Stefania Spampinato had been itching to direct an episode of television for years, but her realization of that longtime dream might be a classic example of that age-old adage, “Be careful what you wish for.”
“Obviously, everything that could go wrong went wrong!” she jokes on a recent video chat with Shondaland. Though Spampinato, whom Station 19 and Grey’s Anatomy fans know better as Dr. Carina DeLuca, was thrilled at the opportunity and is super-proud of her episode (“Trouble Man”), the particular 43-ish minutes of TV that she was assigned to helm was one of the most technically complicated and intense of the season so far.
“With this episode,” she says, “you see s–t hitting the fan. You see every character get to a pivotal point where they can’t take it anymore, and they lash out. It was a very important moment in everybody’s story.”
Among the major storylines in the episode (big spoilers ahead, obviously!), we see tensions flare among the team as Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) has to deal with mandatory budget cuts, Warren (Jason George) struggles with the limitations of his body, Beckett (Josh Randall) breaks down in a gut-punch scene where he’s struggling to contain his grief, and of course, Carina and Maya (Danielle Savre) go toe-to-toe as they battle over the best way to care for and comfort their new baby, Liam. All that on a full moon when the jaws of life somehow get stolen (!) and — and! — someone died because the team wasn’t able to save him.
It was a lot, but Spampinato says she loved getting a chance to get behind the camera. “It was an incredible opportunity,” she says. “I’m very proud of it. I was like, ‘Is it going to be crappy?’ But it was beautiful. The prep was fun; the shooting part was great. It was like the best parting gift.”
Spampinato had directed a short film before — previous directing experience was a requirement to get the assignment — but an episode of TV is a whole different story. Tight deadlines for turnaround mean everything has to be perfectly prepped and executed in as little time as possible. The cast and crew have about eight days to shoot, and naturally, with a show like Station 19, with its intense choreography and action scenes, directors have to cross every t and dot every i to keep everyone safe too. She joins a small but select group of Station 19 cast members who’ve been able to direct an episode of their beloved show, including Jason George, who directed an episode apiece in seasons five and six; Danielle Savre in season six; and Boris Kodjoe, who directed the upcoming episode six in the current season.
“I thought it was an excellent script for me and my personality,” she explains, adding that her strong suit is not necessarily action but feelings. Raw emotion was on full display throughout as Carina and Maya butted heads over parenting styles, and Beckett let out his anguish after a tragic day on the job. “We wanted the beginning to feel like a regular Station 19 day and then progressively get more insane and harder and harder,” Spampinato says. “We wanted to make sure it was also translated in the camera work, so I started wider, and as things got tougher, we go closer and closer. There are a lot of close-ups of people’s faces with blurry backgrounds because we wanted to get inside their struggle and what they’re going through at that moment.”
Of course, even with lots and lots of conversations with various members of the production staff before shooting, Spampinato couldn’t plan for everything, and she found that out when a particularly crucial piece of equipment decided not to play nice. This episode featured something never seen before on Station 19: the doors of the station opening and the trucks coming in. “There is a reason you’ve never seen it, because it’s hard,” she says. “You have to plug them in with the exhaust pipes [a certain way] because otherwise you gas everybody.” The episode initially was going to show a truck entering about six times, she says, but “we were like, ‘We can’t do this; it’s so time consuming!’ So, we cut it to, like, two and a half scenes when it happens.”
Nonetheless, Spampinato nailed her first time — especially those powerful scenes with Beckett, and the drama between Carina and Maya. Josh Randall, who plays Beckett, blew her away with his acting ability, she says. “I love Josh Randall. He’s such a beautiful actor and so committed to his craft,” she says. He killed his heavy breakdown in the table read, she says, but when it came time to shoot it, things went left. “A door stopped working!” she says. “So, in order to make that scene work, we had to light and move the truck. He was ready and raw with his emotion, and we’re like, ‘Can you wait for 20 minutes?’”
She also had the unique experience of having to direct herself. That intense spat with Maya throughout multiple scenes meant, of course, that Spampinato couldn’t be behind the camera and in front of it at the same time, so she had to rely on experts to coach her through it. “I asked several actor/directors the same question like, ‘How do you do this?’ And most of them are like, ‘You have to turn [parts of yourself] off. You hang your director’s hat on the chair and go in, and then go back and put the director’s back on.’ We didn’t have the luxury of time that day, so I just had to go with how it feels and trust the camera operators, go back and watch it, and then keep going. Sometimes, you don’t even have time to think — you just go with preparation and gut feeling,” she says.
Suffice it to say, her first try went amazingly well, which is sort of bittersweet since she won’t be able to direct another episode of the series — at least as far as we know. Spampinato says she’s been bowled over by the spirited campaign Station 19 fans have launched to save the show. “The fans are amazing,” she says. “I want to thank them for fighting so hard. I don’t know if it’s a possibility [to revive it], but I really appreciate the fight that they’re putting up for us and for the show.”
