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TRAUMA Star Anastasia Griffith on BuzzWorthy Radio!
Anastasia Griffith stars as paramedic Nancy Carnahan in NBC’s new ensemble medical drama series, “Trauma.”
Born in Paris to her American father and Northern Irish actress mother, Griffith has proven herself a formidable talent on whichever continent she settles. Best known for her role as Katie Connor on the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated drama series “Damages,” starring Glenn Close, Griffith has accumulated a variety of credits since moving stateside, including the upcoming film “Solitary Man” with Michael Douglas.
Additional television credits include guest-starring roles on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Cleaner” with Benjamin Bratt, “Lipstick Jungle,” and “New Amsterdam,” which reunited her with co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from the film “The Headsman.” She has also appeared in the BAFTA-winning drama “Dirty Filthy Love” opposite Michael Sheen, and in the remake of “Alfie” with Jude Law.
Griffith trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, having previously completed a degree in history of art at Bristol University. As a result of her theatrical background, she has mastered a variety of dialects and starred in numerous stage productions.
Born in Paris to her American father and Northern Irish actress mother, Griffith has proven herself a formidable talent on whichever continent she settles. Best known for her role as Katie Connor on the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated drama series “Damages,” starring Glenn Close, Griffith has accumulated a variety of credits since moving stateside, including the upcoming film “Solitary Man” with Michael Douglas.
Additional television credits include guest-starring roles on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Cleaner” with Benjamin Bratt, “Lipstick Jungle,” and “New Amsterdam,” which reunited her with co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from the film “The Headsman.” She has also appeared in the BAFTA-winning drama “Dirty Filthy Love” opposite Michael Sheen, and in the remake of “Alfie” with Jude Law.
Griffith trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, having previously completed a degree in history of art at Bristol University. As a result of her theatrical background, she has mastered a variety of dialects and starred in numerous stage productions.
- Duration:
- 12m
- Broadcast on:
- 12 Oct 2009
- Audio Format:
- other
Ranked number one in innovation 10 consecutive years Arizona State University isn't just ahead of the curve it's creating new paths to success. Learn from notable clinical and research faculty online that's a degree better explore programs at asu online dot asu dot edu You can get your life in this buzzworthy radio where you can get the latest buzz and all your favorite children's buzz. Buzzworthy is in fact now. Hey good morning everybody welcome to a new edition of Buzzworthy Radio here on blog talk radio.com. It is Monday October 12, 2009, 9 a.m. Eastern Standard Time we are joined by Anastasia Griffith who plays the role of paramedic Nancy Carnahan on NBC's trauma. We're joined by her right now. How are you? Good morning. I'm good how are you guys? I'm doing very well thanks so much for stopping on over this morning. So let's talk about your character let's describe her a little bit for everybody that's listening. Yeah she's sort of one of the main paramedics in the show and she's someone who is driven through empathy to work in this field and she actually trained to be a doctor but slightly through the pressure of her father who is a big time medic and a surgeon and she decided she wanted to do something for herself and she didn't really understand that she didn't really understand the mentality of doctors she thought of often doctors did it for the wrong reason so she wanted to go out there into the streets and sort of help people that way and so she's she's got a lot of empathy she loves her job she's kind of driven I mean her whole reason better is her job really and so she's just got a lot of heart you know but she's got an icy exterior and she can bite back you know she's one of these kind of guys girls she functions well in a man's world you know and yeah she's pretty feisty. I like that yeah you gotta have some feisty characters you know just how you describe her it's like she's somewhat following in her father's with this but not really she's doing her own thing but still in the same path. Yeah absolutely and I think she's constantly under the pressure you know she has this training she's constantly under the pressure to take the next step and go in and do her internships in the ER and that's something that she struggles with all the time but for her she gets reminded that a lot of the time you know doctors are in it for the wrong reasons and she feels that the status that you get as a doctor kind of changes the reasons why you do the job and so that's her tear I mean she'd love to kind of take things a step further that she feels I think that maybe it would somehow take away from what she get out of out of the sort of person to person contact of being a paramedic. Exactly but let's let's let's let's talk about this what do you see with trauma different than any other medical ensemble drama out there what what makes this one so unique for talking. Well I mean I see you know obviously it's a medical drama which has been done a number of times before and been done very successfully before and I think we've learned from ER. ER was an incredibly good very successful example of the medical trauma for years so we've taken a little bit of that energy where you just you sort of assume knowledge of the medicine in a way you just throw people into the medicine and and don't explain it or or kind of punctuate it too much and this kind of very great ensemble medical history that ER sort of set up but we take it onto the streets and we make it a lot more kind of I don't want to say action because it's really not I mean I know that a lot of the promos have been very much that we inclined but it's actually we we use the characters very deeply but it's it's higher adrenaline you know these people genuinely do go into the situations that most people run away from and so we kind of felt that that was an inbuilt drama right there in a in a concept for a show that that we could utilize and there is something very specific about the people who want to do that you know I think make of us a rather run a mile so we just kind of wanted to figure out you know who these people are who have this amazing ability to kind of deal with that kind of stress on a day-to-day level and and where they go with with their stuff so I think it's a kind of great combination between high action higher adrenaline but deeply rooted in character which I'm not sure has been done many times before you know and it's kind of mixing two mediums in a way which is kind of fun right I mean this show you've had like a lot of paramedic real paramedic and ease and firemen actually on on the show as well you know if we ever carry out a big I mean there was a surgery scene recently where where our onset doctor you know I that the medical advisor actually played the doctor because you know we want it to be as real as possible and these people you know that they this is what they do every day so we in every scene we do every MCI every sort of call those usually real firemen real paramedics aiding us so I mean and we've entered into a lot of discussion the paramedics that whether it's genuinely truthful or not and so it makes me laugh when some people are saying that we're not being advised property if they well if we're not being advised property we have an army of paramedics on that at any one time plus medical advisors and everything else and so we're really eager to make it as genuine as possible and we try very hard to bring that energy to it yeah they're there I mean they're brilliant people and kind of really I think we're really enjoying being a part of this sort of alter ego of their jobs you know it's quite fun right for them right and did you have to learn a lot when you got this part as far as what paramedics EMTs do or did you just learn that right away as soon as you got the part um no I definitely we all we all were sent I think the first thing we did we met a paramedic training camp because we went down to MLA to a place down there Santa Monica and trained there for a day and then went off with a whole bunch of reading material and our scripts and um to learn for more and then up in San Francisco we went on ride along we did every morning during the pilot we would do more training so that we got the medicine that we were doing in a pilot down pat you know and then um and now you know we've got that back of that training and we have you know this we have Dr. John Fong on the set who actually was an advice on ER for a long time and he was he's an ER doctor and um and a bunch as I say a couple of paramedics at all times who will train us for each scene that we're doing and they send us to clear emails and every morning when we have a big scene we'll go on and go through it with them a few times so we know exactly what we're doing but I mean if someone went down in front of me I have no idea what to do yeah you had no idea but now it seems like now you're like what about 10 episodes in filming um yeah we're about to start the night okay it just seems like now you pretty much you pretty much have a grasp on exactly what what what goes on you know with yeah you know I'd never been in the back of an ambulance before touchwood you know for myself I've never had to and um I think it's always really scared me and I have no knowledge of medicine or anything like that and suddenly you know I'm kind of able to you know tell right tell the writers you know how the procedures go and what the drugs are and you know and and kind of yeah it all means something to me now which is brilliant do you find that is do you find that's on your weird or like incredibly awesome that you're able to actually know a lot about medicine now and you know you're able to yeah I think it's great I you know I'm I guess a bit of a hype country I can I think it kind of takes the edge of now when I see an ambulance I'm not petrified I kind of realize that most of the time they're kind of driving around um you know what we call frequent flyers which are kind of the homeless people who they see all the time you know who need to go in for because they you know they need certain drugs or whatever and so you kind of know that a lot of time it's not it's not a high drama you know right um so that's taking the edge of that yeah I have huge respect for the medical industry or the medical business I don't know what do you call it business career profession and you know and yeah I'm kind of really enjoying having a little insight into how that all all works absolutely and one of the things I always I've described about this show ever since I started watching it is that it's so real it's not fake do you agree with that yeah absolutely I mean and we're kind of working in the Friday Night Lights tradition you know it's Peter Berg produced it Jeffrey Reiner who was a co-exec on and director of Friday Night Lights is our co-executive director and um you know they they bring things bring to it you know a bite of reality and that that that deal the way they shoot things the way that they encourage us to act and you know we add live a lot in order to bring a little reality to it you know it's all about bringing it back to reality but obviously you know we're bringing a slice of action to something true so there's there's this sort of amazing dichotomy between different genres going on I think in this piece and um you know between pilot and season we made a very big effort to go as real as possible you know I think there's a very different vibe between the pilot and the rest of the season and um and that that came from you know the writers Jeffrey and us that we wanted to you know bring the action the action is definitely there and it's very important but we wanted it to be real you know it's not a Hollywood grandiose action and so so that's that's kind of the vibe I think you know just try and make it as real life as possible get into the heads of these of these characters who are interesting you know these characters the reasons why they do this is interesting and you know they've gone through a lot themselves but so it's kind of it's a nice balance between those different genres I think absolutely absolutely and it's a great for everybody and then see Carnegie Carnahan on NBC's trauma which is on every Monday night tonight nine Eastern make sure you check it out if you cannot check it out live you can also watch it on google.com or nbc.com thank you so much for coming out thank you so much thank you have a good day you too bye bye all right you guys we are going to be back at 10 30 we're going to be back in the 10 30 we're going to be joined by actually whether you believe this or not we're going to be joined by Anna's days is a poster from trauma in at in about uh hour an hour and 20 minutes have to I had to think about my math there from it Taylor Kinney will be joining us at 10 30 he plays a role of Glenn Morris on trauma as well so we'll be back on 10 30 and we'll be joined by Chad Rogers as well who is on the million dollar listing on Bravo so make sure you guys come back low and come back up here 10 30 come back and that nice nice little boy so get away from the monday morning that everybody feels gloom and doom on monday let's have some fun let's have some fun this monday morning have some coffee get some Dunkin Donuts listen to listen to some bugs worthy this morning all right so stuff back on over 10 30 we'll be joining by Taylor Kinney and Chad Rogers we'll see you guys in a few take care
Anastasia Griffith stars as paramedic Nancy Carnahan in NBC’s new ensemble medical drama series, “Trauma.”
Born in Paris to her American father and Northern Irish actress mother, Griffith has proven herself a formidable talent on whichever continent she settles. Best known for her role as Katie Connor on the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated drama series “Damages,” starring Glenn Close, Griffith has accumulated a variety of credits since moving stateside, including the upcoming film “Solitary Man” with Michael Douglas.
Additional television credits include guest-starring roles on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Cleaner” with Benjamin Bratt, “Lipstick Jungle,” and “New Amsterdam,” which reunited her with co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from the film “The Headsman.” She has also appeared in the BAFTA-winning drama “Dirty Filthy Love” opposite Michael Sheen, and in the remake of “Alfie” with Jude Law.
Griffith trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, having previously completed a degree in history of art at Bristol University. As a result of her theatrical background, she has mastered a variety of dialects and starred in numerous stage productions.
Born in Paris to her American father and Northern Irish actress mother, Griffith has proven herself a formidable talent on whichever continent she settles. Best known for her role as Katie Connor on the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated drama series “Damages,” starring Glenn Close, Griffith has accumulated a variety of credits since moving stateside, including the upcoming film “Solitary Man” with Michael Douglas.
Additional television credits include guest-starring roles on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” “The Cleaner” with Benjamin Bratt, “Lipstick Jungle,” and “New Amsterdam,” which reunited her with co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from the film “The Headsman.” She has also appeared in the BAFTA-winning drama “Dirty Filthy Love” opposite Michael Sheen, and in the remake of “Alfie” with Jude Law.
Griffith trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, having previously completed a degree in history of art at Bristol University. As a result of her theatrical background, she has mastered a variety of dialects and starred in numerous stage productions.