THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW
DR DEATH TELLS THE TRUE STORY OF HOW DR CHRISTOPHER DUNTSCH BUILT A NEUROSURGERY PRACTICE IN TEXAS WHILE KILLING HIS PATIENTS. ANNASOPHIA ROBB, WHO PLAYS THE PROSECUTOR WHO BROUGHT HIM TO JUSTICE, TELLS KEITH WATSON MORE
You’ve done another true-crime series, The Act. Are you a genre fan?
I am attracted to true stories and this story is fascinating and horrific. I do love true crime. I’m repulsed by it yet completely invested in it. It’s like a car crash where you can’t look away. But what I think is unique about how our show unravels – as it did in the original podcast so wonderfully – is that while it implicates the man, it also implicates the system that enabled him. We’re really able to see how he got away with what he did.
Were you aware of the story before you got the part?
I wasn’t super aware so I listened to the podcast – and felt sick listening to it. But in Texas everyone knows the story…
At heart it’s a drama about whistleblowing…
Yes, two doctors, Henderson and Kirby [Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater], are the heroes of this story. Dr Duntsch might have harmed a hundred more patients were it not for those two speaking up. What’s really terrifying is that when they blew the whistle, Duntsch had only operated on seven patients – but by the time the case started, he’d operated on 37 patients. It took a long time while they were actively trying to stop him.
Whistleblowers are not always celebrated, are they?
I met the real Dr Henderson at the premiere and his wife told me that there are still doctors who won’t speak to him because there’s a sense of ‘you don’t turn your back on your own’. There are still people in that community who think they did the wrong thing.
Do you have a favourite – or should that be least favourite – line in the show? How about ‘you cannot drill while he’s haemorrhaging’…
[Shudders] I think every episode has a line like that. You don’t really see blood – but I know the producers wanted any doctors and nurses watching to know that what they were seeing was really accurate.
Episode one of Dr Death is available on StarzPlay on Sunday. New episodes weekly