We get a little meta in Brilliant Minds season 2, episode 2, as the patient of the week is someone who believes she’s living in a TV show. The main focus is Love Is Blind, but then she starts thinking that the hospital continues to be part of the set, and it’s a storyline that Molly Bernard had a lot of fun with.
Caution: This interview includes SPOILERS from Brilliant Minds season 2, episode 2.
At the same time, she understood the assignment. While there are many who suffer from delusions, the worlds that they are in are real to them, and it’s something Bernard shared that she focused on when portraying the character. The dating show world became her real world for those scenes, giving us an insight into the true devastation of mental health.
Along with the stigma of mental health, we learn that Lauren is also facing the fear of not being able to have a family. She goes to extreme lengths to make it possible, but that brings its own stigma and judgment. That’s a lot to unpack in one interview, but we tried!
GeekSided | I really want to start by asking about what drew you into Lauren during the audition process.
Molly Bernard: Oh, I really loved how raw and unexpected the situation is, about how much she really wants love and the extremes she’s willing to go to find love and having a family. I also was really into the two realities. The thing about delusion is that it is real to the person going through it, so I took it very seriously.
Then also the reality of her being in the hospital or being with the medical professionals or being in a taxi cab, not inside a Love Is Blind-esque reality show. It was the opportunity as an actor to explore both of these realities. It was absolutely delicious.
GeekSided | As you said, many people view delusions as just delusions, but they are real for the people in them. How did you prepare for that part of the role?
That’s a great question, and that was one of the most fun parts of this whole experience. I’m quite lucky. My wife is a public defender in the Bronx, and so she is in the business of keeping people out of jail or getting as minimal jail time as possible. She will never define someone by the worst moment of their life, so everyone’s just having a bad day when they’re getting arrested.
I think it’s not that different to these ER patients. She’s had clients who have suffered delusions, so I just feel the advantage of living with my wife and the kind of work that she does. I was able to go into this character with a lot of compassion and empathy and treat her delusion with a lot of respect. I just treated it like it was reality, and my whole script was my reality. I did not distinguish between the delusion and the hospital scenes.
GeekSided | We then get to find out what has happened to Lauren, and she shares that she didn’t want people to know she was going through IVF because of the stigma around it. What was it like bringing that side of her story out?
I think it’s a really brilliant and heartbreaking reveal for the audience. This woman is craving a family and life and love, and she has that ineffable desire to be a part of the family. Her sister has it. Her sister’s married and has a family and is actively pregnant, and I think it’s just Lauren’s shame spiral that her boyfriend broke up with her, and she was so devastated by the breakup and the hurt, but she didn’t want to give up on her IVF journey, so she just overdid it.
I think when the diagnosis of what’s happening to her is revealed, it’s heavy, because a lot of women and people can actually relate to going to massive extremes to make a family. It’s a big deal.
GeekSided | And I don’t think it’s just the pressure she’s putting on herself, but the pressure society puts on us. As women, we’re all told that we have to have babies!
Right! That’s totally true. We’re told to have babies, and we believe that. I remember I never thought I wanted children myself, but then I met my wife and we got married, and I wanted to start a family with her. We have a kid, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. So, it’s both. It’s biology and societal.
Society says to have a baby, and that you’re a failure if you can’t have the baby, so all of that pressure can lead to a whirlwind of, in Lauren’s case, disaster.
GeekSided | And then she sacrifices her own needs without realizing the damage she’s doing. When it came to showing us as the audience that Lauren was in her delusional state, did Brilliant Minds discuss the pink haze that we’d get? It was beautifully done.
That makes me so happy to hear. DeMane Davis, who’s our episode’s director, is a wizard and a treasure, and a genius. We sat down before we show the episode, and she described to me, verbatim, that the delusion was going to be in this beautiful pink light of love and coziness, and the reality of the hospital would be kind of stark and green and dark.
It was so fun because none of that is done in the edit.
GeekSided | Oh, cool!
We had pink lights on the side. It really helped me with the way the sets changed when we were filming the delusions. I could just be present in the reality of the situation. I didn’t have to say to myself, ‘Now I’m in a delusion, so act delusional.’ She’s just the same person in every scene.
When we shot the scenes in the hospital without the delusion, it was really painful, because it felt like the walls were closing in on me. It felt clinical and sterile and uncomfortable and wrong, so it was a genius move on DeMane’s part.
GeekSided | I have always loved how Brilliant Minds is able to show us what’s going on in the mind. Every episode is different.
It’s really cool. Claudine [Sauvé], the DP, is also a genius and a wizard. The crew and the creatives are such good collaborators with each other and with bringing in these guest stars. It’s such a generous collaboration, and such a fun experience. It’s a dream situation.
GeekSided | This episode certainly seemed like a lot of fun as Brilliant Minds went a little meta with Lauren pointing out Ericka is the Type-A personality, and Dana is the comedic relief. What was it like for you on set to play with that?
That was one of my favorite parts. It’s actually one of the reasons I took the part, just because of that scene. Elizabeth Cappuccino, who plays my sister, is just like, ‘This is so embarrassing. You can’t label all these medical students.’ That was so much fun.
And I’ve worked with Zachary Quinto before. We played a married couple in a Broadway play this past season, called Cult of Love. As Dr. Wolf, he’s so serious, so I loved that scene where I say to him that he doesn’t look like a real doctor, and he responds, ‘Nope, I just play one on TV.’ That’s so cheeky and fun. I think the whole audience will enjoy that because it’s excellent writing, and it was really fun to do.
GeekSided | I love that they used that line in the promo, because it really pulled me into the episode. Just to wrap, I want to end with how it all ends for Lauren, that there is a bit of hope. What’s that like for you to show people dealing with this that her psychosis isn’t forever and doesn’t define her?
I think that’s a great question. Above all, there’s hope for people watching it. It’s akin to what I said earlier about my wife’s profession. You are not defined by your worst day in your life or one of the lowest moments of your life. You have to have the courage to go through it. It could be dark and scary, but I think this episode shows a really supportive family in these sisters. They love each other, and Lauren is really suffering, but she’s willing to take the steps to come out of it.
It's really important, especially in the time in America, where there’s a lot of hopelessness, that there’s care to be taken. Trust your physicians, trust yourself, and trust your family to support you. You can emerge. I think Lauren’s emergence is an act of hope and resilience, so it’s very inspiring.
GeekSided | I hope we get to see Lauren back in a positive way.
I would definitely come back. I loved it.
Brilliant Minds airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.