With his five-year run on General Hospital officially over, Jeff Kober’s Cyrus went out with a literal bang when the serial killer was shot dead by Josslyn on the Feb. 20 episode. Kober — who won the 2022 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the villain — said his final scene was one of the “best deaths” he’s played in his storied acting career, the culmination of a storyline that seemingly came out of left field for a character many believed was on the road to redemption.
“It was definitely a leap,” he confessed to Soap Opera Digest of the plot twist that had Cyrus roaming around Port Charles killing people with digitalis. “The thing about soap opera writing and acting is, it’s always open to interpretation. As an actor, you kind of have to be ready, willing, and able to jump in a particular direction.”
Kober reveals that he was taken aback when he learned the direction in which GH would be taking his character. “When I saw that script, I said, ‘Wait a minute! Don’t I get a vote?’ And they said, ‘No, of course not,’” he admitted with a laugh. “I had to make it work within the realm of my logic of the character and of the world. You have to go to a certain level of crazy.”
The actor added that he found it “a relief” when his alter ego explained the justification for his actions during the confrontation scene with Rebecca Herbst’s Elizabeth. “It was in the direction that I had made up in my own mind, that Cyrus is ‘doing the work of the Lord.’ Even just saying that kind of makes me feel a little creepy right now!” he said. “I appreciated having that as a motivating factor and then being able to talk about it with her.”
With an acting career that spans nearly 40 years, Kober has played plenty of characters that have met a grisly end. But the way Cyrus Renault met his maker — being shot by Dex’s girlfriend using the late cop’s gun — was among his most memorable. “I’ve died many times in many different storylines, and I think this is perhaps one of my best deaths,” he shared. “I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I do feel like it was a good death.”
Reflecting on his swan song, Kober would have liked the opportunity to play an arc about what Cyrus was going through emotionally but appreciated what he did get to perform in the end. “The scenes they gave me were stellar and rich and all the stuff with Elizabeth, it just couldn’t have been any stronger. And the death is a great finish to it.”
