Jonathan Jackson Finally Reveals Why He’s Leaving ‘General Hospital’

Jonathan Jackson is revealing the real reason he decided to leave General Hospital less than a year after returning to the role of Lucky Spencer on the ABC soap.

The actor, 43, told TV Insider in an interview published Monday that “it wasn’t” his original intention for his return to General Hospital to last only nine months.

“It was more of a real, sincere attempt from myself and from General Hospital to make it work for a longer period of time,” he told the outlet. “The hope was to be able to stay on longer.”

Jackson confessed that traveling between his home in Tennessee and the General Hospital set in California ultimately became too much. “There was always that possibility because it was a bit of an experiment on my part to see if I could make it work with the family dynamic,” said the actor, who shares three children with wife Lisa Vultaggio. “There were moments where I thought, ‘I think I can find this balance with the family and time back and forth,’ and then you just have to pray about it and try to do what you feel is right. We gave it our best shot, but we weren’t able to keep it going.”

It was a tough decision for Jackson, who said he only recently made the final call. “I was trying to stay in the moment as much as possible,” he said. “That’s really where my mindset was, taking it one day at a time, but also one month at a time, and just seeing how it was feeling.”

Thanking executive producer Frank Valentini for being “so open and helpful to even get it this far,” Jackson said it was good to be back in Port Charles after initially joining General Hospital in 1993 at 11 years old.

“It’s always kind of nostalgic when I’m away from the show for a while and I come back,” he said. “In some ways, it’s always a bit overwhelming, because there aren’t that many situations in life that you get to go and enter into this world where a lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same.”

“Seeing a lot of people in the crew, people you’ve known off and on for so many years, there are just those amazing connections,” he continued. “And then on top of that, you have the character you’re playing that has this history, and you get to work with so many people again.”

Having previously returned as Lucky from 2009 to 2011, the Daytime Emmy winner said it was nice to be back in a time that wasn’t “full-on tragedy” for his character. “This time, there was a lot of goodness and a lot of sweetness amidst the drama, and it was fun to be a part of that,” he said. “And the response from the fans was really precious as well.”