Hayley Erin Opens up About Leaving General Hospital for Primetime

As one of Kiki’s biggest fans, GENERAL HOSPITAL’s Hayley Erin hasn’t yet seen her character laid to rest. “I watched all of Maura West’s beautiful scenes when Ava found out, but I can’t watch the funeral,” she admitted to Soaps In Depth. “Leading up to this, I thought I was going to relish in it. ‘I’ve cried over graves. Now I want to watch you cry over my grave!’ But it’s so not like that. It’s genuinely sad for me.”

While Erin misses working with her friends at GH, she’s “super flattered” Kiki was snuffed out when she landed a new gig in Portland last fall. “I take it as a compliment they didn’t want to bring in another Kiki,” she said. “It worked for the story, and I got to move on to this new chapter.” That new chapter finds her a central player in Freeform’s PRETTY LITTLE LIARS’ spin-off. “Any person of any age who watches GH will love THE PERFECTIONISTS,” she promised. “It’s a teen murder-mystery soap opera with storylines involving college professors and students. It’s edgy, sexy and dark. But it’s still funny.”

“The scene where Kiki found Sasha holding the glass to Griffin’s face was the last scene I ever shot on GH,” Erin revealed. “We’d shot me dying like, two entire weeks before. It was the weirdest!” (Photo Credit: ABC)

With her new character referred to only as TBA (To Be Announced) leading up to the March premiere, Erin went radio silent on social media after leaving GH. “I was scared about accidentally spilling a secret, between Kiki being dead and TBA!” she explained. “I didn’t want to overstep, so I didn’t step at all.” Now that she’s premiered as Taylor Hotchkiss, Erin’s back online, but she’s still playing things close to the vest. “Every question you ask on this show gets answered… and then it just blows up into a million different questions,” she teased. “It’s like a web — a web of exponential questions. It’s awesome.”

While Erin imagines Kiki’s enjoying the hereafter with first love Morgan, the actress has fallen for someone new. “She is a badass,” she cheered of her new alter ego. “By the end of the season, you’re either going to love Taylor or hate her. She is unapologetically driven and will do what she’s going to do. I love her, personally!” And if Erin has her way, she’ll get to return to the role and Portland for a second season. “It’s just such a high working with a great group of people in a beautiful place on a fun show,” she said. “It was a lot of work, especially toward the end, but I felt like I was at camp. I can’t wait to go back — hopefully, fingers crossed, knock on wood!”

For more on your favorite GH stars — past and present — keep reading the ABC edition of Soaps In Depth magazine

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