Season one of NBC’s Chicago Med starring Colin Donnell, Torrey DeVitto, and Oliver Platt is currently airing on Tuesday at 9pm ET/PT, quickly becoming an important part of the Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire universe the network’s established. Storylines merge and casts crossover to guest starring appearances among the three shows, opening up the Chicago world to more detailed, complex stories.
NBC presented a Chicago Med/Chicago Fire/Chicago P.D. panel at the Television Critics Association 2016 event in Los Angeles and following the panel Chicago Med‘s Colin Donnell spoke with a small group of reporters about being a part of a medical drama and joining NBC’s Chicago world.
Colin Donnell Interview:
Were you a fan of medical shows before Chicago Med?
Colin Donnell: “I was a huge fan of ER, Chicago Hope. I would be lying if I said I have many, many shows that I sit down and watch end to end. But ER has always been one that stuck in my brain. I don’t know if I ever pictured myself being a doctor on TV, but I’m happy to be one. My wife even got me a shirt that says, ‘I’m not a doctor. I just play one on TV.’ It feels a little weird wearing it now, but…
What’s great about these shows and what’s so unique, obviously, if you take a look at the pictures is that there’s a huge family of people out there. And when you start to be able to blend all of those stories together, it becomes something way beyond just a medical show. It becomes something truly about people that are running a hospital.”
How are you doing with the jargon?
Colin Donnell: “I’m pretty good. I’m getting better. Doing tongue-twisters as a kid I think is helping out.”
Police shows and medical shows are so popular. Did you think one would come your way?
Colin Donnell: “Yeah. I mean, I’ve got to say TV is sort of still a new thing for me so Arrow was my first one – or Pan Am if you want to go back a little bit further. So, I’m just happy to be working in television, honestly. I’ve always felt like sort of a theatre gypsy and I was happy to be working there. And then all of a sudden when these opportunities started presenting themselves, it was, ‘Sure, I’ll play a reporter. Sure, I’ll play a billionaire playboy. Sure, I’ll play be a drug addict coke dealer.’ I just have a great time.”
Isn’t it the great drama of medical shows that no matter what symptoms you’re dealing with, every patient is different? You could deal with the same disease and still tell different stories.
Colin Donnell: “The beauty of being a medical show and the reason I think they’ve been around so long is that there is such a depth to the well of stories that we can draw from. And exactly as you said, no two problems are ever the same. You look at the common cold on one person and they can be five years-old and perfectly healthy within five minutes, and then you can have the same common cold in somebody who’s 85 years old and it’s a life-threatening illness. So, it’s cool. And we’re dealing with all of these things that go beyond just the medicine. Really, we’re starting to tackle issues of health care and it’s really cool. There’s a wealth of storylines to start drawing from that.”
Part of the medical show relationships is that the doctor gets close to the patient for one week, and then they’re gone. Do you get close to the guest stars and then they’re gone?
Colin Donnell: “Certainly. We’ve been really, really blessed with a great group of people who are willing to come on and be poked and prodded by us. We have a great time. Some of the stuff that we’re doing lately is carrying over over multi-episode arcs and it’s great to have those people around. I love to be able to tell a story over multiple episodes. People don’t always get better in a day, so to be able to carry some of these same patients through one, two, three, four episodes is a privilege. We’ve been blessed with some really wonderful actors.”
Can you talk about all the interaction between all of the characters in the hospital? It seems like it’s this big web of characters.
Colin Donnell: “It is. I can’t speak highly enough about the cast, first and foremost. The way that they set up the show is that there’s a huge, wide, spread of different characters from administrative to psychiatry to surgery to trauma to ED to students, nurses, we have the whole gamut in the hospital. We have a good time. We have a real good time with each other; we personally love hanging out with each other. Before we ever set foot here, I heard so much about how the Fire set was such a lovely group of people. I was like, ‘That can’t be actually true,’ but it is. Because of them and the way that they set things up, it’s really been a wonderful filtering down process of informing how it’s supposed to go around here. It’s like we are here and we’re all making great television and we’re all going to have a great time doing it. You come in, you do your work, you go home to your family – or you go out and grab a drink and have a good time.”
Is there any chance you can come back on Arrow?
Colin Donnell: “As far as I know nothing’s in the works. I’ve been a little busy getting this guy off the ground.”
Did landing this show force them to resolve your arc maybe earlier than it would have resolved otherwise?
Colin Donnell: “You know, I don’t know if they ever really had long-term plans for anything with Tommy. Certainly they’ve always been happy for me for my successes, and happy to see me go off and do all sorts of things. Hopefully we can have a conversation and maybe squeeze in a couple of episodes here and there, if they’ve got ideas.”
