Avery Kristen Pohl.
Arguably, Esme Prince would be in jail right now on General Hospital if she didn’t have amnesia. We know Esme is capable of fooling people but does she truly not recall her wicked ways? Her portrayer, Avery Kristen Pohl, spoke on the subject.
Esme committed all kinds of atrocious crimes in Port Charles, including drugging Trina (Tabyana Ali) and recording Joss (Eden McCoy) and Cameron (William Lipton) having sex and uploading it to the Internet before she was exposed. Around this time, she developed what some call a convenient case of amnesia. A decision was made not to prosecute her for her crimes until she remembered committing them. Needless to say, Esme has a vested interest in not getting her memory back and/or continuing to convince folks that she can’t remember!
At a Coastal Entertainment Zoom event with GH fans, one viewer complimented Pohl for truly convincing her that Esme has amnesia, noting that the character’s eyes and facial expressions read as if she’s, in a way, a different person. “Thank you,” Pohl replied to the supportive comments.
“I think Esme is a person that, overall, just lies to herself constantly because she’s lying to other people,” Pohl offered as part of her approach to the character. “She might as well believe it herself — whether she [truly] has amnesia or not is a question I’m not sure I can answer.”
It’s possible that if and when Esme gets her memories back that she’ll keep that bit of information to herself. Pohl sought out advice from a coach to see how a person would behave if she truly did have amnesia. “It’s a big undertaking in a way,” she says, “because you’re taking away all of someone’s experiences. It’s nature versus nurture.”
Pohl asked herself if indeed Esme can’t remember what traits she had pre-amnesia, then how will those qualities emerge now? Case in point: we haven’t seen any of those classic evil smirks she used to flash. Perhaps those looks she gives will resurface whether she remembers her past or not.
“It’s a very fun undertaking,” Pohl says of the acting challenge that the show has given her. “It’s fun to go from not [necessarily] ‘mustache-twirling’ but definitely [Esme’s] more evil side to [who she appears to be now].”
If Esme isn’t faking her amnesia, she now has a chance to decide who she wants to be moving forward. “She could make something else out of herself,” suggests Pohl.
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