Former General Hospital Star Sean Kanan Reveals What Made His Role So Difficult To Play
Sometimes the role can hit too close to home.
Today, Sean Kanan is widely known to audiences for his amazing portrayal of Deacon Sharpe on two daytime soaps, The Bold and the Beautiful and The Young and the Restless. But this isn't the actor's first soap rodeo. All General Hospital fans may recognize him as A.J. Quartermaine.
Kanan first joined the Quartermaine family in 1993 and worked on his character for four years before leaving the show for a very personal reason. His comeback in 2012 was also quite short-lived for a soap, as the actor finally left in 2014. A.J.'s story has a tragic ending, as the character was killed off on March 31, 2014.
In a podcast reunion with his former co-star Maurice Bernard, who still portrays General Hospital's Sonny Corinthos, Kanan opened up about the struggles he faced while portraying A.J. and why he couldn't do it anymore without suffering serious psychological damage that could have easily turned physical.
“I was definitely struggling with my alcohol issue at the time, and I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I was playing a character who was an alcoholic. So there was a lot of life imitating art and art imitating life <...> I think probably there were times when I allowed myself to feel resentful and use that as an excuse to act out,” the actor explained.
But the addiction, which Sean Kanan is now successfully battling as the actor enters his second year of sobriety, wasn't what finally pushed him to quit. The whole nature of a character who was acting completely horribly all the time and not being given a chance to explore further was something he couldn't handle.
It's hard enough to have the burden of being reminded of your daily personal struggles while you're at work and have the chance to transform into someone else, but it's even harder when your character is universally hated. And rightly so!
Fortunately, Kanan's experience at General Hospital was only part of the journey that led to the role of Deacon Sharpe, a much more balanced character with just enough spice to make him interesting.