Chad Duell is known and loved for his lengthy tenure on General Hospital as Michael Corinthos. During more than a decade on the soap opera, Duell earned multiple Daytime Emmy Award nominations and became a fan-favorite. It was thus a shock to viewers when he chose to exit the series and pursue new adventures.

During an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, Duell spoke about why he left General Hospital and what he’s looking forward to in the future. He gave some hints about what he’d like to do creatively in this next chapter of his career. Plus, what’s it like just to step away from a role that he knows so well?

Brittany Frederick: What was going through your head when it came time to leave General Hospital?

Chad Duell: I kind of looked at it like you’re on a treadmill… You want to go the same speed. It kind of becomes a routine. When you’re doing something creative, you feel like you have to keep growing. You have to expand… I just wanted to take a break and reset. What it came down to was, as much as it could freak me out because this is a big change in my life, a lot of it was necessary.

That helped alleviate the fear, because I’m fully confident in everything that I’m going to be able to do. It’s just that I needed to step away to find myself again and get the creative fire going again. That’s what went into it… You have to have confidence in yourself. And I do. I’m still a little shell-shocked. But you have to grow… And I’m not saying I think it’s lesser than anything else; it’s all relative. I’m saying that you get into a comfortable routine and you adjust your mental state to accommodate what you’re doing.

As you look toward the future, are there any specific goals that you’ve set for yourself?

All I really want, the main thing I want, is to just be a part of a creative team that is just very passionate about what they’re doing… I just want to be surrounded by people who are passionate about what they’re doing, because that’s what I feed off of from other people. When I see directors and actors on set who are really all about the work, and we talk about it, you feel that fire coming up in you.

If the job is like a machine, it can kind of dim that fire unless you’re doing something else to fill it—which is kind of hard to do when you can’t do too much else, because you’re on a contract and you kind of have to be there. It was a very strong blessing to be on that show [General Hospital] for as long as I was. But I do know that it could be a machine at times. You’ve got to find your own ways of filling yourself up.

Since you have more flexibility now, have you considered branching out to other corners of the industry, as a writer or director?

There are always different paths or ways to get where you want to be. I’ve thought about doing things like that. I just like talking to people—helping people, giving advice, stuff like that. If I were ever to do something on the side, it’d be something in the realm of podcasting. Talking to people and helping people from a mental standpoint.

As far as writing and directing, I feel like that’d be something I would do down the line. I could still, maybe, if the right time and mood strike, do something like that. I feel like what I want to do right now is just focus on my acting career. That does feel like it would be fun to do, though, or it could be challenging. Who knows?

Rght now, I’m more focused on growing as an artist, as far as my acting goes. Down the line, I definitely can see that.

Is there anything coming next for you that you can share?

I have a couple of movies in pre-production right now. One where I could get sent to prison for assisted suicide with my father, because he was terminally ill. In the other one, [I play] a blind man whose friend snaps his leg in the middle of nowhere, and I have to try and help him survive what I can’t see.

I’m excited to work on those. There’s going to be a lot more coming down the pipeline over the next year. Definitely stay tuned, but for right now, those are the two things that I’m getting ready for.

As you look back on your time on General Hospital, can you watch your older performances, on that show or otherwise? Or how do you reflect on your work?

I used to watch myself more, but I didn’t for a long time. If people [are] more self-critical, they put themselves in a position to start being critical of themselves or see things they don’t like. I already did the work that’s out there. Plus, we know ourselves, so we’re going to view it through different lenses than that person who doesn’t know us at all; they just know the character.

I think it’s just a part of mental preservation. That way, we don’t start being [like] ‘Oh, I did that. I don’t like that.’ Then you start second-guessing yourself—which could be good sometimes, because oh, I did that thing. I thought I showed that, but I didn’t really come across that way. So there’s benefits to it. You do a self-tape, [you] want to look it over to make sure you hit the things right. It just depends. I feel like it’s important to do… To learn from yourself, but also you want to protect yourself from over-criticizing yourself.

Photo Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images, courtesy of Entertainment Lab.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.