Eric Dane guest starred on an episode of the Zachary Quinto-fronted Brilliant Minds Monday night, playing an ALS patient — which Dane himself was diagnosed with.
In the episode, Dane plays Matthew, a firefighter who struggles to tell his family about his ALS diagnosis — and later struggles to accept help from them as the prognosis progresses. The episode is set against the backdrop of Thanksgiving.
“We really wanted to honor him and his experience and be really truthful about it. [We] didn’t want to sensationalize in any way,” Michael Grassi, the NBC medical drama’s creator and showrunner, explained over a call ahead of the episode’s airing.
Dane disclosed earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and causes loss of muscle control. There’s currently no cure. Grassi said that Dane’s team got in touch and said he had seen the show and would like to do it, which started a series of conversations between the showrunner and Dane. “We really wanted to honor Eric and step up and do this for him. Cast, crew [and] writers — everybody really stepped up in such a beautiful way,” he said.
The episode begins with a recurring dream of Dane’s character Matthew, and remember this because it’s surely coming back — the firefighter is in his home, unable to move from his seat as his house catches fire and his family calls for help. “We are a show that tackles medical mysteries a lot of the time. But [that] wasn’t the story in this episode. It was very much more about you navigate [living with the disease],” Grassi explained.
In the episode, Matthew goes to see Dr. Oliver Wolf (Quinto), who tells him that “things are moving faster than we hoped.” Wolf suggests a sleep apnea machine is needed and that his family needs to know. Both suggestions, Dane’s character resists strongly.
“The day-to-day on set was incredible. It was collaborative, it was emotional [and] it was joyful on some days,” Grassi said, adding that having Dane in the show will be an experience that will have an impact on him for the rest of his life. “When we would call cut, it was really nice to see Eric connect with the cast and the crew. Everyone’s such a huge fan.”
Matthew’s ex-wife, portrayed by guest star Mädchen Amick, and his daughter eventually find out about his diagnosis and explain that ALS is a progressive disease but that there are thousands studying the disease with treatments hopefully on the horizon.
“We really wanted to get all the language right, especially when talking about something like ALS, where yes, there is currently no cure, but people are currently working very hard to find a cure,” Grassi explained. Daniela Lamas, a doctor, co-wrote the episode with Grassi. They leaned on two ALS doctors and two members of the writing staff who had family members living with ALS when developing the storyline. Grassi added about the fact researchers are working hard to find a cure, “That’s such an important thing to relay to the audience.”
Throughout the episode, Dane’s character Matthew is kept up by the dream. In recalling the dream, Quinto’s Wolf convinces the firefighter that he should use the sleep apnea machine before declaring the dream is actually about Matthew’s family saving him, not the other way around. Dane’s character ends the episode by recounting his feelings in VO, which turns out to be him speaking into a voice-making app. ALS patients use the technology, Grassi explains, for their voice to sound more like themselves when they lose their ability to speak.
“We were shooting that scene of the [voiceover] with Wolf and the dog Fred at their desk side. Eric’s performance was so raw and so vulnerable and so moving [that] the crew stood up and clapped him out that day for about 10 minutes,” Grassi said. “It was so beautiful.”
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