Karen’s Role Impact on General Hospital Alum Cari Shayne was Devastating

Cari Shayne explained to Maurice Benard on “State of Mind,” “You said you were in the middle of a breakdown when you first started. And I remember you saying that you had quit,” but she didn’t remember that actually happening. She continued, “I remember I had to go to Wendy [Riche] and Shelley’s [Curtis] office and say, ‘I need to take a break,’ because the character had gotten to me so much.” Riche was the executive producer of “General Hospital” at the time, and Curtis was the producer.

Benard recalled noticing that she was having issues back then. “It really affected me because I was so much of a method actor, too,” Shayne stated, further adding, “And so I was taking that approach to it. And I realized that it wasn’t healthy because I was raking myself through the coals like every single day.” She recalled they had a great amount of script pages to learn, remarking, “In the thick of that storyline we were just inundated with pages and pages of story, and it was all so heavy, and dark, and awful.” Benard agreed that the story was bleak, and Shayne noted, “And so, to get to that place every day, I had to live there all the time.” Ultimately, it became too much for her and she exited “GH,” explaining, “Because I couldn’t live that way.”