Soap Opera Magazine August 15, 1998 by Robyn Flans
GH's Lucky Spencer has had a year like no other, and every decision he makes now could change the course of the rest of his life.
Almost five years ago, the child GH’s Luke and Laura had
while hiding arrived in Port Charles. At the time, both Lucky
Spencer and the actor who portrays him, Jonathan Jackson,
were just 11 years old. It was not the typical American family
by any stretch, but the unique circumstances and conditions of
Lucky’s upbringing actually served to bond this soap version of
a nuclear family even more closely together.
But at 16, Lucky was traumatized in a way far beyond that
which the looming danger of his childhood ever managed to
instill. Lucky discovered that his saviors, his role models-his
parents-weren’t quite the heroes of his juvenile idolatry.
Consequently, this boy-man presently finds himself at a crossroads, as he lets go of the giants
of his past while poised to embrace a new kind of love in the form of his feelings for Liz.
Ironically, like his onscreen alter-ego, Jonathan Jackson is also at a crossroads with the
recent announcement that he is considering leaving GH to attend college. For Jackson, the
future, both immediate and long term, remain very uncertain. Consequently, he is reticent to
comment on the potential impact such a departure might have on the show. Fortunately,
since the talented actor is at no loss for words when it comes to his character, Jackson was
happy to sit down with SOM to provide his take on Lucky-where he’s been and where he’s
headed at this most pivotal time in his life.
********************************************************* Soap Opera Magazine: Laura was gone for the past year and really missed out, on a lot of
Lucky’s growing pains. In general, how does he feel about his mother’s return?
Jonathan Jackson: I think it makes it more difficult for Lucky to run from what’s going on with his
parents. Now he has two people trying to get to him, which makes it twice as hard for him to forget
about it or not see them. That’s one of the biggest effects of her coming back.
SOM: Is he more angry at her for keeping her own rape from him or for marrying his father after he raped her?
JJ: It’s probably a combination. I don’t know if it’s so much that they didn’t tell him, but that Luke didn’t tell him after Elizabeth was raped. The problem with his mother is that Lucky feels she’s living in a false reality and that she isn’t who Lucky thought she was-that it was a facade. And the fact that she doesn’t even know it is frustrating to Lucky. In his mind, anyone who reacts the way she did-she forgives Luke, marries him and has a happy life-is obviously someone not living in reality and who hasn’t dealt with it.
SOM:Does Lucky realize that Laura didn’t consider it rape?
JJ:Yes, but Luke said it was, and that’s what she told the police when it happened. Luke had that whole long scene explaining what it was, which just proved to Lucky that his mother is in denial and living in a fairy tale. Even Luke admits it. Lucky knows what Laura said in the past, and all of a sudden she’s denying it. It’s scary to him, watching her lie over and over again and seeing how his mom is completely different than he thought she was.
SOM:Don’t you think that Lucky had an extraordinary relationship with his parents up to now?
JJ:Recently, Genie (Francis, Laura) asked me if I was comfortable with the extreme reaction Lucky was having. I said that I, personally, wouldn’t react like that, but looking as the character, I could see how he would. Lucky never had a chance to be grounded in a home, so he was always moving around, and he was
always with his parents. They were basically his best friends, his everything. When you’re that close, it can be unhealthy in a way, because the reaction to something like this becomes that much worse.
SOM:I think you pinpointed it when you said their relationship was beyond parent-child, that it was more like buddies, which can be unhealthy.
JJ:I think the extreme of Lucky not having a life separate from his parents has caused some of the reaction. He’s finally having separation, and now that he has what he does with Elizabeth, he’s gone to the extreme of not wanting anything to do with his parents. Everything he was and did before had to do with them, so now he’s gone in the complete opposite direction.
SOM:The scene in which Lucky saw his mother for the first time at the club and told her he couldn’t even look at her anymore was brutal to watch. Was it difficult to play?
JJ:I made a decision before the scenes not to get emotional, which was really very difficult. Usually actors fight to get emotion, but I felt the words were so potent themselves that if Lucky had been emotional, it would have taken away from the impact.
SOM:It seems that Lucky has dealt a lot with his anger and has a lot of disdain, but we haven’t really gotten to see much of his pain.
JJ:I think one of the good things about the episode in which he confronted Laura for the first time is that you got to see him react after he was away from his mother, with Elizabeth. The choice I made was, at this point, Lucky would struggle as hard as he could not to show his emotions in front of his mom. When he’s with Elizabeth, that’s a safe place for him to come out with what he’s really feeling. Also, that reaction is so extreme proves how painful it is for him.
SOM:This is the first time Lucky has ever felt close to anyone besides his parents. The writers could have written him a best male friend, but now Lucky is not only going through the newness of feeling close to someone other than his parents, but it is also his first romantic interest.
JJ:From the very minute Elizabeth’s rape happened, his relationship with Elizabeth has been unique.I think something outside of him threw him into this connection with her. It almost wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t something he thought about intellectually, it just happened.
SOM:What is going to change the relationship between
Lucky and his parents?
JJ:There were some recent scenes where Luke tells Lucky
that he and Laura have ironed out some things and that they
both decided that it was rape. I think for Lucky that’s progress, because at least they’re confronting it. His feelings about their having lied to him are a separate issue. At least they’re dealing with the situation. But I don’t know exactly what it’s going to take to work things out.
SOM:You’ve basically grown up with Lucky. Are you enjoying his changes and how he is now asserting himself and becoming a man with opinions?
JJ:Definitely. I like having a completely different direction than I had a year or two ago. The show has done a great job of keeping me moving, and I’m having a great time with the stuff with Becky (Herbst, Elizabeth). It’s very different from what I did during my first three years on the show.
