Jeff Kober Reflects on Deaths of General Hospital Cast Members: 'Always Makes Me More Aware of Where I Am' (Exclusive)

Jeff Kober is using the tragedies recently faced by the General Hospital cast to share an important message about embracing life to the fullest.

Over the years, several actors from the long-running ABC soap opera have died – most recently Johnny Wactor and Jackie Zeman. Kober, 70, who has starred as Cyrus Renault in the series since 2020, spoke with PEOPLE about how those losses have affected him, particularly when it’s time for him to return to set. 

"There are a couple of hard ones, you know,” he says. “It always makes me more aware of where I am and how I'm being. I want the last thing I've said to anyone to be something in the direction of ‘I love you and I'm grateful that you're in my life.'"

He continues, "I don't need to say that, but it would be great if people I was working with knew that. So that if one of us doesn't show up again, that's the memory."

Earlier this week, General Hospital paid tribute to late cast member Wactor – who played Brando Corbin on the show from 2020 to 2022 – by concluding the episode with a title card in memory of the late soap star, according to TV Line. 

The actor, 37, was fatally shot and killed on May 25 while walking towards his car after his bartending shift in Downtown Los Angeles.

Along with the aforementioned actors, the drama series has recently lost stars Sonya Eddy, Billy Miller, Tyler Christopher and Jay Pickett.

Kober went on to share which of his castmates he’s currently closest to, while also lamenting on the wave of character deaths in the series.

"Genie probably, Genie Francis," he says, naming the actress who played Laura Spencer as someone he's very close with. "I would say I'm closest to her in that we both get excited when we can work together because both of us want to make it as rich as possible and, you know, find the dangerous areas of it and see what happens there."

"Greg Harrison and I go way back but his character just passed away," Kober adds. "And Roger Howarth, he was a good friend and his character passed away. Yeah, the people that I've been closest to have all gone away in some way or another."

Last week, Kober's new movie Break released on VOD streaming platforms, in which he plays a pool champ and troublemaker. He praised his time on set while chatting with PEOPLE, saying that "everyone was trying to make the best movie they could make."

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"I don't know if everyone says that but I know that's not the case everywhere you go. Oftentimes, it's a very split group where everyone's taking care of their own business and they're not pulling together to have one experience," he says. "This one, because of the limited budget, the limited amount of time we had, and the need to choreograph things so precisely, everyone was working toward that one end."