ANATOMY LESSON
Television’s long-running medical drama blazes new trail with first deaf doctor role
LOS ANGELES When Grey’s Anatomy introduced Dr. Lauren Riley in its Feb. 13 episode, Save the Last Dance for Me, it marked more than just Shoshannah Stern’s debut on the long-running drama: Dr. Riley is also the first deaf doctor on a prime-time network series.
To tackle the groundbreaking character, Stern teamed up with Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Krista Vernoff, who initially didn’t realize this would be a historic first.
“I didn’t know until we were on set shooting it,” Vernoff tells Variety, calling the vibe on set “electric.”
“And that is the power of Shoshannah: I fell in love with her as a human, as a communicator, as an actress. I thought she was incredible, and I wanted to put her on my show. I did not even know it had never been done before. That’s wild to me. ”
Stern met Vernoff on a 2019 Television Academy panel about representing disabilities in storytelling.
“We just got to talking backstage, and she was talking about the lack of work, even though she’s put her own incredible show on the air,” Vernoff says. “And I was so smitten with her.”
Vernoff suggested on the spot that Stern come play a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy. “I don’t know if I’ve ever invented a character because I fell in love with an actor,” Vernoff says.
The guest spot is also a literal dream come true for Stern, who had a recurring dream about being on the medical series a decade ago. “It was always just me walking around in scrubs with the other doctors like I was one of them,” Stern says.
The first day on set felt almost dreamlike because she “felt super calm, like you do when you’re dreaming,” she says. “Everyone was unbelievably welcoming and nice to the point that I kind of felt like I’d been there before.”
Before meeting Vernoff, the path to joining the show was bumpy, after her manager a decade ago dropped Stern for declining an audition to play a patient on the hit drama. “It made no logical sense for me to turn down something real for something that wasn’t,” she says. “But something inside me was telling me not to.”
Now, with Vernoff on her side, Stern was invited to the writers’ room to discuss coming on to the series, and the actress came prepped with her own research.
“I’ve always been fascinated with all the deaf doctors out there in the wild,” Stern says. “They’re all very different, but a commonality they share is that they seem to bring a special touch to their job. Some have actually invented medical technology to allow them more access, some of which you’re going to see in Riley’s episodes.”
When Stern told the writers that deaf doctors traditionally make better diagnosticians than the average hearing doctor, the final pieces clicked into place. The writers then crafted a longer-term patient (Sarah Rafferty’s Suzanne) whose mysterious case would prompt Deluca (Giacomo Gianniotti) to call in outside assistance.
Although Stern’s characters in the past have been primarily English-dominant (using a combination of lip-reading and Stern speaking) — and many deaf doctors also use that way of communicating — the collaboration with the writers led to taking Dr. Riley in a different direction.
“For Riley, I really wanted her to sign,” Stern says. “She deals with people’s bodies, and you use your entire body to sign, so I just thought it would carry a special kind of weight.
“My deaf cousin (who is also named Lauren) is a nurse (who) uses an interpreter at work, and my husband does a lot of video relay interpreting in the medical field, so the inspiration for me for how Riley would communicate was crossbred between my cousin and my husband.”
Working with Vernoff, episode writer Tameson Duffy and director Jesse Williams, the quartet used technology to allow for Riley’s interpreter to communicate via an ipad, which was used in scenes with multiple characters. When she was one on one with someone (and when there were mobility concerns about being tied to the video screen), Riley would switch to lip-reading and English.
“The team at Grey’s also reached out to some deaf doctors on their own to ensure what they were writing about was accurate,” Stern says.
“It was just an absolute spectacular example of the magic that collaboration can bring, and I’m so grateful to Krista and everyone at Grey’s for their commitment to that.”