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‘She's got tunnel vision': Wendi McLendon-Covey reveals what she loves most about her character Joyce on ‘St. Denis Medical'
'It was, like, four hours after we were canceled, and that's no joke.' That's how long it took for Wendi McLendon-Covey to receive the first script for St. Denis Medical after the demise of her long-running comedy The Goldbergs. As the actress tells Gold Derby, she read the pilot with no expectation of making a series commitment, but she says she became hooked because her character, Joyce, is 'such an oddball and reminded me of so many women supervisors that I had working other jobs.' The transition from one show to another did prove challenging, though, as she shot the first episode of the NBC medical mockumentary while promoting the series finale of her family sitcom and felt like she was 'cheating' on her television family. (Watch our full interview above).
McLendon-Covey's character is at the center of the St. Denis Medical cast as the top hospital administrator who tries to motivate the doctors, nurses, and staff of her regional medical center in her quest to make it a destination hospital. Although the character comes across as an 'oddball,' the actress stresses that 'she's not an idiot. She's an accomplished woman who is a doctor.' The television vet crafted a backstory to explain her character's offscreen journey, sharing, 'In my mind, she became an administrator because she got tired of being told how to practice medicine.' But now, instead of battling with insurance companies over patient care, all she does now is 'beg for money all day.' The actress describes this as the 'delicious line' she gets to walk.
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McLendon-Covey stars in the series alongside Emmy Award nominee Allison Tolman and Tony Award winner David Alan Grier. While those performers have 'proven track records,' the Emmy-nominated Reno 911! star has been equally impressed with the cast members who she didn't know prior to joining St. Denis. 'When I watch Mekki Leeper, dear God, just take me out, turn the cameras off me because I'm laughing my head off,' exclaims the actress, continuing, 'Same with Josh Lawson, same with Kaliko [Kauahi], who can level me with one line delivery per episode. She knows how to get in, say her thing, steal all the focus, and get out. Kahyun [Kim], I'm so impressed with her because she learned English from watching television in her twenties. She's fantastic.'
Joyce's relationship with Grier's character, the burned out doctor Ron, has emerged as one of the most pivotal in the series, as the snark they show toward one another thinly masks deeply-held respect. 'We haven't talked about it that much. We had a meeting of the minds and started playing it the same way,' the actress says of the duo's dynamic. The series has revealed that the two doctors were residents together at St. Denis decades ago, so the performer hopes Season 2 will feature a flashback to those years, confessing, 'I do want to see what they (a) looked like in the '90s, and (b) how that worked out when they were working 18-hour shifts together.'
WATCH our video interview with Allison Tolman, 'St. Denis Medical'
One of McLendon-Covey's best episodes from the first season, 'Listen to Your Ladybugs,' follows the hospital's awareness campaign to encourage women to get their mammograms in a timely fashion. But when Joyce gets her screening for the cameras, it turns up an inconclusive spot that needs further testing, causing Joyce to panic. 'We're just playing the reality of working in a hospital, and things turn on a dime. Sometimes you're the ones getting the bad news,' stresses the actress about why the installment works so effectively. The Bridesmaids star also reveals that Joyce's situation, in which a mammogram led to a more invasive biopsy, happened to her. Just like her character, the McLendon-Covey says, 'Mammograms suck! It is like a panini press. This is the best we can do for women? It's humiliating. It hurts. I've got a whole sermon I could preach.'
McLendon-Covey most enjoyed shooting the 'big episodes' of St. Denis Medical's first season, including 'Some Famous Internet Guy,' where the hospital hosts a concert for its pediatric patients, and 'Bruce-ic and the Mus-ic,' in which Joyce helps Ron emcee a fundraising gala. The actress says she delights in the installments in which 'there's just chaos going on behind the scenes, and Joyce has to pretend like there isn't any chaos.' She also mentions 'Ho-Ho-Hollo,' the Christmas episode, which finds Joyce suddenly passionate about the hospital going viral online. 'The absurdity of Joyce getting a goal in her mind and trying to reach it … she's got tunnel vision," McLendon-Covey says, "and I like that in a character.'
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