St. Denis Medical Cast Say Their Moms Inspired Their Characters
These two funny ladies looked to their own mom's to infuse authenticity into their St. Denis Medical characters.
When an actor is looking to create a truly memorable character, they often draw inspiration from consequential people in their own lives. And it doesn't get more personal than daughters looking to their mom's. Just ask actresses Allison Tolman (Fargo) and Wendi McLendon-Covey (The Goldbergs) who admitted to NBC Insider they both drew from their real life mothers in crafting the personality quirks of their characters for St. Denis Medical.
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NBC’s newest workplace comedy, St. Denis Medical, is a "mockumentary" style comedy set at a fictional, understaffed Oregon hospital where the dedicated doctors and nurses try their best to treat patients while maintaining their own sanity.
Tolman's Nurse Alex and McLendon-Covey's hospital administrator, Joyce, are just two of many big personalities prowling the wings of St. Denis Medical. To find their perfect extremes, these two cast members explain why their mom's are so present in their portrayals.
How Allison Tolman's mom inspired her character, Alex
To get to the heart of recently promoted nurse Alex, Tolman said she has a two prong approach in making her character as authentic as possible. For Alex's overall compassion and support, Tolman said she looked back to her own recent family medical issue where the nurses helped get her through the daily stresses.
When it came to Alex feeling pulled in multiple personal and professional directions, Tolman said she looked to her mom's propensity for perpetual motion.
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"My mother is a person who is always has to be moving," Tolman shared. "She's always got something going on, and she can't sit still for very long. She was retired for like, three months before she was like, 'I'm gonna raise orphan dogs and cats,' and she still does that. She can't be still, so there's a lot of my mom in Alex, that energy."
McLendon-Covey channels her mom into Joyce
For prickly St. Denis administrator, Joyce, McLendon-Covey said she channeled some of her mom's more trying personality tics.
"My mom is always just a little bit put upon, and a little bit like, 'Didn't I just say that?' She's trying to keep it positive, but she is annoyed," the comedian said with a laugh about her mom's low patience threshold.
"The thing with Joyce is she is good at her job, but she's not great with people, because why would you be?" she continued. "You just have to get things done. It's life or death. She can't sugarcoat things, and she's lost her patience, and she's irritated. She used to be an oncologist, and then she got into admin running this hospital, probably thinking, 'I'm gonna change things from the inside.' And then she screwed herself, because now it's just a constant grind of trying to get money and she's pushing this hospital uphill in front of her."
"She's kind of had it," she added with an exhausted laugh. "She's like, 'Just let me swallow some iced coffee and get this day going. Let's just go already.' So she's gonna die alone, probably. She's not pleasant. Doesn't have a lot of friends. She's not a cuddly lady."
Feel the mom energy wafting through St. Denis Medical, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming the next day on Peacock.
