Sophia Soto
Following her ten-year run on The Goldbergs, Wendi McLendon-Covey is back on our TV screens to make us laugh as hospital administrator Joyce on St. Denis Medical, which has already been renewed for a third season.
The NBC mockumentary puts the spotlight on an underfunded, understaffed Oregon hospital and follows the lives of its dedicated doctors and nurses as they work to treat patients while also maintaining their own sanity.
“It gets old real fast if all you’re doing is just throwing out punchlines, and audiences are smart now. They pick up on that, and if there’s nothing to sink their teeth into and nothing to relate to on a human level, they will leave you,” she expressed. “So the thing about scripts that I read is like, why is this person likable? They have to be trying to get somewhere in life, have some dreams that are unrealized. Comedy comes from something that’s wrong that you’re trying to make right again, and nobody does that perfectly. That’s an upward battle, always, always, always.”
McLendon-Covey continued to share, “That, to me, is the delicious part of a character, is like, what’s their Achilles’ heel? What do they really want to be doing? I love that Joyce has all these really weird hobbies, and they’re mostly solitary because Joyce doesn’t know how to people, you know? She knows how to work. She knows how to manage employees. But she’s a little stunted because she’s married to her job. Her best friend is her job, and there’s a lot of people like that, especially in the medical profession, when it’s go, go, go all the time; get through school, do your residency, do all these things, get your fellowship, pay off those loans. All you do is work, work, work.”
As for the most special aspect of the experience, that’s simple: “It’s when we hear from actual healthcare workers who say, ‘Oh my God, thank you for doing a show that’s light and fun, and that humanizes us.’ Okay, I’m paraphrasing clearly, but that means everything, especially [when] we got good feedback on the episode where they talk about the incidences of violence against healthcare workers, because that is ridiculous. No one deserves that, especially people who don’t get to take a full lunch every day. Everybody got into this for the right reasons, but you get beaten down, and beaten down, and beaten down. And so, I think when people in the healthcare profession see what we’re doing, that’s very gratifying. I love being told that we’re funny, but I love that it’s resonating with healthcare professionals.”
Watch Awards Radar’s full video interview with the actress below, where we discuss what she looks for in a comedy, the mockumentary format, which of her past characters would make an interesting patient for St. Denis Medical, Joyce’s significant season 2 moments, and more.
All episodes of St. Denis Medical are streaming on Peacock.
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