General Hospital star Jeff Kober believes in the future of his character.

The actor, 70, joined the cast of the long-running ABC soap opera in 2020 as antagonist Cyrus Renault. He has since become a fixture on the series, despite originally only being brought on for a brief time, according to an interview he did with TV Line.

Kober has had an on-and-off presence on the show since his debut, making his latest comeback in June 2023.

In the series, Cyrus was imprisoned for dealing drugs but he was eventually released. Now, the character claims to have found God after dealing with a nasty sickness.

While many fans are skeptical of his new journey, Kober believes that it is genuine.

“I think he’s sincere,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively. “If you’re pretending, you’re trying to make it as believable as possible. As an actor, you’re already pretending, so to pretend that you’re pretending is one step too far and it looks like bad acting. Regardless of the outcome, I have to play it as if I really believe it.”

But beyond what Kober needs to believe in order to give a solid performance, he thinks the revelation makes sense for Cyrus’ character arc.

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“I believe that this character went to the end result of a way of life and said, ‘Well, that didn’t work out so well.’ And had to drop everything and start over from scratch, and he found a hook somewhere and started pulling himself back out,” he explains.

He went on to say that his character is “just so desperate for love and so desperate for family.”

“People behave in the way that he behaves as a criminal because they’re terrified and because they’re trying to get filled up, what can’t be filled up,” Kober says. “I think he’s trying to get it filled up now with love and that would imply, you know, be nice.”

Earlier this month, Kober’s new movie Break was released on VOD platforms, which sees him portraying a pool champ and troublemaker. He praised his experience on the set while chatting with PEOPLE, saying, “Everyone was trying to make the best movie they could make.”

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The actor called the intimate set the “best kind.”

“Where people set aside their egos as much as possible,” he continued. “We’re humans, we have egos but set them aside and work for some common goal. It always goes better.”