Dominic Zamprogna Opens up About His Break From GH
On June 22, Dominic Zamprogna will celebrate the 15th anniversary of his 2009 debut as Dante Falconeri (then Dominic Pirelli) on General Hospital. Although he hasn’t been on for the full 15 years, having left in 2018 and returned in 2020. But the actor needed to take that break.
“A couple of things were going on at that time,” Zamprogna admitted to Soap Opera Digest. “I had never been in this town as a free agent, so to speak. I came here with this job and didn’t know any casting people. I was almost 40 and I was like, ‘Okay, worst-case scenario, the show gets canceled tomorrow, I haven’t done my due diligence in this town to make sure people know me and I’ve got connections and relationships and all that kind of stuff.’
“As an actor, you need to do that,” he continued. “I’m a terrible networker, but the one thing you have to do is audition, and for the longest time here, it wasn’t really possible to do other projects. But in 2018, Frank [Valentini, GH’s executive producer] let me go out and do this show in Calgary, and I had actually screen-tested the two previous years for other pilots. I realized, ‘That’s really the only exposure I’ve had to other casting directors down here. I should really kind of get out there.’”
Seeing what else was outside of Port Charles turned out to be incredibly beneficial for the daytime star. “I call it kind of a mental health break because I’ve never been in the same place for this long, playing the same character,” Zamprogna explained. “I just felt, ‘I think I need to go and kind of do something else for a while.’ And in doing that, I achieved what I wanted to do — I met a lot of casting directors, you take general meetings, you do a bunch of auditions. You kind of get your hustle back, and that’s important, too.”
Fans were thrilled when Dante returned to the canvas in 2020, and the actor was equally happy to be back on set again. “The reason for coming back, also, is because I love it here and I legitimately missed my friends that I’ve made here,” Zamprogna declared. “Even when you have a bad day, as everyone does, you’re surrounded by people that you care about and that care about you, and I missed being a part of a team. And so when I had kind of accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, I was grateful they wanted me to come back.”
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