Any General Hospital viewers knows that Esme Prince is no stranger to controversy. Ever since her first appearance in August 2021, her character has stirred up trouble by not only helping her lover Spencer Cassadine (Nicholas Chavez) terrorize his stepmother Ava Jerome (Maura West), but drugging people, exploiting a young couple's first sexual encounter, and framing her rival Trina Robinson (Tabyana Ali) for posting revenge porn, which nearly landed Trina in jail. If that wasn't bad enough, Esme also tried to kill someone who had threatened to spill her secrets, and she seduced Spencer's father, which resulted in her getting pregnant.
Recently, Avery Kristen Pohl (Esme Prince) sat down with Soap Opera Digest to dish about her notorious character and Esme's new reality as a working mom.
It seemed that Esme's fate was sealed, but she got a second chance at freedom, thanks to a case of amnesia and the birth of a bouncing baby boy named Ace. Nowadays, Esme's days are filled with diaper changes and working for Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) at the Invader. "Nancy and I agreed that this relationship is very much Devil Wears Prada, in that the dynamic between Alexis and Esme, while slightly more complicated than the one between Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep's characters, is at the core of it very similar," Pohl shared.
"You've got the assistant that doesn't really wanna be there, that sort of has this giant mountain to climb that she feels ill-equipped to climb, and you've got this boss with very high expectations," Pohl said. It's because of that dynamic and the complicated relationship that Pohl believes she and Davis found some really fun moments within the scenes. "It's fun to explore creatively because it's a very different scenario for Esme. She's gaining confidence and a sense of independence, the sense of not feeling as reliant on everyone else, even though she still sort of is," Pohl explained.
When asked about how the dynamic between Esme and Spencer has shifted since the two exes moved into Spencer's grandmother's home to help raise Ace, Pohl opened up about Esme's new outlook on life. "I think that Esme is trying to have a little bit of a new lease on life. She has her job, her baby's home. She's much happier and I think she's sort of trying to accept her new scenario for what it is and she's starting to find some semblance of routine, and Spencer has become a huge part of that. I think that as she tries to navigate other avenues of life, she's just trying her best and I think she has a greater appreciation for Spencer's ability to step up and want to be a part of his brother's life," Pohl said.
Pohl suggested that a lot of Esme's view of Spencer was tied to wanting Ace to be happy and for her son to have some stability in his life. "But I think Esme also wants some semblance of stability and she can see that within Spencer, but in a very different light than the sort of old Esme did," Pohl shared. While on the topic of Spencer, Pohl talked about Esme's feelings for her ex-lover. "I think that Esme is not fully aware of her feelings or her actions. I don't think she's got the same wherewithal of who she is as a person like she did before," Pohl explained.
According to Pohl, Esme isn't fully aware of how her actions might impact others, which she conceded might be similar to the old Esme. "I don't think [Esme] realizes her little mini crush on Spencer yet," Pohl revealed.
One can't talk about Esme without mentioning her infamous parents Ryan Chamberlain (Jon Lindstrom) and Heather Webber (Alley Mills), who have each spent decades terrorizing the good people of Port Charles. Ryan met his much-deserved end on February 22, 2023, when Mac Scorpio (John J. York) shot him dead, but Heather remains very much alive and incarcerated at Pentonville. During a recent episode, Esme paid her mother a visit to get some answers, but she ended up walking away with far more questions than she had walked in with.
Pohl admitted that the scenes with Heather had been fun to shoot because it had been the first time that the actress had been outside the studio since she had joined the show. "Everyone was in these prison outfits with hoodies and I was sitting on a metal bench in a dress freezing, but other than that, I loved the scenes!" Pohl said. "I think that Alley and I have great on-screen and off-screen relationships, and I think that it's such a complex scenario between Esme and Heather. It's so twisted and fun! I hope I get to work her again soon," Pohl shared.
"I think for Esme, these are the parts of her past she has to look at before she can really move forward, and I think Heather is a part of that," Pohl concluded.
What would happen if Esme's memory returned? Would she try to atone for her crimes, or would she lean into the darkness? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
