DC #354: Sri Rao Interview

The second season of SOAPnet's General Hospital: Night Shift accomplished the unimaginable. For 13 weeks, GH's cable spin off told powerful, multi-generational tales of love, hope and mortality, all primarily set in the soap's historic hospital. The series was truly a Valentine to long term fans of GH and beautifully explained to newer fans why iconic veterans like Tristan Rogers (Robert), Finola Hughes (Anna) and Antonio Sabato Jr. (Jagger) are so beloved. While making GH: Night Shift a success was a collaborative effort, it was one novice soap opera writing's vision of telling stories featuring the characters he grew up loving, as well as introducing an Indian doctor and telling a gay love story, that set Night Shift apart. That writer was Sri Rao.

On today's episode of the Daytime Confidential podcast Luke and Jamey have a conversation with Rao, A Wharton Business School graduate who gave up his high-powered career in Manhattan, to follow his true passion for being a writer and director. Rao offers a refreshingly unjaded perspective about everything from the use of veterans in daytime to the politics behind gay storytelling.

Rao shares the process he and his writing team embarked upon in giving larger-than-life superhero Robert Scorpio an all-too-real Achilles Heel in the form of cancer. He reveals how supportive ABC Daytime/SOAPnet head honcho Brian Frons was in allowing him the freedom to tell his stories and talks about the other projects his Sri Rao and Company are working on, including a teen drama series inspired by his boyhood love for My So Called Life called What Goes On and the Bollywood thriller New York. Rao also answers the question fans of Night Shift are dying to know: Would he ever consider bringing his passion and prowess over to daytime?