Cullum has spent the better part of the year making enemies all over Port Charles. The WSB director climbed his way to the top of the agency’s local office, tangled himself up with Sidwell’s latest scheme, survived being shot, covered his tracks with a fake identity, and left a trail of bodies and secrets behind him. Considering how much trouble Ross Cullum has caused lately, it’s hard to imagine General Hospital without him lurking around a corner somewhere. But according to Andrew Hawkes, none of that was part of the original plan.
Key Takeaways
- Andrew Hawkes revealed Cullum was originally supposed to die after Rocco shot him.
- Hawkes booked the role after several auditions with GH casting.
- He admitted he was terrified during his first weeks on set.
- Hawkes worried producers might fire him after seeing his early episodes.
- Instead of being written out, Cullum’s role kept expanding as Hawkes became part of the GH family.
Cullum Almost Met an Early End
While appearing on Maurice Benard’s (Sonny) State of Mind, Hawkes looked back at the audition process that eventually brought him to GH. After being called in several times by casting director Mark Teschner over the previous year, he finally auditioned for the role that became Ross Cullum. Hawkes said he entered the producer session feeling unusually calm because he was ready for it.
“I did exactly what I wanted to do,” Hawkes said of his audition. “Whether I get this job or not is completely secondary.” That confidence paid off. Not long after leaving the room, he received the call that he had booked the role.
The real nerves arrived once filming started. Hawkes revealed he was handed roughly 65 pages of dialogue during his first week and worried he wasn’t keeping up with the pace of daytime television. Then he dropped the bombshell that fans probably never saw coming. “I was supposed to be on for like two months,” he said. “I was supposed to die when I was shot by Rocco [Finn Carr] on the pier.” Instead, Cullum survived both the shooting and the original storyline plans.
From Terrified Newcomer to Part of the Family
You’d never know it from watching Cullum smirk his way through Port Charles, but Hawkes said he spent those early weeks terrified. The challenge wasn’t just memorizing an avalanche of material. It was doing it while playing a guy who treats uncertainty the way most people treat expired milk.
Watching himself onscreen didn’t help. Hawkes recalled seeing his first episodes and thinking, “I want to die. This is… I’m the worst actor on the face of the earth.” He became so convinced he wasn’t succeeding that he repeatedly warned his wife that producers might fire him at any moment.
As it turns out, GH had other plans. The call never came, the role kept expanding, and Hawkes found himself embraced by a cast and crew he now describes as family. Somewhere between the panic and the payoff, Cullum stopped being a short-term assignment and became a permanent headache for Port Charles.
