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Josh Lawson On the Difference Between His St. Denis Medical and Superstore Characters
Even the actor sometimes wonders what planet Dr. Bruce is from on St. Denis Medical.
For anyone who's had a co-worker that seemingly lives on their own plane of existence and just visits your workplace as a lark, NBC's hit comedy St. Denis Medical sees you and offers up Dr. Bruce as a peak example of the phenomenon.
Loud, brash, and possessing a world-class god complex, Dr. Bruce the surgeon is hilariously brought to life every week by Australian actor Josh Lawson. Arguably the biggest personality to roam the St. Denis Hospital halls — we know Joyce may want a word — but Dr. Bruce gets away with the extreme braggadocio because he is a very good surgeon.
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With the comedy on mini holiday hiatus until it returns with all-new episodes starting on January 14, 2025, NBC Insider figured it was the perfect time to ask Lawson about what he thinks makes Bruce tick, how Bruce compares to his arrogant Superstore character, and why shifting from the funny to the serious in this show works so well?
Josh Lawson also wonders if Bruce "is tethered to reality"
With audiences having seen half a dozen episodes of Dr. Bruce in action on St. Denis Medical, a typical reaction to his antics is: "Is this guy for real?" And that's something Lawson often thinks as well.
"In some ways, I wrestle with some of that as well," the actor laughed. "I was like, 'Is he tethered to reality?' Until I had to shift my perspective and go, 'Oh, no, he is. It's just his reality and that is different to actual reality.'"
Lawson said once he made that shift in his own mind that everything Bruce did was truthful to his experience, then he made a lot more sense to play and understand.
"He lives on Planet Bruce, where everything's run by President Bruce and Vice President Bruce," he joked. "And that helped a lot."
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But what makes a guy like Bruce tick? What gets him into the hospital everyday, so he can help save lives?
Josh Lawson on the difference between Dr. Bruce and Tate the Pharmacist
If you know Lawson's work in Superstore, he sort of tackled a similar character in Tate Staskiewicz, the store's pharmacist. Lawson said that he quickly figured out what made the two men different.
"I think Bruce is a very positive person," the actor assessed. "If you take Tate, who I played in Superstore, in some ways, they share something which is a bit of a god complex, right? They definitely have this overabundance of ego. But where they're different is Tate is quite rage driven. He's quite angry being stuck in this job. Bruce is not that at all.
"In fact, Bruce is quite blissful and nothing's a problem, because Bruce is here!" he continued. "I find that is quite liberating, actually, that Bruce is like, 'Why would anyone have a problem with anything? I'm here and I can solve everything.' And in some ways, you don't mind spending too much time with him, because of that deluded positivity."
Balancing the funny and the serious on St. Denis Medical
Asked if it's hard to find a balance playing someone as big as Bruce, and then having to pivot to the show's more serious medical material in any given scene, Lawson said he's found the way into that shift.
"In some ways, every character kind of has their own reality," he said. "But what's great about those medical emergencies is it actually draws all the characters into a shared reality, right? And that really is important too. No matter what story lines we're doing, once one of those high stakes, life and death emergencies happen, we're sucked in, and we're all synergized. And that, I think, grounds the show. From there, we can go off again and do different things. But it's really important that we share a seriousness about that aspect of the hospital."
Catch new episodes of St. Denis Medical when they premiere on Tuesday on NBC at 8/7c to find out. Episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
