Sharif Atkins knows a thing or two about medical dramas, and yet, he’s about to enter uncharted hospital territory.
The actor spent five years on ER as Dr. Michael Gallant, but on this Wednesday’s Chicago Med (NBC, 8/7c), Atkins is trading in his white doctor’s coat to play an underage patient’s father this time around. And instead of being the physician, Atkins will be butting heads with one, Dr. John Frost (Darren Barnet).
Being back on a medical show set in the Windy City brought back lots of memories for Atkins — but not necessarily the medical jargon that he once had to deliver, the actor shares below.
I play the character Joe Thomas, and my wife and I, Gina, played by the actress Crystal Lee Brown, we go in with what seems like a minor medical thing for our son, Max, who’s played extremely well by Kevin Chacon, and we go in with the expectation that, essentially, it may be a broken rib or something that’ll be quickly bandaged up, and we discovered that his cancer, which he had battled and we thought he had successfully beat, has come back. And so, we’re now sort of faced with this horrible decision of how much to share with him and how much to protect him.
Dr. Frost, played by Darren Barnet, [who] just got there, just popped right in. He was amazing. He was great to work with. Also, John Earl Jelks, who played Dr. Dennis Washington. It’s both of them who give us the heartbreaking news, and, essentially, it’s a difference of opinion about what our son ought to be told, and the doc is of the mindset that our son should have every bit of the information he needs to make a decision for himself. My wife and I are of a different mindset. So we, quickly and immediately, kind of bump heads. The way it’s written, it’s just so beautiful, just because I feel like it’s as real as it gets. I mean, just the reality of having to talk to your child about something as devastating as this, and then having someone overstep their bounds, you know?
You kidding me?! Of course I did! The sets are different but reminiscent enough of each other, similar enough, that I was able to almost to go back to the future, you know what I mean? I was able to kind of like, “Oh, wow. Yeah, I can see Noah Wyle coming around the bend.” I could see Maura Tierney, I could see Mekhi Phifer. It was a really interesting experience and allowed me the ability to kind of remember, fondly, my days on ER. It’s interesting, though, because most of [ER] was shot here in Los Angeles. We would do a number of exterior shots in Chicago, but, primarily, it was shot here. But yeah, it was definitely a beautiful throwback.
It’s pretty intense. I know you’ve watched plenty of television, and so, I know you know that, as a guest star coming in, the stakes are typically high. And so, that sort of level of emotion coursing through you over the course of the episode, it’s unique. And then, as a physician on the other side, you’re supposed to keep your cool, you’re supposed to do your best to make sure the patient gets the help that they need. It’s just two sides of the same coin, though.
[Laughs] Are you asking me if when Darren Barnet was holding the clipboard, if I had an impulse to say, “Darren, no, you’re holding it wrong?” [Laughs] No, no. He was great. He knew exactly what he was doing. Actually, you know, if anything, it’s kind of like, huh, listen, maybe Chicago Med can have Joe Thomas come back after having gone to medical school, you know what I mean? Maybe you have him come back as a physician or something?
Oh, I would say absolutely not. No, no, no, no. [Laughs] You know, it’s funny. A lot of the medical jargon, no matter how much you’re around it, no matter how much you’re steeped in it, you ingest it, you know what the heck you’re saying and what you’re talking about, but three, four, five episodes [later], a good 75, 80 percent of it just flies away.
I think just relationships and the ability to treat these relationships in the context of a fast-paced, moving medical environment, I think that’s one of the things. If it was just jargon, you can watch a documentary for just jargon. But when you’re looking at a narrative, when you’re looking at a show, you want to just see how all of these elements clash to create great drama. So, yeah, he’s doing a great job.
