This week, hosts Bradford Anderson and Steve Burton welcomed Charles Mesure (Jack Brennan, General Hospital), a much clamored-for guest, to The Daily Drama Podcast — brought to you, of course, by DailyDrama.com.

Charles Mesure, Welcome To The Daily Drama Podcast

While Burton effuses that he’s had “a lot of fun” working with him, Mesure shared that he hadn’t set out to be an actor.

He recalled that, “Back in the early nineties, I was training to be a lawyer, and I realized pretty quick that was going nowhere. I was spending all my time avoiding lectures and just doing plays at Sydney University. So, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m 23 now. If I like doing this I might as well do it for real.’ So, I bailed out of law school and went off to the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia and got my degree there, which is really good.

“Cate Blanchett was graduating just as I was starting there, so there was some really cool actors going through…I graduated in 95 and since then…this has been my day job.”

As graduation from Uni loomed, Mesure’s class “put down a tape with one of Australia’s senior casting directors,” and that tape made the rounds and netted him a job on a tV show in New Zealand (City Life, Auckland’s stab at Melrose Place-esque shenanigans stymied by a most controversial scene in the pilot that featured a same-sex kiss).

Picks up Mesure: “So I flew to New Zealand…didn’t leave for 10 years because stuff kept turning up.” Stuff like Mirror, Mirror II, Xena Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Street Legal (a sudsy legal drama not to be confused with the same-titled sudsy legal drama out of Canada).

Cut to 2004. Mesure arrives in L.A. to do a Xena lovers convention and never leaves. An agent catches sight of him, fancies him the “New Russell Crowe” (okay, maybe a less pricier Russell Crowe), and begins booking him gigs.

ICYMI: CARLO ROTA WAS THE PREVIOUS DAILY DRAMA PODCAST GUEST

As for how his job at GH came about (keeping in mind this is the “polite” version of the story): “My agent loves the show, and we know that last year was crazy…with the actors’ strike and the writers’ strike. That was an unprecedented shift in the industry. I’ve never come across anything that dramatic and the [job opportunity] came through in October.

“And for me, it had nothing to do with the show, it has to do with at my age, I thought I was, like, 10 years long gone from being a romantic leading man.

“And also I knew that starting in about 2016, I’d started to have trouble remembering lines just because I’m middle-aged now, you know, and so the idea of learning massive amounts of dialogue and being a romantic leading man for someone who looks like she just won Wimbledon for God’s sake… That is so what I don’t want to be doing at this point in my career, you know. I’ve been doing mentor roles and character roles and an antagonist for 10 years now.

“But in the end, my agent bullied me and said, ‘Just go in,’ and I said, ‘OK, I’ll go in for the workout.’ Then I went in — this was last October — and Mark Teschner [Casting Director] was just a phenomenally impressive ambassador for the show. He was so gracious and so welcoming.I thought, well, this is how they do things. I’m impressed by that.

“And then I read with Laura Wright [Carly Spencer] in the room and she was so ridiculously good, so present. The tiniest thing I did, she would pick it up and run with it….I thought, wow, again, totally against my better judgment, I think I’d really like to work with her and that was it.”

ICYMI: CHARLES MESURE RHAPSODIZES ABOUT HIS LEADING LADIES

Before wrapping, Burton just had to ask what many a GH fan have been wondering: Just what is going on between Brennan and Carly?!

Mesure’s hilarious response: “How would I know? That’s way out of my pay grade? I’m not in consultation with the writers or the producers, so I basically have the same information the audience has.

“I think the last we’ve seen…I just gave [Jason] and Anna the Intel to get the plane to fly off to East Africa. So certainly in the scripts, to that point, there’s nothing to indicate anything else other than that Jack likes Carly…moving forward, who the hell knows?”

The latest installment of the Daily Drama Podcast is a rollicking good time. But don’t just take out word for it. Check it out in full, then take to the comments section and share your thoughts. And afterward, why not give Daily Drama’s brand-new app a try? It’s got Burton’s and Anderson’s seal of approval after all.

Show Notes:
Housekeeping – 0:00
Going, Going, SOLD OUT – 0:03
Daily Drama Seal Of Approval – 0:28
BIG Giveaways – 0:52
Daily Drama Blogspot – 1:28
New Daily Drama Podcast Schedule – 1:51
Opening Credits – 2:16
Introduction – 2:28
Collegiate Days – 3:54
Reaping The Benefits – 5:28
United States Of Mesure – 7:26
Coming To GH – 8:35
Retconning – 12:40
Praise For Tristan Rogers – 13:32
Single-camera Film Vs. Multiple-camera Setup – 16:14
Brennan And Carly –
Brennan And Jason – 20:07
Favorite Role – 22:52