Jon Lindstrom will return to General Hospital as Kevin Collins on Tuesday, December 2, a year after his last appearance.
For the actor, who is currently playing Joey Armstrong on Beyond the Gates, it was a matter of working out his schedule. “It’s just been difficult to find the time,” explains Lindstrom, who shoots the new CBS soap in Atlanta.
Looking back, Lindstrom says the decision to trade Port Charles for Fairmont Crest wasn’t a tough one. “In all fairness to me, it had whittled down to about one or two shows a month, so Kevin had been fairly inactive for a long time,” he points out. “I haven’t seen him have a really active story since the show Port Charles, or unless Ryan [Chamberlain, Kevin’s twin] was around, so it was kind of a no-brainer.”
Still, he knew taking the job on BTG would impact his GH appearances. “When I called Frank [Valentini, GH’s executive producer] to tell him that I would be going to do Beyond the Gates on Election Day 2024, he asked me, ‘Can you do both?’” relays Lindstrom. “I said, ‘Well, technically, yes, because I’m not under contract. The only stickler is that they’re 2,000 miles apart.’ So, there were just logistical problems along the way over the last year where they would reach out every now and again and ask if I was available for one episode or another episode in the middle of a week, and that’s impossible for me to do from out here because Gates takes up a lot of my time.”
Even so, GH found a way to make a visit work. “To their credit, they came to me and said, ‘What if we stack a bunch of shows up over a couple of days? Will that be worth your while to make the trip out?’” he shares. “And the short answer is, ‘Yes, of course.’ Besides, I think Genie [Francis, Laura Collins] is getting tired of talking to a disembodied Kevin on the phone.”
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Returning to the soap he first joined in 1993 carried emotional weight for Lindstrom. “I love those people,” he says. “I love all of them. So many great things in my life are a direct result of my association with General Hospital. Coming back, the beautiful thing is a lot of people don’t know you’re coming back, so they see you in the hallway, and they’re really happy to see you. It was like, ‘My God, Jon, how long has it been?’ And then you walk on the stage, and they can’t believe that they’re actually seeing you, so it’s great. It’s like coming back to see old friends and a great reunion around it.”
Among those reunions, reconnecting with Francis was a standout. “I love working with Genie, and she and Jonathan [Frakes, her husband] have become really close friends,” he notes. “I hadn’t seen them in over a year, so to be able to just sit down and hang out in the dressing room with Genie and catch up and talk about life and how things are, I was really excited to do that. I also ran into Maurice [Benard, Sonny Corinthos], and we had a little bit of work together. I love Mo.”
Once back on set, slipping back into character as Kevin proved effortless. “Like putting on a comfortable old suit,” Lindstrom reports. “It did feel like going back to my hometown. I haven’t lived in my hometown since 1978, but I still have that feeling whenever I step off the plane into the Medford, Oregon, terminal. It’s like, ‘Wow, I’m home. This feels really familiar.’ And it’s a good feeling. They say you can’t go home again. I don’t know if that’s true.”
Story-wise, Kevin will quickly get caught up to speed about Laura turning to Sonny for help in the wake of Professor Henry Dalton’s (Daniel Goddard) death. “Genie, who never slouches, never walks through a scene, is just terrific in this story,” he praises. “Kevin doesn’t love her relationship with Sonny, but he also understands it. Being the shrink that he is, he understands the value of human connection.”
While Kevin’s return will be impactful, Lindstrom is also energized by his work on BTG. “I’m absolutely loving it,” he declares. “Michele Val Jean [BTG’s creator] has written really great characters for me in the past — she wrote all the great Ryan and Kevin stuff back in the day — so when she came to me and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I threw your name out to the network, and they approved you,’ I was stunned. I haven’t had a character this good, this layered, this interesting, this much fun to play since I played Ryan Chamberlain the first time around.”
And in a twist that amuses him, Joey resembles a GH fave. “I was with Michele at the GH Emmy party, and we were talking to Maurice, and Mo goes, ‘So what’s this character that you do?’” Lindstrom recalls. “And Michele laughs and goes, ‘He’s you. He’s the Sonny of the DMV.’ And I said, ‘I think Joey has a much better sense of humor than Sonny Corinthos.’”
Part of the thrill of being on BTG, he adds, is working with a clean slate. “One of the reasons I really love doing this show is because it’s new,” he says. “It’s because of that energy of everyone wanting it to work and be seen and enjoyed by a lot of people. It’s hard to get a show off the ground, but that energy and focus of trying to find the rhythm of something that doesn’t know its rhythm yet is hard to beat. And to have that feeling at this time of my career and my life is such a gift to me. Boy, I’ll tell you, Mick Jagger was right when he said, ‘Do what you love, it keeps you young.’ I get up every morning ready to go to work. I want to go to work. I want to be a part of this, and it’s really wonderful.”
Outside of acting, Lindstrom is juggling multiple creative projects. His next book, Hollywood Payback, will be released on April 14, 2026, and he’s the host of a new pilot, The Bible on Trial, but he’d be open to another appearance in Port Charles. “It all comes down to scheduling,” he says. “I’ll do GH anytime. I just don’t know if we can work it out. I’m busier than I’ve ever been, and I thought I’d be retired by now!”
General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC
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