it pieces and storms off. Setton was in the scene and recalls, “That was wild. He did such a great job with that. That is not an easy moment to hit, pun intended. He nailed it.”

Photo: ABC

THE CONNECTION WITH JANE ELLIOT

On General Hospital, Brook Lynn is close with her ‘Granny,” the one and only Tracy Quartermaine, and in real life Amanda is very close with Jane Elliot, with whom she was able to share the news of her nomination. “First of all, this woman has become one of my closest friends.”

Amanda adds, I’m not exaggerating. I am confident to say she would say the same. We’ve become really close friends outside of work. We speak, almost every day.  We just went out to lunch last week. She’s become such a close person in my life over these last few years.  She’s such a leader. Jane’s a really special person in my life after my family. I wanted to share the news of this nomination with her and she was over the moon.”

HARD WORK PAID OFF

Getting a pat on the back from her peers is one of the more touching moments in Amanda’s career, as she explains: “I have to say we’re in the daytime world, so for us it feels so wonderful and so rich. But in the landscape of the entertainment industry, in daytime, we’re in the trenches. We work really hard. We have a ton of pages. We have a ton of really high stakes, dramatic work to try to do in a grounded, authentic way, continuously every day on television. Not that it’s thankless, because thank God we are employed actors on a network TV show, and we are also grateful. But, I’m not going to lie, and say it doesn’t feel good to just get a little ‘thank you’ or like a little, ‘I see your work.’ It feels fulfilling.”

You can check out the full live interview with Amanda Setton at the 2:24:26 mark during the Daytime Emmy Nominations Special Live below, which featured 13 newly-nominated actors sharing their reactions and what they submitted for their reels the landed them a nomination at the upcoming 53rd annual Daytime Emmy Awards.

So, are you happy for Amanda that she finally secured her first ever Daytime Emmy nomination? Do you think she is one of the frontrunners for the gold for Outstanding Supporting Actress based on the emotional tale of Brook Lynn’s journey to learning she had a son and it was Gio Palmieri? Let us know your thoughts via the comment section.

WSB Director Ross Cullum’s (Andrew Hawkes) reign of terror came to an end last week on the July 2 episode of ABC’s General Hospital, after WSB agent Josslyn Jacks (Eden McCoy) shot him dead. That ended the run of Andrew Hawkes who will go down for his portrayal of one of the ruthless, bad guys in the soaps in a very long time.

Just look at a partial laundry list of his crimes: stabbing Marco Rios (Adrian Anchondo) brutally to his death, gaslighting Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) to where he was held captive and then was sent to mental institution in France, attempting to kill WSB Bureau Chief, Jack Brennan (Chris McKenna), by tying him to his hospital bed at Turning Woods, putting a gas mask on it and making him breathe a full tank of carbon monoxide.

How about being the person responsible for the penthouse fire targeting Sonny (Maurice Benard) that instead got Michael (then Chad Duell, now Rory Gibson) burned so badly he had to be sent away to a clinic in Germany, and then there is the matter of lying to Britt Westbourne (Kelly Thiebaud) for years, that she never had Huntington’s disease, instead she was injecting herself with saline, until near the end of his life, he had put poison in the vials of her medication, and let’s not forget taking a weaponized baton and attempting to beat the life out of Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) and kill him, till Cullum was stopped by shots to his back fired by Rocco Falconeri (Finn Carr).

Photo: ABC

HOW CULLUM TURNED INTO A RUTHLESS MASTERMIND AND KILLER REVEALED

This week, Andrew Hawkes participated in a livestream chat on You Tube’s Michael Fairman Channel where he touched on many subjects of his six-month run as Cullum. One of the more intriguing moments came when Hawkes explained in-depth for the first time what drove Cullum to become a double agent, and to become this heinous of a man.  While it was never given to him by the soap opera, as an actor it is always helpful to fill in the blanks for yourself to help with your performance and the “why” a character is behaving the way they are.

Andrew explained, “This has nothing to do with the writers, or anything that anybody ever said, because we don’t get that backstory on Cullum, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. The reason why Cullum is so single-minded and ruthless is because he was on a job, did his job, which was taking out a high ranking government official in a foreign country. Then, he was turned out by the WSB, locked out of getting back to the United States, and therefore missed holding his daughter who died of leukemia because they froze everything.”

Photo: ABC

“Cullum had no health insurance, Cullum had no money, Cullum had no anything”, continued Hawkes. “What I’ve done with Cullum is he’s coming back to rip everything to shreds from the inside out. So, that was my secret. It’s much more detailed than that. Being a parent is so personal, and  Cullum could not get to his child in her time of greatest need, and he couldn’t do anything because the WSB turned on him. They wouldn’t bring him from out of the cold.”

HEROES AND VILLAINS

Hawkes added, “I played it as I played it, and I am not trying to make it about these mitigating circumstances. It’s just an example of why this guy is so full of rage and violence and that was what I was trying to do as that character is as I said, destroy everything from the inside out.”

On TV, in the movies or on the stage there are usually heroes and villains to every story.  Hawkes explains more on what caused Cullum’s vendetta with the world, “It’s a gasket being blown in your brain plus trauma. I heard somebody talking about what’s the difference between a hero and a villain. A hero says, ‘the world hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt anybody else.’ A villain says, ‘the world hurts me and I’m going to hurt the world.’ So, it’s a very fine distinction.”

Photo: ABC

MEETING JOHN OLIVER AND HIS PERFORMANCE AS Z

In addition, Andrew spoke on his last day of shooting and getting to meet guest star, John Oliver and how impressed he was with his performances, even though he, personally, didn’t get to share any spoken screen-time with the late night Emmy-nominated talk show host.

“I did meet him and talk to him, and when I was down on the ground (after Cullum was shot) I was going, ‘Wow, I’m done.’ I don’t have to sweat anything more today. But he came through, and I’ve been a fan of his for a long time and he was so cool and so prepared. I think he’s amazing. I was like, if you never knew this actor and watched him on GH, he’s just fascination to watch. He’s just so committed. I get the biggest kick out of it, and I hope they keep bringing him back.”

Photo ABC

FINDING OUT CASSIUS HAD LIVED

Hawkes admitted, “I thought Z was only in for one episode/day, but then I found out all the other stuff from watching the show that he had scenes with Carly (Laura Wright) and and then Cassius (Ryan Paevey). I didn’t even know that Cassius wasn’t dead. Of course, Ryan and I had talked a lot and it was the end of his contract and he was leaving the show, but I didn’t know that Cassius had lived through it.”

“As for John Oliver, it’s not easy walking in there with all these incredible professionals being like, “we’ve done it for a long time.” I mean, luckily he has his own show and it’s him talking for 30 minutes. He put in the work. The first behavior, you really see of him is him walking. And then, the way he just pulls out his gun and casually caps the guy on the ground who’s going try to shoot him was just the coolest. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him, but he was gracious and kind and cool, and you couldn’t ask for a better scene partner.

In case you missed our conversation with Andrew Hawkes on the Michael Fairman Channel, you can check it out below.

Now, let us know, what did you think of the incredible backstory that Andrew creating for himself to rationalize and play all the scenes and nefarious activities of WSB Director, Ross Cullum? What did you think of his final moments on GH in the shootout with Josslyn and Cassius shortly before Z arrived? Let us know via the comment section below.

On General Hospital, the current PCPD commissioner Dante Falconeri  (Dominic Zamprogna) has been lied to, and kept in the dark, by those he thought he could trust which includes his ex-wife Lulu (Alexa Havins), his own son, Rocco (Finn Carr) and a man he considers a good friend and police partner, “Nathan” West, only Dante doesn’t know that “Nathan” is a fraud, and really his twin brother, Cassius Faison (Ryan Paevey)!

The only person, who seems to be a good friend and reliable is ‘General Hospital’ head nurse Elizabeth Webber (Rebecca Herbst). For months, GH viewers are witnessing key moments when Dante and Elizabeth are there for each other. In fact, she helped Dante realize it was Rocco who shot Cullum (Andrew Hawkes) and was willing to help him cover up the crime so his son does not go to prison. Problem is, Rocco took off with Britt Westbourne (Kelly Theibaud) and as of now Dante has no idea where they are.

In a new and exclusive interview out this weekend on You Tube’s Michael Fairman Channel, Dominic Zamprogna chats about the potential pairing of Dante and Elizabeth and the opportunity to work with beloved longtime GH favorite, Rebecca Herbst, and if he thinks when all is said and done, Dante will wind up back with Lulu. Here’s some excerpts from the conversation below.

Courtesy/ABC

ELIZABETH HAS PROVEN HERSELF TRUSTWORTHY TO DANTE

Speaking on how Dante feels currently about Elizabeth, Zamprogna explained, “At this point, Elizabeth is the only person, he can trust. She’s the only one who’s essentially told Dante what’s what. But. there’s also this connection for sure beyond that, right? That’s something that we’ve tried to play. We don’t know what the end game is, honestly, as actors, I don’t know what the end game is. You have to assume that every time you’re in a scene with anybody, you’re chemistry testing, and you want to do right by the characters.”

Although Dante’s primary romances have been with Lulu and the late Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco), a paring of Dante and Liz has never been approached by the series until now.

“To me, it’s interesting because they’ve never really explored anything between Dante and Elizabeth before. So, it’s all kind of new,” shared Dominic. “That’s the most exciting part of any relationship, the new stuff, before you jump into the domesticated stuff. That’s maybe where Ric (Rick Hearst) and Elizabeth are. They’re kind of more in this domesticated thing, or experiencing that, whereas Dante and Elizabeth truly are kind of needing each other at this moment.”

As Dominic explains it, Dante has found himself needing Elizabeth as his sounding board, since everyone else betrayed him. “Dante definitely needs Elizabeth and has reached out to her. She’s been honest, and provided him with things that he needed (to help cover up that his son, Rocco shot Cullum), explains the five-time Daytime Emmy nominee. “There’s also the other stuff that he’s finding out about her that he didn’t know. Like when she’s in the office with him and she’s talking about her past and the trauma that she’s been through (referring to Elizabeth’s rape).”

Courtesy/ABC

COULD THERE BE A DANTE/ELIZABETH/RIC TRIANGLE AHEAD?

Dominic continued with high praise for his co-star, “It’s interesting for me to play, because I don’t know that story of Elizabeth as an actor, because it was before I got to the show. So, it’s two characters finding out more about each other who’ve been in each other’s orbit for 17 years. (As to the potential pairing), I’m happy to hear people are  digging it because I dig it. Rebecca is phenomenal, and she plays a legacy character, and to me, one of the best actors on the show.”

With Lulu seemingly falling for “Nathan” and then currently breaking it off, Zamprogna and GH fans are awaiting to see what happens when Lulu finds out that “Nathan” is Cassius, while also finding out if Ric Lansing could be the true spoiler in any potential Liz and Dante budding romance.

“I don’t know what the long game is. I literally have no clue,” shared Zamprogna. “I currently don’t believe that there’s a Dante/Lulu happening. It feels like if they did go down the road of Dante and Ric fighting for Elizabeth, I think that would be interesting to have two guys fighting over her as opposed to two women fighting over Ric and Dante.”

Courtesy/ABC

PLANTING THE SEEDS FOR DANTE/ELIZABETH ROMANCE

GH fans will recall the recent scenes where Elizabeth was dressed for her date with Ric, but stopped by Dante’s office at the PCPD first. Dante remarked, in so many words, how beautiful she looked.

Zamprogna hoped that viewers caught it, explaining, “Those are real little moments that I’m always happy or captured. It’s two people who don’t have a romantic relationship, but, planting those little seeds of her coming in and him seeing her out of her scrubs for the first time and being like, ‘Oh my, God  You look amazing.”  And then as the scene ends, they’re kind of wrapped up in things, and then he is like, ‘I could keep talking to you forever,’ but she has a date to get to with Ric.”

You can check out the full conversation with Dominic Zamprogna now on the Michael Fairman Channel below.

Now, let us know, after checking out Dominic’s thoughts on a potential Dante and Elizabeth pairing? Are you hoping the GH writers put them together, or do you want Liz with Ric? And, do you think the end game will still be Dante and Lulu as the exes still have to come together to find their son, Rocco, who is on the run with Britt? Share your thoughts via the comment section below.