Josh Lawson plays the talented and arrogant Dr. Bruce on the NBC comedy St. Denis Medical.
AllYourScreens.com founder Rick Ellis spoke with him earlier today (Tuesday, February 12th) about the show and what he enjoys about playing the often clueless Dr. Bruce.
When you were cast on the show, how did the producers describe the character to you?
The character description was in the script and I think I got a bit more from casting. But he was described as someone with a robust ego, someone pretty self-important.
But they were very clear, they made sure I knew he was very good at his job. The joke isn't that he is arrogant and bad at his job. It was that he was arrogant for a very good reason, that he is actually really good as a trauma surgeon.
So that was notably something that they wanted to make sure was clear with the character.
Well, it seems like part of the problem he has is that he now thinks that he's good at everything he attempts, which is not at all the case.
That's exactly right.
I think his success at surgery has extended to success at everything in his head. So he's certainly deluded in that way.
But I think in some ways that's what endears us to him as well, because it's so clear to everyone but him that he's that he's ill-equipped to do anything else.
It's funny, I talked to someone who is a nurse and she had watched the show and she pointed out your character, Dr. Bruce. She told me, I know about eight guys like him.
Yeah, exactly. And I think the eight guys she's talking about are probably watching the show saying, thank God I'm not like Bruce.
I'm assuming as an actor, Dr. Bruce is a fun character to play because you're not playing a buffoon. You're playing someone who's got this expertise, but you get to play with that as well.
That's a good point, and it is fun to play.
And I was wondering myself, why is this so fun to play? Because I've said many times, I think it's the most fun character that I've ever played. And I was trying to dissect what it is about it that makes it so fun. And I think one of the reasons is that he's high status and the butt of the joke.
It's an interesting thing in a way. It's kind of, like what Ricky Gervais did in The Office, where he was the boss, but also the butt of everyone's jokes.
I think there is something fun about playing the confident idiot. And I think the other part is that Bruce mercifully is oblivious to the fact that he is the butt of everyone's jokes. I think if you were to ask Bruce, he would say, "Oh, the most popular person in the hospital is me, everyone loves me."
And it's good that he's like that, because if he knew the truth, I think it would be a bit hurtful.
Is there something freeing about playing that kind of character? Because if you walked around in real life doing that, people would think you were the biggest ass in the world.
It definitely is. It's really liberating, being able to walk into a room and imagine that everyone wants to hear my opinion. It is fun to play that. But you've got to be cautious as well.
There are times that we'll do a scene and I'll talk to the writers and say, I just worry that Bruce is too mean here. I don't think he's ever deliberately mean. I think he can be accidentally, you know, inconsiderate.
But I worry, because we've got to make sure that Bruce never is deliberately being mean. Because that is hard to come back for.
As an actor, how long did it take you to dial this character in? Because really the whole show is filled with characters that have to be just right tone-wise.
I would say about four or five episodes in is when I really started to feel like I understood it.
I don't think anyone can really hit it in the first episode. Maybe if there's a lot of rehearsals and a lot of script analysis and stuff. But I ended up shooting the pilot very, very soon after I was cast.
I mean, I really didn't have much time at all. But not only do I figure out the character as time goes on, I think the writers, of course, figure out where the actor's strengths and weaknesses lie and start writing the character towards their strengths and therefore making it more of a custom fit. So I think for me, around four or five episodes in is when I felt like I was pretty confident in that I knew I understood Bruce enough to keep going.
If someone was talking to you about the show, talking to you about Dr. Bruce, is there a scene that you could just point to and say, that's him? If you watch nothing else but that scene or a couple of scenes, that gives you a real idea of who he is. And part of the reason I ask this is tonight's episode has the scene where you're trying to be a plumber, which seems sort of the epitome of Dr. Bruce.
Well, that's actually a good point. Let's look at that episode, which is premiering tonight. The idea, of course, is that Bruce is great at surgery, and when he hears that the hospital itself is having plumbing issues, Bruce sort of decides, well, what's the difference between a building and a person? I can fix a part of him and why don't I ix a part of the hospital?
And so, you see Bruce's hubris ultimately be his downfall.
St. Denis Medical airs Tuesday nights on NBC.
