Kim Raver on Directing Dream Debut of Richard’s Dad (Exclusive)

[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for Grey’s Anatomy Season 22 Episode 9, “Fortunate Son.”]

Grey’s Anatomy introduced not one but two characters who’ve been missing from the picture all this time: the long-deceased father of Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.) and the notorious sister of Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman).

Richard’s dad (portrayed by Dorian Harewood) came to him in an anesthesia haze dream during his surgery for prostate cancer, during which the operating room slowly morphed into an old school barber shop, and the two men reminisced about the good old days before things took a grimmer tone. This slow-burn encounter gave Richard the chance to finally confront his grief and guilt over having a procedure to cure the same cancer that took his father’s life years before. In the end, it was a success.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen a character’s mind morph the OR suite into something dreamy on Grey’s, but it is one of the most creative versions ever done on this show, and part of the reason was episode director Kim Raver‘s vision for the scenery — more on that in a moment.

As for Nick’s sister, while he and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) braced for a visit from his estranged sister Erica (Brit Morgan) back in Boston, what they didn’t expect was for her to show up with a baby in tow.

Last time Erica had a kid, she wasn’t able to take care of her, and Nick ended up raising her through to adulthood. So Nick’s reservations were understandable, especially when Erica took off to have a moment — er, a couple of hours — of peace alone without notice. However, with Meredith standing firmly at his side, despite some testy little interludes, they all got through it as a family, and Erica was invited to stay.

To delve into the making of these big show moments in this episode and get a sense of what’s ahead on Grey’s, TV Insider caught up with Kim Raver!

The dream sequence was such an interesting device to explore that history between Richard and his father. We’ve seen these dream sequences before in the show, but they’re pretty rare. So how did you formulate the scenes and the tone and the unique look of how that plays out?

 Kim Raver: With dream sequences, I think we’ve all, as audience members, seen them a lot, and I wanted this to be different… But I wanted to be very mindful to keep the audience engaged and not sort of separated. It was very important to me that everything in the dream felt very real. I didn’t want it to feel separated from sort of the emotional arc that we were going through, or, in fact, what we go through in Grey’s.

And I think that that was definitely one of my directions to the actors when I was working with them, that everything that we’re saying is we’re experiencing real emotions, rather than it just sort of being sort of a dream up on a pedestal or some separate [plane], and that’s also why those performances are incredible.

Then, in terms of the look, I mean, Julie Wong, the writer, did such an extraordinary job of how she structured the episode for me. Again, I wanted to ground it in an emotional reality, but visually heighten it, if that makes sense, but also be very sober with it. I didn’t want it over the top, but it was written as [it] becomes a barber shop, right? So then I just started imagining, “Well, what would that be?” And I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the scrub room became the window of the barber shop?” Especially because we have that at the beginning of the episode. And we have such extraordinary talent. I mean, everyone on the crew, you can say, “I have this idea. What if we turn the scrubber in there,” then they render these amazing mock-ups of what it could be. And so it was a huge collaborative effort, because, yes, we have seen dreams before, but it’s not something that we do every episode. So it was a very collaborative episode, because it was different, and because, again, we were telling such an important storyline.

But I just really had to think outside the box of how to make that or become something different and special: “At what point were the machines gone or not there? And what chairs were we bringing in for the barbershop? And when were the barbers there or not there, and what they meant?” And I love bringing in, we used to use those old light boxes a lot for the X-rays. I mean, I remember a really funny time that me and Chandra [Wilson] and Kevin [McKidd] had to do this light box scene. And for some reason, Chandra, when she had to put the X-ray up into the light box, it wouldn’t stick. So we do take and take over again, but I always thought visually, those were really interesting. So at one point, I was like, “Well, what if we put that old X-ray light box in there, so that they actually have something to kind of work with in the dream of when they were talking about how it metastasizes and what happens with the cancer?” And so it was a really fun, creative experience.

Richard’s father was always a mysterious figure, and another figure that comes into this episode is Nick’s sister, who’s somebody who’s also been withheld from audiences. This is the first time we get to see her. 

She’s amazing, too. [It was an] amazing performance by her.

That segment of the storyline with Meredith and Nick and the sister, it’s almost like a little bit of a bottle episode styling. So how fun was it for you to kind of check in with those characters separate from everything out all the other chaos of the hospital?

I loved it. I mean, I loved it…. I feel like the audience is going to be so excited to see a part of Nick that we didn’t really know very well, and to see Meredith reacting to Nick in a very different way. So that was very exciting to me. To be able to expand more and then, like you say, a bottle episode, which I think is always really exciting, because it’s our characters from Grey’s, but it’s sort of a deeper dive. It’s like taking a chapter into more of Nick’s life.

So I think it’s gonna be really exciting for the audience to understand more of Nick and kind of follow the journey through Nick’s eyes, but through Meredith. And Ellen and [Scott Speedman], the two of them are just so good in this. They’re always good, again, but like to be able to tell a deeper storyline, I think is always is really fun as an actor, but also very exciting for the audience.

It’s a nice update with her reaction to things. It’s very calm, and those two have had some topsy-turvy moments, and this is very settled, despite there being a bit of chaos. 

Isn’t it great seeing how Meredith is reacting to that chaos? … It’s also really nice to see that side of Meredith, right? And Ellen’s so good. She’s just so good in it.

To focus in on Teddy a bit, she gets a lot of attention in the last episode over the podcast, but she handles it pretty well. Do you think it’ll go to her head at all, or she’s just going to be humble? 

I don’t think it’s going to go to her head. I think she’s just really trying to figure out that kind of big overall question that she said at the beginning of the season, of just who is she?… I think she’s, for the first time, able to, I think, come into her power, and she’s figuring out without having to kind of apologize for it, which I think is really interesting for women, especially women who are juggling their career and kids and marriage and all of that. And I think it’s a really cool concept that a lot of women and our audience members can relate to, sort of, ‘How do you do these really big, monumental steps in your career?’ So I think she’s really exploring what does that mean? What does that mean to step into her power? Who is she? What’s the ripple effect?   So I think that journey is really cool. And of course, Meg [Marinis], our showrunner, she’s just so good at really tapping into that storyline. So I just love the ups and downs of Teddy, and I just always love that sometimes she does it well, and sometimes she’s figuring it out.

She and Owen both seem to be in a really good place right now, even being apart. What can you tease about what’s ahead for Teddy, Owen, and just the show in general, at the back half of Season 22?

I’ll say, with Teddy and Owen, it’s always exciting with them, so it doesn’t stay linear, which I think is really cool. Even though they’re trying to figure out what’s happening in their relationship, it’s not a straight line, which, of course, is also great by the writers. And I think that that’s very fun to watch — fun and frustrating. It’s complicated as always with the two of them, right? And I think that’s the journey for that sort of overall arc of Grey’s where there’s some really amazing hero moments and some really messy moments. And we do that sort of, through tears and through laughter, which is just this kind of best part of Grey’s.

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