Robert Bailey, Jr. – The Night Shift

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) Besides the show, I did a pilot out in Santa Fe last year for Amazon called “Edge.” Right now, I’m planning going working on music. I’m a musician and a writer. This summer, I’m planning on producing an EP for myself and possibly for a couple of other artists that I work with. So, I’m literally planning on getting back to LA and holding up in the studio. What I have a tendency to do after each season of “The Night Shift” is to take off for Europe or go traveling and then I start working on music about a month before we start filming again. So, I always head out to New Mexico with a bunch of unfinished projects and then I work online with my producers. It’s always such a big haste. So, I pretty much plan to hold up in the studio unless I get a random project. I just started taking meetings for projects maybe a week to a week and a half ago.

Q) How was your character Paul on ”The Night Shift” originally described to you?

A) What is interesting and not many people know this (and I’m not sure I’m supposed to say), Paul was someone the writers knew way back in the day and was someone they were not particularly fond of. So, when he was written he was supposed to be this really heightened jerk. Freddy Rodriguez, who played Ragosa in the first two seasons, was kind of wacky and was a bit of a jerk. The first scene that I got when I met with them was the first scene where you are introduced to Paul and Krista (Jeananne Goossen). We’re both interns and I’m just kind of talking about who I am and what I scored on all our medical exams. I start rapid talking and when I first got the scene I thought, “I know that guy. He is really nervous around a pretty girl and is anxiously talking.” I think the writers were surprised where I went with the character as opposed to being an out and out jerk. So, the character kind of changed because of what I did with it and he sort of became this very sweet, earnest awkward guy as opposed to this character that he had been written as. It kind of evolved over time and what is great about Gabe [Sachs] and Jeff [Judah] is that they really like to incorporate not only our actual personalities (sometimes) and also a lot of input as to where our characters are going and how the characters would behave. So, it’s really been a huge collaborative effort, as far as our characters and who they have become over the years. It’s really been watching and learning who we are as people and they like to listen to us as far as what our characters would be doing in certain situations. So, it really feels nice to have that kind of input on a show like this because it’s not always the case. It’s been really nice to work as a team with everyone putting these characters together.

Q) What did you then specifically add to Paul?

A) It was the earnest of the character. For me, I thought that he was initially written as kind of a show off. It was coming from a place of awkwardness and wanting to impress someone. It was more of a sweet thing instead of a place of being arrogant. It was really just where the scene and lines were exactly the same, but I was coming at it from a very different place. So, a lot of the earnest and awkwardness was what was added that wasn’t in the initial breakdown. He was very full of himself and constantly talking about his accomplishments. He was always tattle telling on other doctors who were maybe pulling some things out to try and save patients that they shouldn’t be doing. I was the character that was kind of telling on him. So, it is a very different thing that he evolved into. I think they saw a lot of potential for him as being this guy who kind of a fish out of water and was awkward maybe just because he hadn’t been around people as much because he was always in his books. There was always heart and potential to him as opposed to being this very bad, mean character.

Q) What kind of preparation or research did you do for the show?

A) That’s a funny thing because we all joke about it. Jill Flint and Scott Wolf kind of shadowed surgeons or ER doctors. Jill always knows what she is doing with her procedures. And I just napped through medical school, pretty much. [laughs] Half the time, I have no clue what I’m doing, but luckily they have amazing medical technical advisors on set. We have Zach [Lutsky] as one of our writers who is currently an active doctor at Cedars Sinai. So, we’re there on set asking him questions. For the first season, I really didn’t do a lot of research particularly because I was an intern and I was going to be learning things on the fly. So, I didn’t want to be too knowledgeable about certain things. Of course, Paul had already gone through med school so I was educating myself about certain terms and basics. But as far as actually being in the heat of the moment performing procedures, I didn’t want to know too much because I would be learning it during the scenes. Then, as I got more mature and Dr. Paul Cummings has gotten a little more knowledgeable, you definitely want to take the time to be sure you know what you are doing because you don’t want to come off as flustered as you were early on. You have to be in command and in charge of certain things. So, it’s really just a matter of discussing what we are exactly doing before the scene so you can have a solid understanding of it to engrain it in a way that you can seem you have bene doing it forever. I think maybe the first season I learned how to do certain hand ties, one handed surgical hand ties, which are very difficult to do during surgery and are rather impressive. So, once I took the time to teach myself that it’s all I do a lot of the time. They’ll film me doing it and say, “Wow! Paul, you’re really great at doing that. You’re an amazing surgeon.” I’m just doing those ties over and over again because that’s the one thing I can hold on to. I would say this season, I’ve been really happy with how I’ve been able to go through certain procedures now that I’m in charge sometimes in the OR. I’ve been able to do more things that I’ve gotten to watch like Scott Wolf or Jill Flint or Eoin Macken do the first season since I was always watching them. Now, I’m doing these emotional scenes while I’m doing these procedures. It’s really a lot to handle. As a guy, I can’t multi-task to save my life. So, it’s really been fun to figure that whole thing out. But I’m really happy how it is gone because it’s really this muscle movement in your body and figuring out how to do it like you have been doing it for years.

Q) Was there instant cast chemistry when everyone began working together?

A) We talked about it a lot and it was really fascinating for us. We started filming the pilot in Fall of 2012 and it was really fascinating how quickly all of us genuinely bonded. There is always some sort of family aspect on any project you are working on because you spend so much time with everybody doing these emotional things. But it was crazy just how much we genuinely liked each other. There was no odd duck in the group and no diva. It was all genuine affection and it was really exciting for us to find that. I think it was a conscious effort by Gabe and Jeff because they kind of paid attention to not only your talent as an actor and a performer, but who you are as a person. If they didn’t feel like you jive with the energy of the group it very much factors into their decision making. So, it starts with the top and goes down where they run the set a certain way and there is no drama and no ego, which trickles down to everyone else. It’s really been fun and I think that even in trying to find our tone in the first couple of seasons (because we have a tone that rides a fine line between comedy and drama on our show) sometimes that can be tricky. As we have grown into finding that, I think the thing that people always latched on to was the chemistry of our cast because it was always palpable no matter what crazy situations we got into on the show. You could always tell that we always genuinely cared about each other and liked spending time together on and off camera. I think people enjoyed tuning into that every week. So, we have a really steady fanbase that we’re always live tweeting with us and always love hanging out with us. Because it is really a genuine family and you don’t’ always get that.

Q) How will dynamics shift for Paul his season of “The Night Shift?”

A) For season three, Paul has taken on a lot more responsibility. He’s no longer one of the interns kind of learning on the job. He’s officially now an OR surgeon so he has to go back to the ER every once and a while to give consults to the trauma doctors that he used to learn under, which is always an awkward situation since he’s kind of in charge now in certain areas. Also, we met his father in the second season who is one of the world’s most famous surgeons. So, Paul is having to deal with coming from a certain type of background where he is very privileged and has a lot of money. People feel like maybe he became a surgeon because he kind of had a foot in the door from his family. So, he’s had to overcome a lot of those people against him, but it’s hard to say anything against that because people are going to feel the way that they feel. It’s really about Paul finding himself as a surgeon and as a man and coming into his own outside of what other people think of him. He’s been on a journey for a while now, but I think this season he really starts to find himself and take charge a lot more. I’m really excited to see some of the situations that the group finds themselves in this year because it is really intense. To see the heart that Paul has and that he is not afraid to step up in certain situations. It gets really intense and I’m excited for that.

Q) Is there perhaps romance on the horizon for Paul?

A) Well, you know it’s funny because the first couple of episodes introduced us to a new intern and she is basically taking the place I had the first two seasons. We butt heads immediately so everyone online is kind of shipping us right now and thinking we are going to have a romance. I don’t want to give anything away, but we definitely spend a lot of time together this season going through quite a bit. It’s been kind of a rollercoaster so I’m excited to see where that goes and she has been an amazing addition to our cast. Her energy is incredible and I think the responses from our fans shows that. She’s been fun to play around with and we have crazy fun time on set, too.

Q) What can you tease as a scene you are most looking forward to or most nervous to fans seeing?

A) One of the episodes I’m most proud of is episode four that I think is called “Three-Two-One.” Basically, it is a situation where there is a trial that potentially has a lot of racial motivations. Around the trial is a riot going on and myself, Scott and TC have to go out into the riot to save a kid who was shot by the cop and the cop was also shot. It’s a very charged episode and very intense. It is kind of nearing a lot of stuff that is going on in Ferguson and Baltimore. We’re speaking about a lot of racial issues now. People in certain communities can take things differently even when their best friend is in the hospital and how they can see things from a different perspective. Myself as Paul and Kenny (JR Lemon) are coming from very different backgrounds as far as where we are both coming from on the race issue. It’s just a really powerful episode. I’ve seen it already and I’m really, really proud of it. I can’t wait for people to check it out. I’m proud to be on a show that has as much fun as it does and yet can really speak about powerful issues. We’ve talked about PTSD, abortion and eating disorders. We’re talking about race right now and I think in a very powerful way. I think people will be surprised at how we are going about it. So, I’m just proud how far this show has grown and that’s one of the really one of the episodes I’m excited about. AnnaLynne McCord joins the cast around episode six and she brings a lot of energy. So, I’m excited for people to see that. Honestly, we have so many crazy storylines this year that you can’t really go wrong when every you want to hop in and watch an episode. It’s going to be ridiculous, amazing and intense. And tears and laughter are what we do, but I think it has been really crystalized this year with how we want to tell the stories. It looks different this year and feels different. We’re really in a good place so I’m excited about it.

Q) What have you taken away from working on the show?

A) First of all, any time you get to work on a series like this…I’m in my mid-twenties now and I started the show when was twenty-two or twenty-three. So, it’s like the ultimate classroom getting to come to work. We not only have amazing actors on the show, but we have amazing guest stars that come on and you just get to learn from them and the directors that are coming in. So, I’ve obviously picked up as not only an artist, but I think in having someone like Paul…I talked earlier about how one of the things I brought to the character that wasn’t necessarily in the breakdown was sort of an earnest quality to him. But I think one of the things the writers latched on to with Paul is an ability to empathize with his patients. He has a really big, open heart so he is able to connect to all kinds of people, no matter where they are coming from, and really be there for them no matter what they are going through. And that’s really a huge part of who Paul is. I think just being able to live inside a character like for years has done something like that for me. I think acting, as a whole, opens you up to empathy. It’s essentially what acting is. Just being able to go to work every day and kind of rip your heart open and let people in has been an amazing experience because it really translates to your every day life. So, it’s been really fun to go play that. It’s one thing to go to work every day and play these dark characters that you have to kind of shake off when you get home. But there is no real part of Paul that I would want to shake off. It is just all adding. I think as I’ve grown up as a person Paul has grown as a person and vice versa. And it’s been kind of fun to see how that has bene mirrored on the show.

Q) You are a part of social media. Do you enjoy the instant fan feedback you receive during episodes?

A) Yeah, I do, actually. It’s funny because I’m kind of an old man in a young man’s body. I was never a big social media person so at the beginning of the show it wasn’t demanded of us, but I was kind of getting on board with doing it. I was like, “Fine, I’ll participate.” For me, I’m somewhat of an introverted individual so the idea of close access to me was terrifying at first. But I’ve really come to appreciate the idea of people being able to show their love and appreciation for what we are doing. Any time they can send you a message and it’s really mostly sweet – our fans online have been amazing so it’s all been great. I’m having a lot of fun with it. It’s been better than I could have imagined. I tend to keep it going now even when we’re not filming. You want to send a message every once and a while to kind of check in with people to see how it is going. You feel like you have made friends all over the country and all over the world. It’s been really fun! I think as a whole cast, every week we are live tweeting with the cast and people are always joking with us. I think they were surprised at first with how active we are with responding. We were going through all the messages and responding and telling jokes back and forth with everybody. It’s a really active social media community that we have created with the show. So, we’re really proud of that. We make it a point each week to log on and we’re there without fail to talk about the show. It’s really fun because we don’t really take ourselves that seriously. So, it’s fun to be able to joke around with people and feel the feels during the sad intense scenes. To see that response online is really, really cool and it’s nice to see your work appreciated.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and the series?

A) First of all, I want to say thank you for sticking with us and we’re around because of the constant and steady love that all of our fans have shown. If nothing else, it’s apparent that we have diehard fans that tune in week after week no matter what. Even when we’re off for like a year and we don’t know when we’re coming back, they are still showing up and tuning in and it’s been really awesome. And I want to say that I think everybody is going to be really, really proud of this season. We had the first season with eight episodes, then we had Season Two where we really started finding our groove and this season I think is going to be beyond everyone’s expectations. It’s bigger and way better. I think it is a show that we as a cast and crew are proud of and are really happy with. It’s something to enjoy this summer and it is going to be a lot of fun.