GH’s Jophielle Love Turns The Tables On SOM’s Maurice Benard
You may have heard the old saying, “Out of the mouths of babes.” Well, GH’s Maurice Benard decided to test that adage and invited GH castmate Jophielle Love, or Jo Jo to her friends, to be the mystery guest on his video podcast, State Of Mind. What happened next was pure magic!
On the surface, they’re an odd couple. On camera, you have a mafia kingpin and an angelic little girl with long blonde locks who recently shared a scene together. Off-camera, when you are curious about the human psyche like Benard (Sonny Corinthos) is, you want all points of view. Why not glimpse the world through a child’s eye, right?
Love (Violet Finn) has fit a lot into her recently turned eight years! Her parents, stunt woman Karine Mauffrey and high wire artist Jade Kindar-Martin, worked in Cirque du Soliel with Love joining in by age 3. She took up acting at age 5 and is a singer, songwriter, and dancer too. Benard quickly dove into the interview.
“Today, I have [a]…different kind of State Of Mind,” he said, setting the tone of the podcast. “I have an incredible actress whom I have had the pleasure of working with recently on General Hospital. I’ve never worked with her. We did our scene and I said to myself, ‘Wow! Now, this is an actress.’”
The young actress spoke of her first impression of him. “I thought it was my first time working with you and after that, I just saw how good of a person you were. I felt pretty great because it was like meeting a new friend.”
He asked about her unique upbringing. “I grew up doing Cirque du Soleil because I was doing it since I was a baby,” she explained. “I used to go on my dad’s shoulders and do crazy tricks. And when I was old enough, I would stand on his hand without slipping. He didn’t hold me. I was just there. And that was the first time that I ever did that trick.”
Love’s first acting role was a guest appearance on Grey’s Anatomy at age 5. “I don’t remember much about it [the audition] because it was a long time ago. It was like three years ago.” The talented tyke did remember her character, Clervie. “I was in the hospital. You know I have long hair but when I was in the hospital they made my head look bald because I had cancer or something. The limit to my pages was five. My lines were probably like 10 lines and that’s it.”
Her performance garnered attention. Love landed an audition at General Hospital shortly after. “Yeah, because after that they saw how good I was, and then they had an audition for me. I had an audition for that. And the weird thing is that Grey’s Anatomy is right next to General Hospital. And that audition changed my life.”
And that is where the State Of Mind episode took a turn. Love turned into a future Barbara Walters and began asking the host questions and sharing her own observations.
Love pulled out a list of questions she had prepared [with the help of her mother] for the acting veteran. And the rest of the interview went something like this:
Love: “How many kids do you have in real life?”
Benard: “I have four.”
Love: “Sonny has seven.”
Benard: “No. Let’s count them. Michael, Dante, Kristina, Avery, Morgan, and, oh, Donna!”
They both start singing “Oh Donna” by Ritchie Valens.
Jo Jo was correct as Benard forgot Lila. [Lila McCall, a stillborn baby girl with Sam.]
Love: “How many Emmys do you have?”
Benard: “Three.”
Love: “What’s happening with Sonny?”
Benard: “Well, you know Sonny had amnesia. That means you don’t remember who you are.”
Love: “Right, He doesn’t remember who anybody is.”
Benard: “Right. He was happy in Nixon Falls. He was drinking beer and just wiping the bar. He had two people who really cared for him. He didn’t really remember who he was but he was just at peace. And then, a woman comes in and she is beautiful. He didn’t know that she was lying to him. And he fell in love with this woman and then he became Sonny again. And all hell broke loose. And now he’s back as Sonny and it is a whole lot of jumbo mumbo, jumbo bumbo. Do you know what jumbo muppo buppo is?”
Love: “No, but I think I saw the movie. [They both laugh] That was a joke!”
Love: “How old are you?”
Benard: “59.”
Love: “How many episodes have you done?”
Benard: “I don’t know it has been 29 years, next year will be 30.”
Love: “That means next year GH will be 60 and you will be too.”
Benard: “Now, that is smart!”
Love: “The number of episodes that you have done is 2900. [now 2903] My mother looked that up.”
The engaging duo discussed more during the podcast. Benard shared his struggles with mental health and the mature-beyond-her-years young lady had a few surprising responses.
Find out more about her family history, her father’s fiery appearance on America’s Got Talent, her experiences with the cast of GH, and stay until the end to catch a musical performance by Love as she sings a song she wrote as a goodbye to Rebecca Budig (Hayden Barnes) when she left the show. Just like Barbara Walters, she brought her “guest” to tears. It was a breath of fresh air in today’s challenging times. Catch the full episode here.
Show Jophielle some love and follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Follow Maurice Benard on Twitter, Instagram, or State of Mind.
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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— Maurice Benard (@MauriceBenard) May 22, 2022
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