Having joined the cast of General Hospital in 2019, Jophielle Love is continuing in her role of Violet Finn alongside her on-screen father Dr. Hamilton Finn, played by Michael Easton. Jophielle attended the 2023 Daytime Emmy Awards, which saw General Hospital win Outstanding Drama Series, and it has recently been announced that Jophielle has been nominated for her first Daytime Emmy award for Best Original Song for Shine. In the crime drama Will Trent, Jophielle plays Cooper Ormewood, and in the recent film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s, Jophielle plays Ghost Kid/Chica’s Soul, with her real-life family also involved with the release, in which her father plays Bonnie. Further screen projects for Jophielle include playing Young Candy (Elizabeth Olsen) in Love & Death, 5-Year-Old Mary (Meg Donnelly) in The Winchesters, and working on feature films Quiz Lady, Renfield and We Have a Ghost (with the latter seeing Jophielle play Junebug alongside David Harbour). Answering our questions, Jophielle talks about playing Violet Finn in General Hospital, being nominated for her first Daytime Emmy award, filming as Cooper Ormewood in Will Trent and appearing as Ghost Kid/Chica’s Soul in Five Night’s at Freddy’s.

Can you tell us about your character Violet Finn in General Hospital?

Violet Finn, or Violet Barnes… is the daughter of Dr. Hamilton Finn (Michael Easton) and Hayden Barnes (Rebecca Budig). She was brought to Port Charles by her mom who had disappeared for a long time. Finn was not aware of having a daughter (like it is often the case in soap opera! Right?), so there was some great drama there when Hayden introduced him to his daughter.

I was five years old at the time… but I think Violet was supposed to be three.

Violet is growing up with Dr. Finn and has had so far Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) and Elizabeth Baldwin (Rebecca Herbst) for step-mother figures.

She also spent a great deal of time these past three years with her grandfather Gregory (Gregory Harrison) who she loves very much… but he now has ALS and we know that he will eventually die. It will be a very sad day when it happens.

Do you remember what it was like joining the show in 2019 and how is it working with the rest of the cast?

I do. I was actually working on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy when I auditioned for the show that shoots next door to it.

I had a callback with a couple of other girls. I was five years old. I was already very comfortable being around adults and I wasn’t shy.

Frank Valentini (the producer) and Mark Teschner (casting director) like to remind me how I sat on that chair in front of everyone that day, very straight, legs crossed “like a little lady” and was very confident for my tea party scene. I left the audition and stopped by the set of Grey’s to say hi, and before we got back to the car, our manager called us to let me know I got the job! That was a pretty cool moment. I have felt at home at General Hospital ever since. My brother Gabriel Sky got to work on General Hospital with me one day… I wish that could happen more, that was a fun day. I love working with my family.

Last year, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the show… That was a pretty important year. Every time there is a big celebration, a “wedding” or other, it’s always great to be with everyone and realise what a big family it is.

I had an instant deep connection with my two new on-screen parents. It was a great match for sure. So, when the storyline quickly made my mom run away from Port Charles, abandoning her daughter to her new dad, it was very sad. The fans were very upset too. They love Rebecca’s character and hope that she will return soon.

That being said we see each other from time to time in real life.

I was very proud when one day my picture was added to the opening credit among all the other main actors… I felt like I was finally REALLY part of the show, for real. It’s silly, but it made me happy.

The show, being a soap opera, has a been a great place to learn to become an actor because the days are short, the scenes are sweet and easy… we usually don’t shoot more than a few takes per scene. It’s also a pretty mellow script… no extreme violence, bad words, etc… Although, nowadays, I get a lot more dialogue and scenes and my days are longer. I guess I am growing up! Frank (Valentini) knows how to gradually turn kids into professional actors without them even noticing!

Have you had a favourite storyline to film so far and how is it seeing the fan response to Violet?

Violet’s first storyline when she arrived in Port Charles with her mom was my favourite. The fans were so excited for Dr. Finn to have a daughter! Violet instantly got a lot of love from the fans… they are nothing but sweet.

Favourite storyline yet to come will be when Violet’s mom finally comes back. There could be some good drama… I don’t know… we all hope she would crash the wedding between Finn and… her sister! Some perfect soap drama!

What is Violet like to play and how has it been developing her over the years?

It’s been fun to go through the first years of not saying much at all, to now, where I get really fun and long scenes. I feel like one of the grown ups now. Violet has become a very well-liked little character on the show. I think the fans enjoy having a few fun kids around to disturb the adult stories a bit. Violet is turning out to be a mischievous little girl at times. Sometimes she has a little bit of attitude, but she always comes back to her sweet self most of the time. She is also the heart of the party… she likes to entertain… tea parties… art making… and now she sings!

How did you find the experience attending the 2023 Daytime Emmy Awards in December and what was it like collecting the award for Outstanding Drama Series?

THAT was incredible! At first I wasn’t even supposed to go! So finding myself there, walking the red carpet, answering the journalists’ questions and taking pictures with the rest of the guests while wearing a pretty dress was just a whole lot of fun! Who doesn’t like to play dress up once in a while… although I am usually more of a comfy sweatpants kind of kid. Then, when we got inside the big ballroom for the awards, I got very emotional, I just felt very happy to be there! My first awards ceremony!

The show went on and General Hospital was first called on stage to honour their 60th anniversary, so I got to go on stage with everyone, and already, I thought that was so cool! So, when at the very end came the Best Drama Series award, and General Hospital won, I just remember screaming so loud! I was so excited, jumping up and down, and then ran to the stage! I think I was there first! I waited for Frank to walk up of course… and I was just over the moon!

The rest of the evening was just a great party with a lot of dancing with everyone. It’s nice to see everyone having fun together outside of the set… I love it.

You just got nominated for your first Daytime Emmy award for Best Original Song for Shine at nine years old, can you tell us about this?

OMG, what an insane surprise and gift!!! Sometimes, Frank Valentini lets the actors who also sing perform their original songs on the show; often during the annual Nurses’ Ball. I always thought that someday I would too! I love singing. I have been singing and making songs up since I can remember. I think I actually want to become a singer even more than I want to be an actor. So, one day, I went up to Frank, our producer, and asked him when he would write a scene for me where I could sing my song! He didn’t know I sang, so he asked me to send him my song… which we did … and he liked it and wrote me that sweet scene where I would sing to my family by the Christmas tree. My song is called Shine.

I had first recorded that song Shine on my iPad… I used to create a lot of songs on an app called Demo… I brought it up to my music teacher Derek Deblieux and he made a guitar track for it and helped me turn it into a well-structured song. Then, to make the song right for the show, my producer and godfather, Douglas Ladnier, as well as John Shartzer, who are both amazing singers and musicians, worked with me to make and record a version that would be right for the show, with a guitar track that my “uncle” Chase could strum in the scene. I was very excited. I had to sing it live and I only had two takes to do so. It went very well. I was happy. People really liked it.

It was a very special moment for me. But I would have never imagined that it would be nominated for an Emmy! I have even bigger plans for this song and so starting like this is just incredible!

The most amazing thing is that the news came to me straight from Frank while I was on my last day of a long week of shooting on General Hospital and… it’s just so, so, so great. I am so grateful. Frank is very nice, he always comes by the set when I am working, he is a great boss, I like him very much and I like to make him proud.

Also, last week, I got to sing my second original song on the show, for a wedding, it’s called True Love, and I also think it is another great song. I feel very lucky because if I happen to play Violet on General Hospital for a very long time, I also get to be a bit of myself on it and if she becomes a bit of a singer, it makes me work on a lot of new songs for the show… at least I hope! It’s fun. Who knows, maybe my first record will be made of songs I had to create for General Hospital!

Now the awards are on June 7th and it will be so fun to be there with my own nomination! I can’t wait… I can’t wait for everyone to hear my song soon… We are finally going to release it on all the platforms now that it is nominated. So fun!

How would you describe Cooper Ormewood in Will Trent and how is it getting into character?

Cooper is not quite like Violet. First of all, she has a brother! Actually, let me tell you a sad, sad fact: she used to have a twin sister on Season 1, or at least that’s what we thought… played by who is now one of my best friends in life, thanks to the show, Michaela Baham. But in Season 2, she was gone! So sad.

Cooper is fun, again, she gets along with adults, she invites people over for potluck parties… but her hair is always a bit messy because her mom has been gone for a while and her dad is not quite as good as her dad on General Hospital… I guess… (Violet’s hair is never messy on GH!). Overall, I guess they are kind of similar… and I like playing both.

What is Will Trent like to be part of and how was it returning to film Series 2?

It’s different, but everyone is great there too. It’s not like soap… every scene takes pretty much all day to shoot! Unlike General Hospital where they film a whole episode in one day!

Also, Will Trent shoots in Atlanta and since I got to be in quite a few episodes of it this season, I have been doing a lot of travelling back and forth between the two shows… on opposite sides of the country, but I am NOT complaining! I was actually very excited to return for Season 2. And… I just heard that, next year, Will Trent will shoot 24 episodes so I am excited for what’s next on Will Trent. Hopefully Cooper sticks around a lot.

You played Ghost Kid/Chica’s Soul in the recent film adaptation of Five Nights at Freddy’s, what was it like on set of the horror film and how did you feel finding out you’d booked the role?

This was a small but very exciting part because every kid knows of Five Nights at Freddy’s and we all wanted to be part of it! Actually, the only one who had no idea what Five Nights at Freddy’s was in the family was my dad (Jade Kindar-Martin), and he actually booked one of the main roles as BONNIE! When he came home and told my brother Gabriel, who is a huge fan, that he was playing a big blue bunny in a new horror movie, my brother almost lost it. Then he and I auditioned for the ghost kid parts and both got a callback… our first in-person audition since COVID… we were in LA that day and the audition was all the way in New Orleans, where we live most of the time… we knew it was important to make it in person, so we jumped on a plane, which happened to be delayed by nine hours, to make it there on time the next morning. We were exhausted. But we were right to go… I got the part. My two brothers managed to get a small part in it too, just to say that they were in it! My mom is a stuntwoman and she also worked on the show, so at the end, my whole family worked on it. Pretty cool.

I made a lot of new friends on the show, which is always the best part of any one of these “jobs”. I wish I had a bigger part in it, but actually, because the fandom is so big, and the fact that ultimately my character is the soul of Chica, it brought me a lot of fans who are really fun. They make fan art of our characters and send a lot of messages. Also, it opened a lot of new doors as we sometimes get invited to Comic Cons and fan events to meet them all.

What was it like playing Young Candy (Elizabeth Olsen) in Love & Death and 5-Year-Old Mary (Meg Donnelly) in The Winchesters?

Actually, in Love & Death, I just had to scream with fake blood on my head, laying on a stretcher… pretty quick… but fun! A bit scary. I had never had fake blood on me before.

On The Winchesters, I was really excited because I got to meet my favourite actress, Meg Donnelly, who I watch on Zombies. I had no idea I was going to play her young self, so when she showed up, I was a little starstruck!

How was it working on the feature films Quiz Lady, Renfield and We Have a Ghost?

All these were pretty small parts, except for We Have a Ghost where I had fun playing Junebug next to David Harbour. It’s funny to work with people you are used to seeing on other shows… and often, they look so different!

How did you get into acting and was it something you always wanted to do?

I started when I was about four. Maybe even three, in a Citbank commercial where my brother Gabriel Sky and I got to hang on our father’s leg, dragging us around while pretending to be a dinosaur. Then, I was part of the short movie Rose directed by Nicolas Bosc, in which I played Rose, and I got an honourable mention for Best Child Actor at the Independent Shorts Awards in 2019. Of course, I was too young to choose to do this. My older brother, Raphael Luce, is the one that wanted to do acting, so my parents, who also work on set as stunt performers, decided to take the whole family and move back to LA from France (where they had moved to for a few years to raise us away from the Hollywood life) and give all of us a chance to act, as long as we all did it seriously, while having fun too. And so far, we are all doing it at different degrees and getting a lot of fun experiences. My parents are Cirque du Soleil performers, stunt people, high-wire walkers… Our life is very full, we are constantly travelling to wherever the new adventure calls us… while living on a bus… on a boat… here and there! They set goals… and we go!

What are some of your favourite films and TV shows to watch?

I love the original series: Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Zombies, Julie and the Phantoms, and Cinderella (the movie).

How do you like to spend your free time?

I used to practice a bit of gymnastics or doing hand balancing with my dad… not lately though.

I love to make songs either on my ukulele, on my iPad or while gaming with my music teacher Derek… I like to just play with my friends when I can and laugh a lot, especially when I play Monkey Tag on the oculus. I also love watching funny home videos with my mom, or just be silly and put makeup on. Sometimes we have parties on our boat, so I would improvise a concert with change of costumes.

When we have time for vacations, I love to go to farm camp in Vermont, or spend time in France, at our house Mas Pinet or in Paris.

What is it like attending events such as The Official General Hospital Fan Club Weekend and Comic Cons?

I have only gone to a few so far: a couple to meet the General Hospital fans, and that was very exciting because it was my first time and everyone was so nice. I got to be on stage with the ladies of General Hospital, it was a lot of fun. The General Hospital fans are very loyal and they have been fans of the show for so long! Some, most of them, will tell me “I have been watching the show for as long as I can remember!” “For me, it’s been 35 years!” Etc… I mean. I am just the new kid in the show, I can’t relate! They know all the characters and the ones of the past 60 years! General Hospital is like a second family to them too!

I am about to shoot my 100th show and that’s like a lifetime for me! You never know! I could still be on the show in 30 years… or I could be done tomorrow! We do not know how life turns on the show. I could get kidnapped and reappear many years later! But… I hope I get to stay for a while because I like working at General Hospital very much.

And now, I also get to meet other types of fans because of Five Nights at Freddy’s. It’s very different! The fans are young and they are very passionate about the characters and even though my character only appeared briefly, we represent the souls of the animatronics, mine being Chica, and so that has brought a lot of fans to us.

My dad plays Bonnie so he has been going to a lot of Comic Cons and my brother Raphael Luce, playing Young Vecna in Stranger Things also got him invited to many conventions all over the world… He has done so many conventions in two years that my mom became a Comic Con agent for him and many other actors around us! We always meet fun people at conventions. It’s a lot of fun.

So, a few months ago, we got to travel all the way to Peru as a family for a Comic Con in Lima. It was incredible because that allowed us to go as a family and visit Machu Picchu! How great it is that we can travel to fun places while meeting the fans!

Do you have any further projects coming up that you can tell us about and what are you hoping this year brings for you?

You mean… other than more General Hospital and more Will Trent and more song making? No… Maybe… I am always auditioning so let’s see what this year brings!

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