Jon Lindstrom Calls General Hospital Return as Kevin ‘A Great Reunion’ And Explains His Long Absence

It’s been a challenging couple of weeks for Laura Collins (Genie Francis) on General Hospital. On the plus side, she won reeelection and will serve another term as the mayor of Port Charles.

But what’s in the negative column is a doozy: shortly after threatening — and smacking — Henry Dalton (Daniel Goddard) in public for lying to the cops to get her grandson Rocco (Finn Carr) in legal hot water, the professor’s corpse turned up in her trunk! Sonny (Maurice Benard) leaped to her rescue, enlisting Jason (Steve Burton) to dispose of the body, but Laura (correctly) suspects that Jenz Sidwell (Carlo Rota) is behind her predicament. She could really use the support of her husband right about now — and fortunately for Laura, she’s about to get it, as Jon Lindstrom returns to the role of Kevin Collins on Tuesday, December 2, after a year-long absence from the screen.

Juggling Act

Lindstrom joined GH back in 1992 as Ryan Chamberlain, pediatrician by day, serial killer by night, and in 1993, viewers first met Ryan’s upright identical twin, also played by Lindstrom.

After Ryan’s “death” in 1995, Lindstrom remained on the show as Kevin, but in 1997, the actor made the move over to Port Charles, GH’s half-hour spin-off, where he remained until the series went off the air in 2003.

After a stint as Craig Montgomery on As the World Turns, Lindstrom made his way back to Port Charles as Kevin in 2013, where he remained on recurring status, seeing Kevin through such life changes as his marriage to Laura and the death (for real this time!) of his twin.

Then, last year, his longtime friend Michele Val Jean — who had formerly written for GH and had been instrumental in the development of Kevin — presented him with an offer he couldn’t refuse: playing bad guy Joey Armstrong on the new soap she was launching for CBS, Beyond The Gates.

In a new interview with TV Insider, Lindstrom explained that his protracted break from GH was a nit of a necessary evil stemming from his commitment to BTG, noting that, “It’s just been difficult to find the time” — not only because he’s very busy on that show but because GH’s studio is in Los Angeles, and BTG shoots in Atlanta.

The actor said that signing on to BTG was “kind of a no-brainer,” given that Kevin’s storyline life was fairly light, meaning that so, too, was Lindstrom’s work schedule. “In all fairness to me, it had whittled down to about one or two shows a month,” he pointed out.

Lindstrom recalled that it was back in November 2024 that he first broke the news of his BTG hiring to his GH boss, Executive Producer Frank Valentini, who had hoped that Lindstrom would be able to appear on both shows simultaneously. The actor shared that given the 2,000-mile distance between the two workplaces, “there were just logistical problems along the way over the last year where they would reach out every now and again and ask if I was available for one episode or another episode in the middle of a week, and that’s impossible for me to do from out here [in Atlanta] because Gates takes up a lot of my time.”

The actor was thrilled when GH proposed scheduling Lindstrom to work on multiple shows over the course of several days, which made it worthwhile for the actor to head West to shoot the episodes that are rolling out now. It was a very happy homecoming for Lindstrom, who enthused of his Port Charles co-workers, “I love those people…. It’s like coming back to see old friends and a great reunion around it.”

For Kevin, though, returning to the loving home he shares with Laura will be fraught with complications in light of the mess she finds herself in, courtesy of Sidwell. Lindstrom offered high praise for his leading lady, saying, “Genie, who never slouches, never walks through a scene, is just terrific in this story.” And while Kevin won’t exactly be thrilled to find out that she turned to Sonny for assistance after discovering Dalton in her trunk, “he also understands it. Being the shrink that he is, he understands the value of human connection.”

Lindstrom’s GH comeback is short-term, given the demands of his BTG role, but the actor is hopeful that the show will be able to accommodate him in the future. “I’ll do GH anytime,” he declared. “I Just don’t know if we can work it out.”