Molly Parker: House of Cards actress stars in US drama Doc which has just aired in Australia
Molly Parker has a newfound respect for doctors after starring as one in Doc, the US's biggest medical drama, which has finally hit screens in Australia.
The Canadian actress plays Amy Larsen, the chief of Internal Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis, who sustains a brain injury and loses the last eight years of her life.
Dr Larsen is forced to navigate an unfamiliar world — while still practising medicine, she has no recollection of patients she's treated, colleagues she's encountered, the man she loves, or the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away.
She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a nine-year-old, and a few devoted friends, as she struggles after losing nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.
It is based on an Italian series of the same name inspired by true events.
Parker, best-known for her roles in House of Cards and Lost in Space, said while stepping into scrubs had been a challenge, she discovered a greater respect for medical professionals.
'The first couple of episodes are quite emotional for Amy, and so just that, in and of itself, is quite difficult,' she told The Sunday Times.
'It's given me a whole new appreciation for actors who play medical professionals, but also for medical professionals. It is such hard work and just so important. It's given me a whole a whole new respect.'
With many days of intense and emotional filming, Parker said she uses knitting, a hobby she took up a few years ago, to cope.
'For me, in between setups or in between scenes, I need to be doing something with my hands, but it can't be something that takes me emotionally into another place,' she said.
'Like a big part of the job as an actor is to manage your emotional reality over the course of a day of working and knitting kind of is meditative.
'My husband's daughter just had a baby, so we have a little three-month-old granddaughter, and she's like the cutest thing ever. So I'm making little outfits.
She also has a mini dachshund, Birdie, whom she takes on walks.
While the series has aired in Australia for the first time, Parker admitted she hasn't spent a lot of time in the country.
'It's so embarrassing. And actually, I have an aunt from Melbourne, although she hasn't lived there in many, many years,' she said.
'I grew up on the west coast of Canada, and I just sort of always thought work would take me there. Like for a long time, all the travel I did was only for work, and I've sort of only recently really started travelling for myself, and somehow I just have not gotten a job in Australia.'
Doc has been renewed for a second season of 22 episodes — double that of the first season — but Parker couldn't spill the beans as she 'doesn't know very much'.
'I expect that everything you can think of is gonna happen in this second season. But for me, that's part of what is really exciting about this dynamic, (Larsen's) amnesia gives space where almost anything can exist in that void,' she said.
'All secrets and surprises are going to show up for Amy. And I guess the big question is, Is she going to get any of her memory back? If she does, what will it be? And will it be an end?'
Stream new episodes of Doc on 7plus every Tuesday.
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