With Mercy Street premiering Sunday on PBS, a lot of new interviews with the cast will be making its way online in anticipation for the series premiere. The Fresno Bee caught up with some of the cast and execs of Mercy Street, and Mary shared some thoughts on her character:
Many of the characters are based on real people. They’re not the famous names that dominate most tales about the conflagration, but ordinary people like Mary Phinney, who kept a memoir of her experiences as a nurse in the hospital. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“The Returned”) plays Phinney. “I was sort of cast somewhat last minute, and flew in and got started right away, and kind of dived into her memoir,” she says.
“So I was shooting this at the same time as I was discovering things about her. And I sort of gave everything over to these guys who were creating such an authentic environment, that I really felt like I was experiencing what she was experiencing when she first came to this hospital, and met all these people.
“And all of it is in her text as I’m acting it from day to day. And it was kind of a wonderful, special thing to be a part of and to bring to life. And I also felt I related to her so much and felt that her ideals and her views and what she was trying to accomplish and the way that she behaved was so contemporary – and so much like myself and people that I surround myself in my life now with.”
You can read the full interview by clicking on the link above.