General Hospital Exclusive: Finn Carr on Rocco Shooting Cullum — and the Guilt Crushing Him
On General Hospital, Rocco shot corrupt WSB Director Russ Cullum (Andrew Hawkes) to stop him from harming Jason (Steve Burton) and Britt (Kelly Thiebaud). Jason swiftly took the fall to protect Rocco, who has been sworn to secrecy about what really happened that fateful night. But keeping quiet — and keeping a lid on his guilt — may be easier said than done. Soap Opera Digest spoke to Finn Carr about his big new storyline and the performance that GH fans have been raving about.
Let’s Get Physical
“I was very, very excited when I found out that this story was in my future,” says Carr, who made his GH debut as Lulu (Alexa Havins) and Dante’s (Dominic Zamprogna) son back in 2022. “It was in January, I think, when we’d just come back from a break, and once I got the scripts, I had a lot of fun tearing into it.”
In the episode where the shooting occurred, the actor didn’t actually have any lines. “I think acting without talking is such an important skill,” notes Carr, who worked with an acting coach to prepare for his performance. “This was the first time I’ve ever come to my coach with a script without any lines for me to say in it, and it turned out to be one of the best scripts we’ve ever worked on,” he professes. “We focused a lot on what I was hearing [as Rocco eavesdropped on Cullum’s menacing encounters with Britt and Jason], what was going on in my environment, my motivations for being where I was — just a lot of the extra stuff that added to the mental state Rocco was in and helped me give a good physical performance.”
One of his personal favorite moments occurred when Rocco, who was concealing his presence from the other characters on the pier, fumbled and dropped in his phone. “That was one of the more challenging bits of physicality,” Carr explains, “to make it look like I actually did just drop my phone at a very critical moment when Britt and Cullum are talking, to make it look natural and not make it look like I did it on purpose.”
Emotionally, of course, the challenge for Carr was to convey Rocco’s panic and trauma in the wake of the shooting. “It definitely required a lot of working myself up in order to get exactly into that headspace,” he muses. “I’ve never shot anyone, so it was definitely a challenge to be able to put myself there. I just kept replaying the memory of what happened in my head. Thankfully, we were able to shoot it in chronological order, so I had that experience fresh in my head and I just tried to really carry that with me and show a lot of that fear, not wanting to talk about it right away because of how traumatic it was. I was doing a lot of acting behind the eyes, showing the layers of different emotions, but also trying to cover them, because no one wants to look vulnerable, you know? No one really wants to cry in front of people. So trying to show that and have those emotions come out organically and also suppress them in the way that the character would was definitely the main crux of what I was going for there. I do try to ground it in what I imagine a 15-year-old or 16-year-old kid would really feel if they had to shoot someone.”
Safe and Sound
The show took every conceivable precaution to ensure the actors’ safety on set when it came time for Rocco to use Cullum’s gun to shoot him in the back. “It was a very different day on set,” recalls Carr. “My mom had to be there for most of it, when they were showing us [how to use the prop gun]. There was no live ammunition on set at all. It was a non-gun that just shot flash paper and there were no bullets anywhere on set, but still, everyone had to be safe, and they made an announcement every time the gun was going to go off, even though it was a very anticlimactic puff of smoke. I thought it was going to at least make a little sound, but it was quiet. But there was no room for any worry, which I was happy about.”
As it turned out, Rocco is an excellent shot. “He has some great aim for someone who’s never touched a gun!” says Carr, echoing the sentiment of many fans who made a similar observation online. And for the record, there were no hard feelings between Carr and his fictional victim, Andrew Hawkes. “Andy is such a sweet person, and he’s such an amazing villain on the show.”
The shooting — and Jason claiming responsibility for it — paved the way for Steve Burton’s temporary exit as Jason was whisked away by the WSB. “I did have a nice moment with him on set that day and I gave him a nice good-bye,” reports Carr. “I think for the character, it’s a really cool way for him to exit, helping me out — and I’m very thankful for his character covering for me so I don’t have to go to jail and get beat up again [laughs]!”
But even without a potential stay at Pentonville, the consequences are huge for Rocco, too, given, in part, that Danny (Asher Antonyzyn) — Jason’s son with the late Sam (Kelly Monaco), who is like a brother to Rocco — is now grieving his dad’s sudden departure. “It leads to a lot of really cool stuff between Danny and Rocco because Rocco definitely feels responsible for Danny’s parents leaving him,” says Carr, who notes that Rocco had “very strong” connections to how Sam passed away, given that she had just donated part of her liver to Rocco’s mom when she was murdered by Rocco’s great-uncle, Cyrus (Jeff Kober).
The Lying Game
As Rocco processes his emotions surrounding the shooting, he is forced by circumstances to lie to many people he loves — not only Danny but also his father and his sister, Charlotte (Bluesy Burke). Lying comes easily to many soap characters, but is definitely not Rocco’s forte — and that’s something that Carr and his acting coach decided to lean into early on in his GH career. “It was very obvious to us from how he was reacting to thinks that Rocco doesn’t like to lie,” Carr explains. “I built that into the character, and our writers are so great and they pick up on your character choices so quick and write for it really well. And so showing him struggle to everyone and carry this massive secret has been a lot of fun.”
Rocco does, of course, want to avoid potentially going to jail for shooting a federal agent, but his conscience isn’t at peace with what’s happened to Jason. “I think that is the main thing is weighing on him as he tries to cope with this whole terrible situation,” Carr says. “He’s trying to come to terms with it as much as he can, but it messes with him that Jason took the fall for what he did. I think Rocco finding out what Jason did for him planted the seed of him realizing that there are going to be a lot more issues to come.”
Especially because, as Lulu pointed out to him in the March 27 episode, they have no proof that Cullum was trying to hurt Britt and Jason and that Rocco was the hero in the situation. That hit Rocco hard, says Carr. “He feels pretty stuck. It’s so frustrating for Rocco to realize that even telling the truth won’t really help him.”
The End of the Innocence
No matter how it plays out, this incident is sure to have a giant impact on the course of Rocco’s future. “This is a huge moment for him,” Carr asserts. “I mean, shooting someone, for a nice guy like Rocco, is a moment that definitely alters how his brain is going to go about thinking about things later. I think it’s going to callous him, in a way. It’ll toughen him up.”
The actor is grateful for the opportunity the show has given him as he undertakes this new chapter in Rocco’s journey. “I really have to say thank you very much to the writers and to Frank [Valentini, executive producer] for giving me such great material and trusting me with such an amazing and well-written storyline,” he says.
He is equally grateful for all the positive feedback his performance has gotten from viewers. “I have seen some really nice things from people and it is so very motivating,” Carr smiles. “I was happy with how it turned out, but hearing that from other people is always such a great fuel to keep going, to keep working hard. Our show isn’t here without the fans, and hearing that they’re liking what I’m doing and giving them fun stuff to talk about feels great.”