After leaving “Chicago Med” fans on the edge of their seat, they give us a taste of what’s to come.
The finale of last season’s finale of Chicago Med was a cliffhanger if there ever was one. Oliver Platt finds himself shot by none other than one of his own psychiatric patients. Despite being wounded right in front of the hospital, his well being and survival is still up in the air. On top of all of that, is protege, Rachel’s character, is left confused and scrambling. She looks up to Oliver and even cites him as her inspiration to getting into the psychiatric field. Needless to say, both of their characters and audiences were sent for a loop.
With the upcoming season set to premiere soon, they were a bit more open when it came to talking about what’s to come, including Dr. Daniel Charles’ ultimate fate. Check out our interview with them below and get the latest scoop on what to expect in the upcoming season opener of Chicago Med.
Rachel DiPillo and Oliver Platt
Med returns at the end of the month, can you talk about some of the obstacles that each of your character’s faced this season? Without spoiling anything.
Rachel: That’s my biggest job today, figuring out how to talk about it without talking about it. So you saw the end of last season, you saw Dr. Charles got shot, you know he lives because he’s here today, talking.
Oliver: I’m Alive!
Rachel: So, I think it’s not too much of a spoiler to talk about how there are consequences to that event. The dynamic that these two character have, season 2, season 1, now you’re seeing how that dynamic is affected by a new death experience, in terms of how they relate to care, how they relate to each other, how they relate to their own internal battles, guilt, fear, shame.
Oliver: The added dimension, complexity of a psychiatrist getting shot by one of his own patients. Yes there’s the “I got shot”, but the psychiatrist is like, “wait, what did I miss”? There’s a whole, we’re trained to go, oh, this poor guy. The core quality of a good psychiatrist is empathy, right? To empathize, put yourself in their shoes and figure out what’s going on with them… It’s just an interesting lemon to squeeze. The reaction of the psychiatrist who gets shot by his patients and the reaction of someone whose new to psychiatry who is realizing psychiatry can be dangerous and her mentor who brought her into psychiatry gets shot. It brings up stuff for both of us, particularly for Sarah, especially about the follow up effects.
Are there any social themes embedded in the fabric of each of your characters?
Oliver: I can start with one. One of the things that I love about being part of this show is that Dick Wolf was the guy to go, you know, there had never been a medical procedural with a psychiatrist in it before. So Dick said the world’s ready for this. One of the things that we get to do in general is to de-stigmatize mental illness. I mean, mental illness is precisely that. If you break an arm, people [understand], but if you get depressed, people have all this shame. It’s a silent killer almost, it’s brutal. It’s about getting all that stuff out in the open. In this case, we’re actually dealing with PTSD, except it’s happening to us, so it’s in a more personal way.
Were you interested in this in a personal level?
Oliver: Any actor, we are all amateur psychiatrists whether we know it or not. Our job is to figure out what motivates people. What motivates them that they’re aware of, what motivates them that they’re not aware of? Acting is all about exploring the emotional life of the character. When you have you play a quote unquote bad guy, my job is to figure out, if I’m thinking about that guy as a bad guy, he’s me. You gotta get inside of his head and see how he thinks he’s helping the world.
