GH Stars Amanda Setton and Finola Hughes Discuss Being Role Models

General Hospital has had some pretty powerful female characters during its almost 60 years on ABC — with Anna Devane being one of the strongest since her 1985 debut. Actress Finola Hughes knows her superspy character is pretty amazing but she’s also enjoying Amanda Setton’s Brook Lynn Quartermaine fire and energy.

Finola Hughes and Amanda Setton Chat With Their Fans

It was during a General Hospital Fantasy Events Zoom with both ladies that GH viewers got the chance to ask them questions. One woman, Dawn, asked if they feel like they’re advocates for women with their roles, much like Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order: SVU has embraced her role to help victims.

“Certainly,” began Hughes. “Our show has a lot of great strong women and Frank [Valentini, executive producer] is a big supporter of strong women. He has sisters, an amazing mother, and he likes that. And I think what’s great about our show is that the women…everybody has each other’s back. It’s a really extraordinary group of women, all very supportive.

“If somebody does a really great scene,” she continued, “everyone will congratulate them. It’s something that our show has had from the get-go because I saw it when I came on the show. I saw that the older actresses supported everybody and I think we are all paying it forward. So it has a very nice feel to it.

“I was given the gift of playing this role, Anna 35…37 years ago,” laughed Hughes, “so strange to say that…you know she was a single mom and she was a career woman and she was trying to make it in a man’s world. All of those things were specifically written by Gloria [Monty, then executive producer] and her sister [Norma Monty, writer]. They wanted that kind of a character. And the baton is now firmly with [characters] like Brook Lynn. You know my daughter played a doctor on the show and was an advocate for AIDS…there have always been those kind of women on our show.”

“I would echo all those thoughts,” agreed Amanda Setton. “I would also say something that I mentioned before about the women friendships on the show are very strong. Playing a strong woman supporting another woman…there’s something very empowering in that and not something that you often see and maybe something that you see onscreen that maybe isn’t there always and fortunately at General Hospital it really is.

“I give Finola a lot of credit,” she continued. “I give Genie Francis [Laura Collins] a lot of credit, Leslie Charleson [Monica Quartermaine] and all of the women who have sort of been there for a long time and paved the way for the rest of us to come aboard and are just so warm, so supportive, so loving, so welcoming, so encouraging. To us newbies on the show, there’s a real safety in that, a real camaraderie that’s great because of that…to feel that female support, it’s really priceless and it’s not guaranteed.”

General Hospital (GH) airs weekdays on ABC. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Port Charles, check out all the latest that’s been posted on GH spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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