Sonny Recast? General Hospital’s Maurice Benard Opens Up About the Issues That Left Him Missing Work
The good news is, we want to assure you before getting too far, that General Hospital‘s Maurice Benard is OK. But for a time over the past month, he shares in his latest episode of State of Mind, it was touch and go. In fact, things got so bad for Sonny’s portrayer that he had to take a break from work and was nearly gone long enough that he would have had to be recast.
Benard’s fans, of course, know about his mental health struggles, so it’s not perhaps surprising to learn that about a month back, when, as he put it, “anxiety came knocking.” This time, though, things kept spiraling as he had a hard time telling the triggers. “A lot of that is my fault,” Benard says, “not going to therapy like I should and everybody should. You know, it’s just one of those things. Plus, I was playing a character on General Hospital that is bipolar and off his medication.”
He doesn’t think that was the main reason for what happened, but, “That may have been a little bit of the reason. The main reason was that I started feeling anxiety and then my son and my wife went to Europe and they’re the two people who, when I’m going through anything, can talk me out of it or talk me down.” To make matters worse, he wasn’t getting any sleep. “At night, I’d wake up in the middle of the night shaking, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
The medication he was taking wasn’t working, and he didn’t want to talk to his wife or son because he was embarrassed and didn’t want to do anything to their vacation. Luckily, his daughters Cassidy and Cailey were there, but while he was seeing “doctor after doctor after therapy,” nothing was helping, he wasn’t getting sleep and things just kept getting worse.
His daughters and his friends were worried about him and praying for him which, as Benard puts it, “It’s just amazing the compassion that people have.” The praying helped a bit, but Benard decided not to take anything “and boy was that tough.” His friends, though, were there for him through it all, no matter the time, no matter the day, which is something Benard is incredibly grateful of.Eventually, he knew he had to go to work at General Hospital, but he knew that he couldn’t. Fortunately, he has an incredibly understanding boss in executive producer Frank Valentini, who Benard notes “was the most generous, compassionate person.” He took two weeks off from the show, “and he was nothing but incredible.” But two weeks was all General Hospital could afford. The show had to go on, with or without him — especially with the heavy story Sonny’s currently in the midst of.
