Nazneen Contractor never imagined she’d land a role on General Hospital when she visited the studio last fall. She was simply tagging along with her mother, a devoted GH fan, to see husband Carlo Rota, who plays Jenz Sidwell. But when she met executive producer Frank Valentini, things took a soap-worthy turn.
“He said, ‘Do you want to come be on the show?’” Contractor recalls. “I was just thinking that he’s being polite. As an actor, you hear that, and rarely anything comes of it.”
Luckily, Rota had the inside scoop. “Carlo came home and he said, ‘Frank said they need this big prosecuting lawyer for a courtroom scene, and I think he’s gonna write you into the show.’” Sure enough, a week later, Contractor got a call from her agents that she was offered a four-episode run as the lawyer, Justine Turner.
Once she arrived on set, Contractor, whose résumé includes a wealth of primetime work and a strong Shakespearean background, quickly realized this gig was unlike anything she’d done before. “Little did I know that it was going to be such a huge challenge,” she confesses. “Carlos explained the dynamic of the way soap operas run, and it’s just so fast and so furious. My first day, I had 71 pages of dialogue, and it was so intense. I have been doing this for over 20 years, and I have never been more nervous than when I stepped onto that sound stage.”
Disney/Christine Bartolucci
Thankfully, her co-stars were quick to put her at ease. “I got to work with so many of the core cast members in the Kristina Davis [Kate Mansi]/Ava Jerome [Maura West] trial,” she explains. “I got to question them on the witness stand, and I was not only blown away by their talent and their commitment and how I got wrapped up in their stories, but they were so kind, and they were so supportive of my big monologues. I came away feeling so lucky to have had that experience and thought that was the end of that.”
Then came an unexpected twist. In December, Rota returned from work with the news that Justine might not be done just yet. “Every month of 2025, I’ve been back on that show, prosecuting someone, investigating someone, and now I’ve become the acting district attorney, which is just amazing,” Contractor marvels. “It’s been a thrill to see how they’ve allowed this character to progress and really get into other people’s storylines and now become a part of Port Charles. I pinch myself, like, ‘How did this happen? This is great.’”
Since joining the cast, Contractor has gained a deep appreciation for the talent surrounding her. “These are the hardest working people in the industry,” she declares. “I have so much respect for their engine, their motor, their ability to drop in and drop out so quickly. They rehearse, they work very hard, they bring their A game, and they give 100 percent every single time. And that is not something that I can say about everyone I’ve worked with, and I’ve worked with some massive stars. It’s so easy to want to phone that stuff in, and they do not, and I think that really speaks to the success and the longevity of the show. I started my career at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where the stakes are so high and the storylines are so big, and that is the closest the soap opera world is for me. It really is like theater for television, so I love it.”
She also loves sharing scenes with Rota. Though they first met on Relic Hunter in 2001, facing off on GH has been an unexpected delight. “We’ve been married for 15 years, so we’ve worked together throughout our relationship and our careers many times before,” she reports. “But this has been very special because we are working locally, which is so wonderful. We can go to work and come home to our home, our kids, and our family. They’ve written scenes with us together, and it’s so much fun to be in character when they call action or they do the countdown, and then as soon as they call cut, to just be husband and wife again. It’s a great dynamic.”
Lately, Contractor has been diving into meatier material opposite Maurice Benard, as Justine goes toe-to-toe with the formidable Sonny Corinthos. “Working with Maurice is great,” she raves. “He is very present, and I don’t really know what he’s going to do, so it really forces me to be extremely open and very in the moment. I love that. And they certainly seem to be tying our storylines together. I like the sort of cat-and-mouse aspect of it. I like the fact that Justine is determined to take him down, but obviously, in that process, she’s seeing a different side of him. It’s fun for Justine to discover that he’s not entirely what he appears to be to her, and how she navigates the responsibility of doing her job with seeing this other side of him.”
With each episode, Contractor’s passion for the show — and her role in it — only grows deeper. “I feel super lucky,” she shares. “I want to give as much respect and honor to all the stuff that they’re giving my character and try and make her as interesting and as compelling as possible, because it’s a real gift. I feel like the writing, particularly for my character, just keeps getting stronger and stronger. There are scenes that I’ve read where I get goosebumps. How are the writers churning out this kind of material on a daily basis? I marvel at it. I really do. I feel very lucky as an actor to have this experience, because not many actors get to have it.”
If she has one wish moving forward, it’s more screen time with her real-life scene partner. “I really hope that the writers write more Sidwell/Turner stuff, because I think there’s actually a really good connection there,” she winks. “The only thing we have to figure out when we work together is child care. That’s the only drawback of when we’re both working at the same time.”
And to viewers still sizing up her alter ego, Contractor says, “There’s a lot more to Turner than meets the eye. Give her a chance. She’s a lot softer than we think.”
General Hospital, Weekdays, ABC, Check local listings. Streaming on Hulu