Mary Stuart Masterson

In this case they’re doctors. But having passion for your work and to take risks in order to better human kind. That’s a pretty big theme. It’s pretty inspiring.

She came up with a whole way of doing fluoroscopy, which is kind of like a live version of X-ray, so that she could see the heart as it worked, not frozen in a picture.

You know, in playing a role like this, you really want to get it right, because this is a person who was revered by so many doctors, women doctors especially.

I think she looked at Vivien the same way. Of course you can. You know. And, and yet with great respect, because she knew how hard it must have been. And that it was even harder for him, of course, than for her.

I’d like to think Helen very much understood what it was to be disadvantaged in the medical field. And that that was something that she never let dictate her choices.

On the other hand, there are only so many people who really knew how she was exactly, like what did her accent sound like, and the fact that she developed profound deafness when she was first running the Harriet Lane.

I guess you should approach the roles differently when they’re actual people who have been, this is the difference. Getting the accent exact, or the hair exact is less important in a situation like this.

The fact that he didn’t get credit for a while is more the story of social injustice. But his own spirit wasn’t driven by that, and wasn’t dependent upon that. He just wished he had the cash to go to medical school.

Just the actual physical ability to hold four instruments simultaneously and do some of the things that Vivien was able to do is mind blowing to any surgeon. He never went to medical school and he became one of the great teachers of medicine himself, people are just amazed.

And that’s what’s beautiful to me, is he did not become a victim of it, and he didn’t become a statistic, he just kind of kept on marching through, no matter what people threw at him.

What is more important is finding the soul of the character, and making sure it fits well into this story. And that it be dramatic and interesting and captivating, because these people weren’t entertainers, you know.