Tyler Labine – New Amsterdam

By: Jamie Setinberg

Q) What kind of fan reaction did you receive to Season 1 of “New Amsterdam?”

A) The fan reaction has been good! I have been on a lot of TV shows and I don’t remember the last time I got such a positive reaction. It’s really nice.

Q) How was your character Iggy Fromme originally described to you?

A) I read the script and it was a pilot. I was shooting another series and it was pilot season. I hadn’t even considered anything yet. This is the first pilot that I read and I said, “I don’t want to read a medical drama. I don’t want to do a medical drama.” So, I passed. My agents were like, “You need to read this one.” I read the script and I read it again immediately. I was so thrilled with it. I had to double check. I was like, “They want me to play this guy? They want me to play the Head of Psychology at a hospital?” [laughs] I couldn’t believe it. So, I went in for a meeting with Peter Horton and David Schulner and they kind of pitched him in a very interpretive, open way. They were like, “We have this idea of what we want to come across, which is someone very non-clinical and very, very caring yet can also be adept at psycho babble – the stuff we need you to be able to handle as an actor.” At the heart of him, they wanted someone who came across as non-clinical and very, very compassionate and caring. I was like, “I can definitely do that.” Then, I sort of took it upon myself to take it a step further and really wanted to dress, walk and look like a walking hug. That was what I said to wardrobe and makeup. That’s what I said I wanted for Iggy – when you see him, you already feel like he’s hugging you. So, that was the pitch and my pitch on Iggy was someone you felt like you could just talk to and just take care of you. In that regard, I was like, “I can do that.” Then, as far as him being gay, they didn’t even tell me. It wasn’t even in the script until I had already accepted the role and came to New York to start rehearsals. We were going to shoot the pilot and David Schulner comes up to me and says, “Oh, by the way. We were thinking we want to make Iggy gay.” I was like, “Yes! That’s great!” I wanted something with Iggy that was sort of…non-conformative, but I also wanted it to be something that we don’t hang our hat on. When they told me that they were going to make him gay, I was like, “Perfect. I just want him to play him as this every day guy,” and the best thing I felt I could do with that information was to help normalize. Representation is so important and the main thing I can do is to help make him as normal as he is in the real world. TV has this romanticized notion of making gay and queer characters…like that’s their entire world. It’s just not the case. He’s just a happily married man who has a tough job and a heavy workload and lots of kids and happens to be gay. I was really thrilled about that and I really relished the opportunity.

Q) What can you tease is in store this season or even some new patients we’ll be seeing?

A) In a lot of regards Iggy is constantly putting himself in the position of needing more help this year. [laughs] I’ll say that. He’s about to make some pretty big, maybe rash, personal decisions which is pretty fun. As far as his caseload and patients, I can’t really say too much. I can say that we have done (we’re shooting Episode 5 right now) we have gone into territory with the show and with my patients and with mental health that are really, really very relevant and topical and stuff that I’ve never seen on TV before. There are two cases in particular – this episode and the next episode. When we all read them, we were like, “Whoa!” It’s just stuff that nobody talks about ever. And I can’t wait for people to see it and to tackle it as an actor.

Q) How will the crash effect Iggy’s interactions with the other doctors at the hospital?

A) Well, the aftermath of the crash is at the outset of the season everything. It has affected everybody. Where we left everybody off was with this horrific catastrophic event and in Season 2 we pick exactly where we left off. Everyone needs to know that they are not going to have to wait. It’s not going to get teased out over the whole season with what is happening. We give you all the answers you wanted in the first episode of Season 2. You’ll find out pretty quickly that it affected everyone. It has kind of shaken the whole ensemble to its core and how they relate to one another and how relationships to one another as they existed can no longer exist. It’s full on. People ask me a lot, “Well, they are not going to kill off one of the main characters?” I am like, “Well, they did.” [laughs] You are just going to have to go with it and wait and see. There is a lot of speculation and it’s crazy. We did a number on our fans. I have to apologize! We had nothing to do with it, I swear! It is big. It’s a monumental shift for the characters of the show.

Q) How does the atmosphere at New Amsterdam change after these events?

A) We obviously have a TV show to make here and it needs to feel like “New Amsterdam,” but what is so great about our showrunner and our writers is that they are so good at testing the integrity of the fabric of the show and pushing it. The show is like a Glad Hefty Bag and seeing if it will break. They are so good at gauging how much weight we can put in there. So, yeah, the tone of the show is still “New Amsterdam.” Don’t worry about that! It’s still going to make you laugh, cry and think, but what we’re asking our audience to do is follow us with a very emotional tonal shift, which I think you can do because as a fan of the show you’ve grown to love the characters and what they bring emotionally. It’s not just this procedural type show. It’s more of a heartfelt, emotional show. I think in that regard you can really push boundaries and people will follow a character they love through their darkness. You have to know that emotionally there is going to be a shift.

Q) What was your reaction when you first learned who did die in the crash?

A) Well, they were very crafty about not letting anybody know on our hiatus. We only found out a couple of days before the table read of Season 2. I think we were all like, “Aw!” [laughs] I think everyone who was not dead was relieved. [laughs] We all had to sort of mourn at the table read and have a big sort of tearful reunion slash friendship-endship with that character at the moment. It was really sad. We all felt really saddened learning of this knowledge as well. It was impactful for all of us, for sure.

Q) Will we get to see more of Iggy’s family life this season?

A) Yeah! That’s one thing that we really (especially me and whoever was nice enough to know last year in the fan world – they were pretty vocal about what they were missing)…One of the things that they thought, including myself, was we hear about Iggy’s family (his husband and four kids), but we have only seen one kid and only seen Martin (Mike Doyle) maybe three times. So, right out of the gate in the first episode we have some Iggy family stuff coming up. In the first three episodes there is quite a bit. Then, like I said, there are some personal things involving Iggy’s family that right from the beginning of the season he sets a ball in motion that is very family oriented and possibly catastrophic. [laughs] Not in an ambulance crash kind of way, but in a setting fire to your personal life kind of way. So, there is a lot of Iggy’s family in store for Season 2. I really feel like that’s a big part of what we need to get to know about Iggy. I think he’s there for everybody in Season 1 and was very instrumental about helping a lot of people and I think it’s always interested in seeing someone like that at home. Also, I don’t know if people know this, but Martin (his husband) is a Psychiatrist as well. It’s always interesting to me to see how people we perceive as so put together, and superior in some ways, how they actually fall apart at home. There is a lot of neurosis behind the book smarts. It’s fun to play that element of the character, too. There is this element of frenzy to Iggy at home when he is always so calm and helpful at work.

Q) What do you think it is about “New Amsterdam” that’s made it such a fast fan favorite series?

A) I think, again, one of the things that I think the show has done is emotionally target people. Instead, I think a lot of medical shows and procedural type of dramas really target the situational and sensational kind of element. It’s more, “Pass me the scalpel” and “Look at this crazy procedure we’re going to pull off.” Will the person survive or will they not? It’s all fascinating stuff, don’t get me wrong. “New Amsterdam” has really tried to tap into what everyone has gone through in their life, which is mourning or grieving over someone who has medical issues. Not just in the hospital, but everything to do with healthcare, which can be a great task on your family. You, personally, and everyone you love can really suffer. It’s not so much about the doctors and how we feel and how we saved everybody. A lot of the times the show is really about the patient and then beyond that it is some patient’s family and the fallout of when a family has to go through a great ordeal with their health. I think that’s ultimately really relatable and a great way they’ve really taken the onus off that procedural style, the “Look at how accurate we’re being with our medical jargon” – which we are! It’s just more about the human stakes and the emotional stakes. Also, I think they’ve done that with our characters. They put a lot of personal stakes in there instead of professional and situational stakes for every character. So, I think is what taps into the fans psyche last year – they felt they could relate on a lot of levels.

Q) You have a great ability for going between comedy and drama.

A) It’s funny. In the last few years people have started to give me more opportunities to do drama, which…In a lot of ways as an actor, you spend so much time sort of crating your thing or angle. I always knew that early on comedy was my thing. But I always felt the only reason I was really funny is because I’ve always…To know what’s funny you really need to know what’s not funny. The only reason anyone can be funny or understand humor is because they understand what the opposite is. I also know how to clear a room. Believe me. [laughs] So, you spend all this time thinking you are crafting this comedic style (and everyone can confirm this – comedians and comedic actors a like) its’ all based in this very sort of adept and deep knowledge of sadness and the emotional well. So, when someone finally says, “You’re really good at drama,” you’re like, “Yeah, no shit. I’m a pretty sad guy most of the time.” I understand the emotional spectrum in a lot of ways more than most people because (and I’m speaking about all comedians here) the spectrum has been a choice. I’ve chosen to sort of manipulate my world through humor. Not the other way around. To say which I like better, I feel like I’ve always been adept at drama. It’s just that someone finally gave me the opportunity. So, it feels really good to be able to incorporate those elements of drama, especially last season. I had such an impactful storyline with my patient and social worker at the end of last season. It was the most rewarding work I’ve done in my life, but, again, it was never without some comedic elements. It’s getting harder and harder to see the line for me. It’s not so much, “Which do I prefer?” It’s just that I’m finally getting to sort of bring it all together. I’m finally getting to put it all together for once and it feels really good.

Q) You’ve had an incredible career! What have been some of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on?

A) Yeah, I’ve done some stuff. I’ve been involved in some stuff. “Reaper” for sure. I will say that “X-Files” I did at a very young age. I did two episodes as this weird reoccurring stoner character named “Stoner.” It really sort of helped shape sort of my whole career. [laughs] I worked with this great director who was one of the more frequent of the original series on “X-Files.” “X-Files” was like a rite of passage. If you were an actor in Vancouver and you didn’t get on “X-Files’ you were bullshit. [laughs] I got a little reoccurring role on “X-Files” and I got voted like “X-Files Hunk of the Month” in like Teen Beat Magazine when I was like sixteen (twice), which was really funny. That was like a thing for me. And people still recognize me and send me things about my “X-Files” role. They rebooted the series and asked me to come back. I got to come back and play Stoner again fifteen or sixteen years later. It was pretty amazing! For that to come back full-circle and for me to realize, “Oh! That actually did mean something!” That character was like a thing. Even though it was small and two cold opens of the show…”X-Files” is still kind of like jewel in my crown. I got to do this cool recurring role on an iconic show. It’s very small, but still means a lot to me. Then, “Reaper” means a huge deal to me because at that time I had just come off this show called “Invasion,” which was a big hit that got cancelled for some reason that nobody understands. Purely politics. The ratings were through the roof. So, no one really knows why it got cancelled. Critics loved it. Fans loved it. It disappeared and I was really bummed out. And that was a dramatic role for me too, which was fun because Shaun Cassidy created that show and he’s an executive producer and writer now on “New Amsterdam.” Full circle there. Anyway, when “Reaper” came about I was feeling pretty bummed and I got this phone call that Kevin Smith wanted to meet me and talk to me about doing this show on The CW. I was like, “On The CW? Ew! I don’t want to be on The CW.” But it’s Kevin Smith! So, I went and met with Kevin Smith and we just sat down with the two showrunners (who are now good buddies of mine – Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas that have “Emergence” coming out this year on ABC). They were just the best showrunners that I ever worked with…Other than my current showrunners, obviously! Just sitting there talking with Kevin Smith, an idol of mine, and he’s asking me to come do his show. It became very obvious that they were pleading with me to come do the show. That was one of the moments where I was like, “Oh my God! This is so crazy! I need to pinch myself!” And then getting to go do the show for two seasons and in Vancouver, which is my home town…So, “Reaper” was like a big one for me. Then, my relationship with Kevin and Tara and Michelle has endured, which is pretty awesome. I’ve worked with Kevin a couple more times like on Zack and Miri Make a Porno. There are some big moments in my career. I’m feeling pretty lucky sitting here talking about this stuff. Also, a show that I really loved that was really instrumental for me and in a lot of ways, I think, was the culmination of all these characters of years of shows that didn’t go and I didn’t get to flush them out. It was “Deadbeat,” my show on Hulu which went for three seasons. A lot of people don’t even know about that show. It kind of slid under the radar and I think it’s a genius show and it has so many crazy moments and things I always wanted to do as a comedic actor – and even in some dramatic ways. With that show there were no rules. We were on Hulu and they let me do whatever I wanted. And I was a producer on the show so I got to do a lot of stuff. In ways, it felt like it was my final swan song to playing those shlubby stoner-y gross out comedy rules. I wanted nothing more in my career to make it in that regard. I wanted to be the next Seth Rogen or whatever it was and it never happened. And that’s okay. “Deadbeat” allowed me to take all of those things and all those ideas that I’ve had and roll them all into that project. So, Id’ say to fans of my comedic work you’ve got to go watch “Deadbeat.” It’s on Hulu still and that show was such a great moment for me.

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

A) I do! I sort of oscillate between loving social media and completely hating it. I think I’m like everybody, I think we all have a certain unhealthy relationship with social media and with our sort of need to post and be liked. The one thing that endured for me through social media, more so than promotional elements or posting my own pictures, is that I actually found a way to communicate with some of my fans pretty directly, which is really cool. I do like that. I like being accessible and I like it when people realize that I’m pretty normal. I like when you can comment or have a conversation with somebody and you can tell it means something to them and it means something to me. That’s nice. I like that element of it. I try to keep that alive on social media, for sure. So, if you’re out there and you’re thinking about starting a conversation with me on Instagram do it! Odds are I’ll write back.

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

A) I would like to say thank you! It’s such a cliché and an old adage when people say, “I’m nothing without the fans,” but it’s old and it’s cliched for a reason. I don’t know why you guys like me. I struggle with understanding that all the time, but I’m so grateful that people do and that fans do and that you want to see more, seemingly. Without that I have no platform, so I really am grateful. I’m always really grateful for fans and I don’t even like the word “fans.” Just people who support me and have been kind and vocal about what they like about me it means the world to me. It really does.