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When Jens Austin Astrup (Kai) reported for his first day of work at General Hospital, he was acutely aware that he was coming into a well-established fictional universe. “This show has been running for so long,” he notes of the 61-year-old sudser, “and Port Charles has existed for all those years. And I knew that on my first day, it was not going to be like doing a play, where we all sit down together and read through [the script] together and we’re all discovering it at the same pace. This is a different kind of gig, where I’m jumping onto a wheel that’s already going.”
Keep The Train Moving
Day one on GH was “super-hectic,” he recalls. “I mean, it was my first day, but everyone else there is up and running! And you don’t get an orientation like I did at Vassar [his collegiate alma mater],” he chuckles. “No one really showed me where to go, so I was just kind of figuring it out, and figuring out the schedule.”
Astrup says that to calm his first-day jitters, he “looked for ways that I could ground myself in this character, that I could resonate with the character of Kai — almost like I was searching to find pieces of myself that kind of parallel the character and really embrace those.” The connection he established with Tabyana Ali (Trina) during the audition process ended up inspiring him. “Tabyana and I got along so well and it felt like we had this chemistry that was apparent even before I started shooting, and the ways that we got along felt seamless,” he recalls. “So I felt like, ‘Okay, we can bring that to the characters.’ That’s what gave me a feeling of ease, that with Tabyana, it was like, ‘Okay, we’re getting along, we’re having fun, and so in this scene, we can have fun.’ ”
The actor took care not to get too in his head about how infamously quickly GH shoots and how little rehearsal there is. Explains Astrup, “General Hospital moves fast, but what [adjusting to the pace] really demanded of me was to slow the pace, to slow myself down and realize that I have time to grow and develop this character. I almost feel like the character is growing in real time, and I could use that to slow myself down to really be [in the moment].”
And just as he went from knowing only Ali, and Kai had only intersected with Trina, both actor and character branched out in his subsequent episodes. “Kai was introduced to Trina and getting to know her, and that feels [parallel] to me stepping into the show and only knowing Tabyana, and then kind of getting to know the rest of the General Hospital world. A lot of my first scenes with other actors, that was the first time I was meeting them, and so off-screen, I’d be like, ‘Oh, hey, I’m Jens.’ And then in our scene, I would literally be saying, ‘Hey, I’m Kai,’ you know? So I could almost find comfort in that I was having a parallel experience with my character.”
He also singles out Evan Hofer (Dex) for giving him valuable advice and stepping in to show him the ropes (find out who else appreciated Hofer here). “When I got up to do my first scene, Evan actually said, ‘Hey, I’m kind of like the little mayor of Port Charles. I’ll help you out today!’ He was joking with me, like, ‘I know the first day here is wild!’ So he showed me around and was sort of like my orientation advisor that first day. Tabyana had said to me, ‘You’ve done theater, and this is kind of like jumping into a different form of theater.’ And I felt like I understood what she was saying, but I didn’t really understand it until I was shooting [at GH] that yes, it is like theater! You just do a lot of the work on your own beforehand, and come with it all in your mind so that you can really have fun with it when you shoot. And that’s what Evan told me. We had stepped back and we were watching another scene [be filmed] and he said, ‘Whatever you do, you have really got to remember to have fun when you shoot, remember to be excited to do what you get to do.’ And that felt so simple, but I literally think about that all the time, especially in those first few days and weeks when I was coming in nervous.”
Astrup says that the advice helped boost his confidence when it came to taking control of his character’s development. At first, he points out, “I’d do my scenes and I knew my lines and I had a sense of my character, but it still felt like I was kind of throwing my character in the air a little bit. Coming from theater, I’m used to working with a director and discovering something [through the rehearsal process]. Here, the guy is kind of growing in real time, and I think you’ll see the character discovering himself in real time. There wasn’t much, ‘Okay, let’s redo that scene,’ or, ‘I like what you were doing there.’ But the advice Evan gave me, I think about it every time before I shoot or whenever I’m handed a script, like, ‘What do I need to do in terms of memorizing and running the scene so that I can really show up?’ And I remind myself before I go to set to feel excited that I get to do what I love to do, and embrace the power you get here, when you do your scenes, to shape your character in the scenes. At first, that felt like pressure, and now it feels like it’s a freedom, actually — and it’s fun!”
The notion that he has the freedom to help create Kai was affirmed to him by one of his GH directors, Rob Markham. “The first time we worked together, Rob said to me, ‘Just so you know, in the beginning, they’re kind of feeling you out and having you talk to and meet different people on the show so the audience and the writers can kind of get a sense of where you’re going.’ And he meant that to say, ‘Make decisions, play with your choices, and what you decide will reflect back to what the writers end up bringing you.’ And I felt like he kind of read my mind, because I was feeling uncertain, like, ‘I don’t know what my character is thinking about right now, I wish the writers would tell me!’ And he was there to say, ‘You decide what you’re thinking about and the writers will be inspired by what they see.’ ”
What he’s settled on so far about Kai, he says, “is that there is a drive inherent to who he is. When he meets Trina and they have this homework drama, I think he wants to prove himself to her, proving that he wants to put effort into this assignment. I think that’s earnest, and I think he dives headfirst into the things he wants to do. I think he has a lot of passion and a lot of belief in himself. I can feel Kai having in his background some type of experience, something in his own life that is private, that is sort of the birth and origin of the type of drive he has, and his belief in himself. I think there’s been some kind of hardship that is the reason he presents himself the way he does and doesn’t really allow himself to fail or mess up. And I think it’s very important to Kai to be true to himself.”
Disney/Bahareh Ritter
Quick Study: Astrup’s Kai teams up with Trina (Tabyana Ali) on a school project that just may lead to romance.
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