Haley Louise Jones and Slavko Popadić star as Dr. Zanna Parker and Dr. Ben Weber in Apple TV+’s new medical drama Berlin ER. The two talked about their messy characters in their interview with us.
Berlin ER drops us in the middle of a busy and underfunded hospital in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Parker is coming from a life in Munich, which she is desperate to run away from and put behind her. That past is going to catch up to her, but not before she puts her focus on turning things around in an ER that sees the boss quit every few weeks, if they’re lucky to make it that far!
Dr. Weber is one of the ER docs, who is shocked to find out that Parker isn’t just another staff member, but his new boss. He certainly makes a great first impression, as he shows everything they’re already used to working in the toughest hospital in Berlin.
Haley Louise Jones and Slavko Popadić talk about their Berlin ER characters
Show Snob: I want to start with you Slavko, because that introduction to Ben is wild. What was that like for you filming?
Slavko Popadić: I had a lot of fun. It was like four months on adrenaline.
SS: We’re immediately told that Ben isn’t perfect. He has a wild side to him. We’re used to prim and proper doctors. What was that like for you to have something different?
SP: I think that’s the reason I love Ben and why I wanted to do this character. He’s driven by his passion to help, but this passion is also the thing that destroys him. He’s weak and really strong at the same time.
SS: For sure! And Haley, we can tell from the beginning that Parker is hiding something. Can you tease where we meet her at the start of the series?
Haley Louise Jones: I love that you word it like that, and that you see it, because I always felt like she’s a woman on the run. She’s just running from life, in a way, from parts of herself. She just left Munich, basically just made a clean cut and left her old life in a very short amount of time.
She hopes that it’s going to help her deal with everything and find balance again in life, and it ends up not working at all. Life has a way of catching up with you, and she basically ends up running back into herself and the issues she was trying to get away from. It’s actually good, because she ends up facing them and comes out on the other side.
SS: I don’t want to ruin the ending of the first episode for others, but it was a bada*s moment for Parker.
HLJ: Oh girl!
SS: What was that moment like for you filming that FU moment.
HLJ: That was pretty much my suffix. I was just like, you know what? FU.
That was one of my favorite scenes in the whole show. It’s also the moment I got booked for in the audition process. When I read that, I thought to do something like that because not everyone would. The fact that I didn’t see it coming, you know? I feel like it says so much about her.
She has such a unique mix of all these qualities and experiences, so much rejection and resistance, so much immaturity. She’s taken aback by it. She’s hurt by it. She doesn’t pretend not to be. At some point, she reaches that point of resistance in her that basically says, “You know, I want you to like me and we canteam up and actually do the job together if you would just take your head out of your butt for a second. If you’re not going to that’s fine. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to bully me out of here.”
SS: I love that! Slavko, I love that Ben just thinks Parker is a colleague at first and then learns she’s the new boss. What was that like playing it out?
SP: Oh, that was quite fun. We had a lot of fun on set the moment he realizes she’s the boss and she stays. It gets to be a real problem. She’s the innovator, and she totally throws him off balance.
SS: That first episode was so intense going straight into the ER. What was it like for you filming?
HLJ: It was a lot of fun. It took a minute to sort of adjust to, because what you see is what we experienced on set. There’s a level of noise that is really in there. You could really feel at the end of the day when it all of a sudden got quiet at home and you realized what you were exposed to all day. It actually takes a lot of energy from you, which really helped for the characters.
You had to develop this sort of tunnel vision at some point and a very selective hearing. You have to train your eyes and ears and also be able to have an overview of the situation. It was really interesting getting into character. I can only speak for myself, but I think as soon as we became the nurses or the doctors, we perceived the room differently, the chaos differently. As soon as the day was wrapped, I could feel like me. I could breathe for a second.
SP: Yeah, there are so many layers or so many things to think about. You have the extras, you have your tools, the operation, the other characters. You’re in some way involved. The camera is moving around and you’re dancing with it.
In the moment, you don’t feel it because you’re so focused and concentrating, but after work, you just fall down. I was exhausted every day, in a good way.
Berlin ER premieres on Wednesday, Feb. 26 and the remaining episodes air weekly on Wednesdays on Apple TV+.