NBC’s new medical mockumentary comedy St. Denis Medical is delivering laughter mixed with realism and relatable stories. The show is also filled with familiar faces, including Josh Lawson, who plays Bruce, a confident trauma surgeon. If he looks familiar he should be from his time on Superstore (also created by Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin).
In St. Denis Medical, Bruce gives off this confidence around his staff. As we have seen from St. Denis Medical Season 1, Episode 7, “50 cc’s of Kindness,” and Episode 10, “People Just Say Stuff Online,” it might be more of a cover than expected. And that made us want to know how Lawson approached this character, who appears to be one thing but has a lot of depth.
Fangirlish had the opportunity to sit down and chat with him about his role on St. Denis Medical. We got to talk about what made him want to play a character like Bruce. We also asked if he was surprised by how much St. Denis Medical has resonated with actual medical professionals and what it’s like to make those comedic moments between him and David Alan Grier so natural.
More: What did we think about the latest episode of St. Denis Medical? Read our review of St. Denis Medical Season 1 Episode 11 “Nobody Even Mentions the Brownies.”
On Bruce’s Vulnerability
“I think that’s one of the great things about television is that over time you can start uncovering more, and more, and more, and you don’t have to get it all in in the first 30 minutes or something,” Lawson said Bruce’s surprising vulnerability before continuing, “Not only are the writers discovering more about each character as it goes on, we kind of discover it as we get each script, and we’re like, ‘Okay, cool,’ so we learn as we go, I think.”
But Bruce is interesting, for Lawson and the viewer, because he perceives himself to be high-status. “He is pretty egocentric, it’s important to make sure he’s got these vulnerabilities so that we endear ourselves to him. It would be easy to kind of dislike Bruce, I think, but hopefully, we see him, you know, screw up enough and those little clues as to why he’s overcompensating with confidence and arrogance for us to go: ‘I think there’s something in there for us to like.’”
We can understand this. If Bruce didn’t have those vulnerabilities, he definitely would be a character that comes off as hard to like. But he’s become a favorite. Honestly, we think that has a lot to do with how Lawson plays him. He makes you want to care about Bruce.
On Resonating With People in the Medical Community
“That was always paramount as a concern for everyone, not just the cast, but the creators and showrunners. I think everyone, producers and network, wanted to make sure that we were telling it truthfully,” Lawson said. He went on to reveal that this means that they have medical technicians on set to make sure they know what they’re doing.
On the authenticity of it all, he said, “We wanted to make sure that it was […] truthful. And that we were honoring front-line workers. But then, we didn’t want it to be so esoteric that everyone couldn’t relate. The packaging is set in a hospital. But at the heart of it is a workplace like any other. Even if you don’t work in a hospital, you know someone like Bruce in your office or someone like Ron or Serena. We’ve all got something to connect with within those character dynamics.”
As someone in the medical profession, I agree with this. I worked in bedside nursing care for years and transitioned into an office setting. When caring for patients, I knew my fair share of Bruce’s, Ron’s, and Serena’s. And that continued even after leaving the floor.
So, as Josh Lawson stated, anyone can relate to St. Denis Medical. Plus, who doesn’t love a good laugh? St. Denis Medical is filled with them. And that led us to our next question.
On Delivering Those Comedic Moments With David Alan Grier
On St. Denis Medical, Lawson’s character Bruce finds himself constantly bouncing off of David Alan Grier, who plays Ron. And for the viewer, we end up getting comedy gold. For Lawson, he loves having these comedic moments with Grier. “David’s character is so defined as well as sort of a disenfranchised, beleaguered, elder statesman who’s, like, ‘Come on man, do I have to do this again?’ He’s seen so much that he finds the job irritating.”
That’s where Bruce comes in. “And Bruce is what Bruce is, so having those two kinds of alpha types in the hospital warring about something so petty was, I agree, one of my favorite storylines to play because outside of this ridiculous feud, life and death is being wrestled with inside the hospital and all these two doctors care about is who’s going to eat the last Nutrageous bar yeah it was a great story.”
To close out our interview with Lawson we wanted to know what it was about the character of Bruce that made him want to play him after working on shows like The Strange Chores and Superstore. This being Hollywood, he put the choice all up to the team behind St. Denis Medical.
“Really, it was the team,” Lawson said. “It was the team of Justin and Eric. I just trusted them so much because I’d worked with them on Superstore, and I knew that they just understand this so well and so much better than others. This style of comedy is so popular when it’s done right and I trusted them to be able to do it right. So it was a no-brainer for me really.”
We hope Josh Lawson gets to keep on delivering laughs on the show for years to come.
St. Denis Medical airs Tuesday Nights at 8/7c on NBC.
