On Global medical drama New Amsterdam, Canadian actor Tyler Labine plays Dr. Iggy Frome, the head of the psychology department. Over the show’s past two seasons, Labine’s character has weathered some intense changes; aside from the obvious stress of working in a hospital on any given day, the good doctor also grapples with disordered eating and dysmorphia.
Labine feels simultaneously grateful and vulnerable about the honesty of the character, and says the Season 2 finale is a good wrap-up of his “wild and crazy ride.”
(Just a note: NBC decided to pull the last two New Amsterdam episodes, one of which centered around a fictional flu pandemic caused by the real-life coronavirus pandemic. The network decided to air reruns instead on March 31 and April 7, before the season finale on April 14.)
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Global News spoke with Labine over the phone — prior to the knowledge that any episodes of the show were going to be shelved — about Season 2’s intensity, Iggy’s connection to Labine’s real life and, naturally, Breaker High.
Global News: New Amsterdam has really grown and matured over its first season and now its second. Would you say your character has grown along with the show?
Tyler Labine: Absolutely. It’s a common thing when you become a character and take the time to flesh it out. The thing with this show, along with just time passing, is that the writers have really started to crack this character open, and are taking us to very personal and uncomfortable places. There are things coming up that you guys haven’t seen — that I can’t talk about, really — at the end of Season 2. Iggy’s gone on a wild and crazy ride, even including stuff that I’ve contributed to the story from my own life.
What sorts of things have you faced that we see Iggy face?
Well, some of the stuff we’ve seen already… with Iggy’s weird behaviours around food and issues with food. He’s struggling to find his self-worth and value in this world other than just being helpful. Those things closely mirror my real life, and so what happened was… the writers and the showrunner had let me know earlier on that they were thinking about giving Iggy an eating disorder. I knee-jerk reacted and said, “I’m not sure you want to do it, unless you want to do it.”
I didn’t want it to be a back-burner story. He said that he would definitely treat it with respect, but he saw my reaction and wanted to know why I was so sensitive about it. I explained to him that I had pretty extreme body dysmorphia and eating disorders throughout my whole life. I grew up in the 80s [laughs], my parents put me on crash diets. There are things that I share with Iggy that are really shaping the arc for him this season. It’s very scary and vulnerable and weird, but as an actor, I’m like whoa, I get to use this job as a big therapy session. It’s very cathartic.
We have some stuff coming up that’s just pulled directly from my life. I’m scared s**tless to do it but… it’s cool. My parents love the show, but they’re about to get a big wake-up call.
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Iggy’s had some tough scenes, but one of the worst has to be the “spitting” scene in Season 2, Episode 5.
[Laughs] That’s one of my favourite episodes. That young actress is fantastic, her name is Emma Hong. She is 11 years old… and it’s funny, I was just talking to a friend about how acting as a kid really f**ks you up. I’ve been doing it since I was nine, it’s inevitable, you disrupt some neural pathways. Anyway, [laughs] we were talking about things that screw kids up, and I brought up this spitting scene.
I asked her at the table read if she would mind spitting in my face. Her mom (who was also there) just looked at me like “oh, interesting.” Then Emma said, “Yeah! I’ll do that!” I wanted it to feel like a real, authentic experience, and not have effects come in, disrupt it. Then we get to the actual day on set… it is a weird thing to spit in someone’s face. It’s a weird thing to have someone spit in your face. We did it over and over and over again until we got it right.
Every time she did it, whether it was square on the mark or not, it still created the exact same reaction in me: “I am going to kill you.” [Laughs]
Have you learned a lot of things about psychiatry and psychology, or any cool tidbits while shooting the show?
One of the really cool points was I got to meet with Dr. Jennifer Havens, the head of child and adolescent psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital. She talked to me for about an hour and a half about the red tape, the bureaucracy and the frustrations, how she deals with the kids. I had a couple of dumb actor questions to start out and she was just like “shut up.” [Laughs] Right from the get-go, she was like, “it doesn’t matter what you do as an actor, I’ll tell you what I do as a doctor.”
She laid good groundwork for me for exactly how I wanted to play this character, just by watching her level of frustration with the system, PC culture and the current parenting climate. People not wanting to deal with children having very real psychological issues, then having to come back. After 18, so many kids are “out of the system,” so they’re out on the streets, homeless. Or they become transient or become part of the foster care system. It had such an eye-opening conversation with her, so I always go back to that.
You have to be a maverick. There are mavericks working at public hospitals across the U.S. I’ve learned a ton playing this character. I feel really grateful.
Since I’ve got you on the phone and since you’re Canadian, I have to ask the requisite Breaker High question: do you have fond memories of the show?
Yeah, for sure, man! I’m still pretty good friends with that cast — Scott Vickaryous and I were roommates for like 8 years, Rachel Wilson and I are still in touch, Ryan [Gosling] and I are still friends, Wendi too. I think Kyle Alisharan went off and became a doctor, I’m pretty sure. [Laughs] Tons of people who came on the show, too. Vancouverites and fellow Canadians, I’m still in touch.
I have very fond memories. It was where I learned that I could be an actor for real… a weird place to learn that, but still. It’s bittersweet, you know? I’ve done a lot of work since then! [Laughs] But I get it, if I see Mark-Paul Gosselaar I’m probably not bringing up his great work on NYPD Blue, I’m gonna be like “Saved By the Bell.” [Laughs]
I definitely have no will towards BH. [Laughs]
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Catch the ‘New Amsterdam’ Season 2 finale on Tuesday, April 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Global.
[This interview has been edited and condensed.]
© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
