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How New York City Plays a Crucial Role in the New Medical Drama Brilliant Minds
The locale of the new Zachary Quinto-led series is an extension of the real neurologist who inspired it.
Brilliant Minds, the upcoming NBC medical drama that debuts on September 23, is a contemporary series set in New York City that draws its medical mysteries from the real-life case studies of British neurologist and author Dr. Oliver Sacks (1933-2015). Through the fictional character Dr. Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto) — who is wooed back to be the Attending of Neurology at Bronx General Hospital by Chief of Psychiatry Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry) — audiences will dive into a world of compelling neurological mysteries first explored in Sacks' non-fiction case studies.
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Aside from Wolf, Pierce, and their eager interns, another character in the series is New York City — both literally and figuratively. It is the setting for the series (though Brilliant Minds is actually filmed in Toronto, Canada), and a source of the incredible talent appearing throughout the season. Creator and showrunner Michael Grassi sat down with NBC Insider to talk about his love for the talent pool in NYC and why the city was so important to Sacks.
A Brilliant New York State of Mind
While Dr. Oliver Sacks was born in England, his professional life moved him all over the world to study and practice. But he spent a considerable amount of his life in New York and its boroughs. In Brilliant Minds, Dr. Wolf works at Bronx General but in real life, Sacks worked at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx. Sacks also held an appointment at New York University School of Medicine and was a faculty member at Columbia University Medical Center. As such, showrunner Michael Grassi wanted to make sure that New York City served as the backdrop for this series — and as a source of talent.
"The last two shows I did were New York shows," Grassi explained, referring to Katy Keene and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. "They were shot in New York, with New York casting directors. So when we set up this show in Toronto, we knew that we would have an amazing talent pool in Toronto, but we would also be casting in New York because that's a pool I'm really familiar [with]. I also live in New York part-time, and I see a lot of theater and I see so many incredible actors."
RELATED: How Brilliant Minds Connects to Groundbreaking Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks
Grassi said he took his cues from other "outside the box" procedural dramas that pull from New York actor talent, like The Good Fight and Evil.
"When I started creating Brilliant Minds, I loved that [The Good Fight] took a legal drama and told it in a brand-new way I'd never seen before," he said. "And that was my intention with Brilliant Minds. I was like, 'How do I deliver on everything we love about medical dramas, but through this really unique lens that we've never seen before with incredible actors and incredible character stories, while getting to know these people?'"
Who Stars (and Guest Stars) in Brilliant Minds?
The result is the already impressive core cast of Quinto, Perry, Teddy Sears, and Donna Murphy. And announced guest stars for Season 1 include Broadway greats Mandy Patinkin, Steve Howey, and André De Shields.
Brilliant Minds premieres on NBC on September 23.
