On General Hospital, Dante Falconeri is facing an uphill battle winning over his recently discovered son, Gio Palmieri, who has not been very receptive to the prospect of building a familial bond with either of his biological parents. Soap Opera Digest chatted with Gio’s portrayer, Giovanni Mazza, about his GH character’s strained relationship with Dante, the activity he’s yearning to do with Dominic Zamprogna (Dante) in real life and more.
Soap Opera Digest: Even before Gio found out that Dante is his biological father, their relationship was tense, given how Dante unleashed his anger on him after Rocco wound up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. As an actor, what was it like for you to be on the receiving end of that tirade?
Giovanni Mazza: Honestly? It was probably one of the most fun acting experiences of my life! I loved it because it was all real. I mean, Dom created such a great performance and he was coming from such a personal place so that he would say what he meant, what he really meant, and then I would listen to him and I would respond. Him coming from a personal place allowed me to come from a personal place where it really affected both of us and it was, like, a full-on war! I loved those scenes.
Digest: Dominic actually told me that he had been less chatty with you in the hallways backstage after that fight between your characters and in the build to the big parentage reveal Nurses’ Ball reveal because he felt it would help your performances. I doubt that was something he announced to you, but do you feel like you were kind of in the same headspace, like, “Maybe we should keep a bit of distance between us to add to the tension of our scenes?”
Mazza: Oh, yeah. I think there was a mutual understanding of where we were going and how seriously we were going to be taking it. In the hall, I will obviously nod hello and I’ll shake his hand, but I’m sort of keeping it real [in mimicking the distance between Dante and Gio]. But it’s all love! I love Dom and I respect him so much — and I secretly wanna play soccer with him on Saturdays really bad, because he goes all the time. I’ll just wait until the story dies down to ask him [laughs].
Digest: Dom is a seasoned GH vet. Do you feel like you’ve been able to learn from him as you work together?
Mazza: Absolutely. Dom, he always comes from such a personal place. He’s so subtle and going into scenes with him just feels so real because of his ability to just be in whatever the moment is. I mean, those scenes where he was sort of going at me all day, — like, no joke, we were there from like 7 to about 6:30 at night, and the entire day we were just running the lines over and over and over. It was this fast-paced, chaotic sort of day, and [when we rehearsed] we just went at it and at it and at it, so that we got up to set, it was just a continuation of that emotional journey. Some of the scenes we were shooting were split up, like the scenes in the hospital [lobby] were at one part of the day and then the scenes in Monica’s atrium were in the second half of the day, and we didn’t want to lose [our intensity]. So we just kept on running it and staying in it pretty much, which was really cool.
