Physician Odyssey actor Sean Teale feels real affection for his character Tristan within the ABC medical drama.
“I’m very defensive of him. I like him loads,” the British actor tells The Hollywood Reporter. “You must love the individual that you’re enjoying, in a method. I’ve at all times discovered that’s been the useful factor for me.”
In Physician Odyssey, Teale’s character Tristan is one third of the medical workforce on the posh cruise ship The Odyssey, with Joshua Jackson’s Max and Philippa Soo’s Avery appearing because the physician and nurse practitioner, respectively. Though Tristan can come off as abrasive and is immediately immune to Max’s arrival, Teale is discovering and displaying the “golden retriever nature” of his character.
“There’s one very apparent method that he could possibly be portrayed, after which there’s a method that’s extra enjoyable,” he says of the character’s evolution after 4 episodes have aired. “I just like the considered that. I just like the problem.”
Tristan, Avery and Max rapidly develop a love triangle of kinds. The trio have all spoken about their constructive working relationship with each other. “I believe folks can are inclined to say this no matter whether or not it’s true or not, but it surely actually was easy,” Teale explains.
“It felt proper in a short time,” he says, including that he and solid members, together with Don Johnson, who performs the ship’s captain, spend all day on set collectively laughing and dealing laborious.
“I believe all of us have concepts and beliefs on who we ought to be enjoying and the way we ought to be enjoying them, but it surely’s at all times in a method that harmonizes. If there’s a dialogue, it’s a dialogue. It’s by no means a one-sided factor,” the actor provides. Teale says he significantly likes his scenes with Jackson as “there’s a lot there.”
“There’s an older brother, youthful brother. Father, son. There’s rival, there’s equal. There’s compatriot, there’s form of collaborator. There’s a workforce member, however there’s additionally enemy,” Teale says. “There’s simply a great deal of stuff in there, and me and Josh have most likely been that to one another a great deal of occasions off set.”
Very like his fellow solid members, Murphy, a creator and govt producer of the collection, was a giant draw to the undertaking for Teale. “He’s so prolific, it’s laborious to get your head round it,” Teale says of the producer who launched six collection this fall. “The purpose is that nobody is aware of what’s occurring in his head both, which is fascinating.”
Ever since Physician Odyssey was first teased, folks began speculating if Murphy’s fantastical collection — which he stated is a tribute to the ABC exhibits of his youth — was actually what it gave the impression to be. And as soon as the collection premiered, questions continued to swirl round if Physician Odyssey may all be a fever dream, specific after discovering out that Jackson’s Max was one of many first folks to contract COVID-19 within the U.S. If he by no means recovered, The Odyssey and every little thing viewers have been watching could possibly be his limbo state.
This week, nonetheless, an analogous twist was revealed on one other of Murphy’s exhibits, FX horror Grotesquerie. Murphy spoke to THR all in regards to the shock reveal, the place he defined that, at this level in his profession, he solely needs to a problem. When requested if that meant the Physician Odyssey theories may have some weight to them, the creator merely replied, “No remark.”
Teale tells THR that he loves that there’s on-line hypothesis in regards to the present. “I do know it’s meant to be a form of enjoyable escapist factor, but additionally any principle is a present as a result of it signifies that persons are attempting to dissect one thing in an actual method.”
The actor reiterates that nobody is aware of what Murphy is planning aside from Murphy himself. “I really like that these theories exist,” Teale says. “Me and Don [Johnson] had been speaking yesterday. We’re not shocked that that principle exists. The present appears to be revealing itself to us, the longer we go down, as this fantasy.
“It’s a fantastical place, and the way in which we depict it, and the way in which that we movie it, the gloss that we placed on it, it’s comprehensible that folks have these concepts,” he says.
“Maybe there’s a motive for all of that,” he continues. “I’m not going to disclose anymore.”
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Physician Odyssey airs new episodes Thursdays at 9 p.m. on ABC, streaming the following day on Hulu. Learn THR‘s interviews with Jackson and Soo.