GH’S TAMARA BRAUN ON KIM’S NEW STORY

When Franco woke up with Drew’s memories courtesy of Dr. Cabot’s wild medical procedure, one of his first moves was to put the moves on Kim, who, as Drew, had been his lover years ago in San Diego.

The storyline shocker has shaken things up for two previously stable couples, Kim and Julian, and Elizabeth and Franco, and Tamara Braun (Kim) welcomes the injection of drama. “I was really excited about it,” she says of her reaction to learning of the plot twist. “I love Roger [Howarth, Franco] and Becky [Herbst, Elizabeth] together as ‘Friz’. I think they’re great, and I love working with Becky. I’ve never gotten the chance to work with Roger before but admire his work and I thought, ‘What a great opportunity for all three of us to get to work together and hopefully have good story.’ ”

When Braun first found out she’d be working closely with Howarth for the first time, “Oh, my God, I was so excited,” the actress recalls. “I was completely excited because he’s got such a different energy than pretty much any of the other guys on the show. I knew from working with him kind of like a minute here and a minute there, little scenes on the side, that he ad-libs a lot and comes up with stuff in rehearsal and that he’s really funny, so I’m looking forward to that. I don’t know if there’s going to be a lot of laughter in the scenes with Kim, but it would be nice! And with him playing Franco-as-Drew, I’m just looking forward to seeing what the two of us can create together because I think he’s a wonderful talent.”

Thus far, it has been a struggle for Kim to resist the pull of the memories Franco now possesses. “She is dealing with a human being standing in front of her recalling things that she wishes the other human being who has amnesia [Drew] remembers,” Braun points out. “The beauty of being in love, the beauty of falling in love, of having that newness and sharing memories and experiences together — it’s such a human thing, and Kim has been longing and yearning to share that again with Drew. When she saw Jason, thinking it was Drew, it was a shock. And then she finds out that Drew doesn’t look like himself, nor does he remember [his relationship with her] — I mean, that’s sad on a lot of levels.”

Even with the sci-fi element the flash drive represents, Braun believes that ultimately, the story GH is telling is classic soap. “How is this flash drive situation different from the amnesia stories we play all the time in soap operas? It’s not, really,” she opines. “I don’t approach it any differently than I would anything else. You buy into the relationship and the human being standing in front of you.”