‘General Hospital’ Spoilers: Valerie Pops Up Again, Paulina Bugembe Talks Taking Over Role From Brytni Sarpy

The last that viewers saw of Valerie Spencer, she was walking away after arguing with Kristina Corinthos-Davis about Dawn of Day. General Hospital spoilers reveal that Valerie will be front-and-center during the week of April 22, but she’ll be looking a little different.

As The Inquisitr previously detailed, General Hospital spoilers indicate that the show decided to recast the character of Valerie rather than just write her out of the show. Brytni Sarpy, who originated the role, left GH to take a juicy gig over at The Young and the Restless as Elena.

Paulina Bugembe is the new Valerie and she chatted with Soap Opera Digest about landing the role and what she hopes happens as her storyline kicks into gear. General Hospital spoilers indicate that Valerie will be working with Chase to find Kristina. According to SheKnows Soaps, by the end of the coming week, she will seemingly be right in the thick of things with Kristina herself.

Bugembe moved to Los Angeles with a focus on directing, planning to go to graduate school in California. Paulina was born in Wisconsin and went on to live in places like Honolulu and Tokyo, and she explains that she took an acting class to better understand being on that side of the camera.

As it turns out, Bugembe realized she liked acting and found that she had a knack for it. After completing her classes, she started auditioning and she has previously been seen on shows like The Good Place and Scandal. It turns out that Paulina had already auditioned for the General Hospital casting director before this Valerie recast opportunity presented itself – most recently as the show was replacing Vinessa Antoine and the role of Jordan.

Now that Bugembe has been filming on the General Hospital set, she says that she loves everybody she’s had a chance to work with so far. She has spent a lot of time with Josh Swickard (Chase) and she’s enjoying developing the character of Valerie further. However, Paulina admits that it did make her anxious to learn she was joining the show as a recast.

“When I first realized I was coming in as a recast, I was a little nervous, only because Brytni had already created this character and I wanted to respect what she had created, but also make it my own. That’s a fine line of balancing that you have to do, but I’m excited to take what Brytni has done and move Valerie into the future, to have Valerie experience things through my lens.”

Could those upcoming experiences for Valerie include a romance with Kristina? As General Hospital fans will remember, Kristina surprised Valerie by planting a kiss on her several months back and it caused some upheaval in their friendship. However, spoilers suggest that this potential romance will likely be revisited.

Bugembe shares that she watched the kiss between Valerie and Kristina as research and she is “definitely interested in exploring that.”

Fans will certainly be interested to see what the writers do with Valerie now that they have chosen to bring in a recast. When it was revealed that Brytni Sarpy was leaving General Hospital, it seemed likely that the character would just disappear.

Now, however, spoilers suggest that there are big things on the horizon for Valerie Spencer. General Hospital viewers will get their first glimpse at Paulina Bugembe in the role during the coming week.