Inside the 'Mental' Mind of New Fox Doctor, Chris Vance by Troy Rogers
After
leaving a memorable yet mysterious impression
on the minds of TV viewers from his role as
James Whistler in the third season of Prison
Break, actor Chris Vance is getting the chance
to leave a weekly imprint on the Fox line-up
as Dr. Jack Gallagher in the new medical series,
Mental, which takes to the airwaves on May 26
at 9pm.
Adding to Fox's medical slate, Mental takes
on the complexities of the human mind as Chris
Vance plays a radically unorthodox psychiatrist,
and Director of Mental Health Services at a
Los Angeles hospital, who pushes the conventions
of the medical system with controversial treatments
while balancing the lingering effects of a romantic
past with his hospital superior played by Annabella
Sciorra. As Dr. Gallagher delves deep into the
minds of his weekly patients, often working
with the police and battles the status-quo, the
keys to long term recovery begin to surface
from inside the brains and tangled past experiences
of his patients.
Leading up to the premiere of Mental, we roamed the lonely halls of "conference call hospital" with a few other journalists where we eventually found Chris Vance who filled us in on what fans can expect from Fox's new medical drama, Dr. Gallagher, the various forms of unorthodox treatments, and the research he did to prep for such a unique series.
THE DEADBOLT: Would you say that Jack is the House of the psychiatry world?
CHRIS VANCE: No, I wouldn’t. I’ll tell
you why: The two shows are similar in construct,
they’re single-lead shows that are investigative
medicine in a way, but the two characters are
very, very different. Jack is at completely
the opposite end of the spectrum in the way
he approaches a patient and patient care than
House. You’ll find that they’re very, very different.
THE DEADBOLT: There's the tension caused by your previous relationship with Nora, but why do the other staff members at the hospital appear to dislike you?
VANCE:
Well, Veronica, to start with, she was expecting
Jack’s job. She was expecting to be Director
of Mental Health Services and from that point
of view she was cheated out of it by a newcomer,
so she’s not too happy. And then you’ve got
Carl, he was vying for the same job. 'It should
have been his,' he says, ... he goes on to become
something of a nemesis or an enemy toward Jack,
I think as the series goes on. I think I’m free
to put it that way.
THE DEADBOLT: Can you talk about the type of research you did for the role?
VANCE: Sure, I can talk a little bit about it. I worked very closely with the writers on the series and the way it was going to go ... The writers had a team of professional psychiatrists and experts in the field and they worked very closely on the individual disorders, phobias, and diseases, so to speak. Then I had access to those professionals, and so they helped me through each part of anything I didn’t understand to the best of their ability. They gave me access and the understanding to play the role and to treat the storylines with the respect they deserve.
THE DEADBOLT: Can you mention any of the unorthodox approaches you have to take with the patients?
VANCE:
The unorthodox - I can’t give away the specifics,
no, just to say there are variations. Some of
them are variations of conventional treatments
and some of them are radically different.
THE DEADBOLT: What about when you were with the psychiatrist doing your research, was there anything that you learned that really surprised you?
VANCE: Yes, an awful lot, actually. Pretty much everything they told me in every turn. You will find that because the science of mental health, if I’m free to say so, at least it is my understanding, it’s in its relative infancy because the human mind is a cosmic field which we know relatively little about, so yes, it was amazing. I can’t really go into the specifics because it will give away the sort of storylines, but yes, at every turn I was learning something. And it was frustrating as well because there wasn’t enough to learn in some certain senses.
i enjoy the show, mental, with chris vance. i look forward to the new season. when will it begin. i watch fox here in jackson, miss. on comcast cable station. thank you. walter goza.
After
leaving a memorable yet mysterious impression
on the minds of TV viewers from his role as
James Whistler in the third season of Prison
Break, actor Chris Vance is getting the chance
to leave a weekly imprint on the Fox line-up
as Dr. Jack Gallagher in the new medical series,
Mental, which takes to the airwaves on May 26
at 9pm.
VANCE:
Well, Veronica, to start with, she was expecting
Jack’s job. She was expecting to be Director
of Mental Health Services and from that point
of view she was cheated out of it by a newcomer,
so she’s not too happy. And then you’ve got
Carl, he was vying for the same job. 'It should
have been his,' he says, ... he goes on to become
something of a nemesis or an enemy toward Jack,
I think as the series goes on. I think I’m free
to put it that way.
VANCE:
The unorthodox - I can’t give away the specifics,
no, just to say there are variations. Some of
them are variations of conventional treatments
and some of them are radically different.