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Inside the Brilliant Minds Premiere: "We Could Do This Show for Seven Years" & Not Run Out of Inspiration
Creator Michael Grassi, actor Zachary Quinto, and advisor Kate Edgar provide insight into the pilot episode.
This story contains spoilers for the pilot episode of Brilliant Minds.
With the first episode of NBC's new medical drama Brilliant Minds, audiences finally get to see showrunner Michael Grassi and actor Zachary Quinto's contemporary take on world-renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks.
A pioneer in compassionately diagnosing and treating patients with a variety of neurological disorders, Sacks helped to de-stigmatize rare conditions via his case studies that became bestselling books and through his vocal advocacy on behalf of all patients seeking quality care. Sacks passed away from cancer in 2015 but his legacy is front and center in Brilliant Minds, which draws from the cases in two of his books and elements of the doctor's life in Quinto's portrayal of Dr. Oliver Wolf.
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For the premiere episode, NBC Insider spoke with Grassi, Quinto, and Kate Edgar, Sacks' friend, former editor, and the current director of The Oliver Sacks Foundation, to discuss some of the big themes of the episode.
Opening with the power of music
The opening prologue of Brilliants Minds features Dr. Wolf helping Harold (guest star Andre de Shields), an Alzheimers patient, reconnect to his love of music. Wolf's unconventional choice to whisk Harold away from his elder care facility via motorcycle to New York City to sing at his granddaughter's wedding is indicative of the ways in which Sacks would also go the extra mile to find quality-of-life moments for his patients.
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It was that scene in particular that Edgar said reinforced to her how the series was going to go about channeling Sacks' spirit.
"I love that very opening scene of the pilot," she shared. "It's just wonderful [using] the power of music and it's told so compactly and brilliantly.
"Michael's done a brilliant job at showing the audience what a [patient's] world is," she continued. "Whether it's a guy who's hallucinating, or someone who has locked-in syndrome, he puts us in that person's place so we are able to empathize and understand. I think that's huge and it's also somewhat overdue, partly because it is so difficult to portray these things. But neuroscience has become one of the most popular disciplines in medicine for medical students to go into. There's a real fascination, and we are certainly in the age of major, major breakthroughs in neuroscience, so this [series] goes very much in step with that."
Quinto on finding the alchemy for his portrayal of Wolf
While the series is inspired by Sacks' life and writings, Quinto explained that the fictional character of Dr. Wolf is a mix of many different elements.
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"We're telling a story in modern day where I play a character who is a fictional creation of my imagination, and my collaboration with Michael Grassi, our incredible showrunner, and the staff of writers that helped us flesh out these stories," he told NBC Insider of how Wolf came together in his mind. "I've never had an experience like this before, where I have the benefit of all of that source material, not to mention the articles [Sacks] wrote for The New Yorker and The New York Times, the TED Talks he's given, the lectures, and the interviews.
"It's insane!" he continued. "We could do this show for seven years and I'd still not get to the end of all the source material. But I'm not tethered to any of the vocal mannerisms or physical characteristics of Oliver Sacks himself because we're exploring what would a person like Oliver Sacks experience in today's world? And how can audiences see themselves from today's perspective in the world that we're building around someone so revolutionary and so inspiring as Sacks was."
The interns who will bring Wolf out of his shell
Even with all that inspiration at his fingertips, Quinto's Dr. Wolf isn't the only character in the series. Brilliant Minds also introduces four original characters in the Bronx General interns assigned to Wolf by Dr. Carol Pierce (Tamberla Perry).
Meant to be a bridge between the time of Sacks' career — he primarily practiced medicine in the mid-to-late 20th Century — and more contemporary neurology practices, Grassi said the interns help round out the medical procedural aspect of the show with case-of-the-week-style patients they endeavor to diagnosis.
"The interns are a really fun way to infuse fun and levity into the show," he explained.
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"It's a high-octane workplace drama," Grassi continued. "All of these doctors, including the interns, are working day and night to help people in their mental health. At the same time, they are neglecting their own mental health in little and big ways, in a way that's really relatable. I think everyone, including myself, is dealing with mental health, or know someone who is struggling. I hope that audiences can come and find themselves either in our doctors, or one of the interns, or even the patients and know that they're not alone."
Brilliant Minds airs new episodes on Mondays on NBC at 10/9c.
