Mary
Elizabeth
WinsteadSource

With Mercy Street less than a week to go before it debuts, both The Washington Post and USA Today caught up with Mary and her co-star Josh Radnor to talk about the show. First up are some highlights from the WP interview:

For Winstead, part of what was exciting about playing Phinney was the opportunity to portray a character whose views are commonplace today but were considered radical in their time.

“I almost felt like I had it easy, because women like Mary Phinney and Louisa May Alcott [both of whose nursing experiences informed Winstead’s character] and women of that time had these personalities that were so modern, and so like they were plucked and sent back in time and landed in an era that was unfamiliar to them,” Winstead told me last fall. “They’re sort of like ‘Everyone is so crazy, there are these basic truths.’ They believed that so passionately that it feels like a modern sensibility, so so much of the dialogue and how the characters sort of behave— or my character specifically — felt very relevant to now for me.”
 
Phinney, trained by Dix, finds herself in conflict with Anne Hastings (Tara Summers), who worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, when Dix appoints Phinney to be the head nurse at Mansion House Hospital.
 
“The number of dead, the number of wounded, you would think they would want to take help from anyone who would give it,” Winstead said of how hard women had to fight to be allowed to serve. “But to think that women were still kind of turned away, or treated with disdain, or treated like they couldn’t be helpful; the women who actually did gain some respect and gained a place, you can see how they would be threatened at the thought of losing that.”

And speaking with USA Today, Mary had this to say on what drew her to the project– the women of that time:

“All the nurses before that point had been men. This was kind of the first time that women went out there and said, ‘No, I’m going to be a part of this. I’m not just going to sit at home. There’s too many people out there dying and we need all the help we can get,’ and they basically demanded to be a part of this war.”

The Daily Beast caught up with several of the Mercy Street cast earlier this year and went behind the scenes with them to share their experiences on filming, what they’ve learned and more. Below are some highlights on Mary’s thoughts where she shares most of her scenes with How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor:

“Mary and Dr. Foster have a bit of an antagonistic relationship,” Winstead says. “Even though Dr. Foster is on the Union’s side, he doesn’t necessarily share her views on slavery. She’s a very staunch abolitionist, so she’s shocked by his cavalier attitude towards slavery, and his lack of commitment to the cause of ridding it.” The two also have “completely different views on medicine and how to go about doing things,” Radnor says.

On filming the show: “It’s been quite a challenge, but it’s been really exciting. I feel so inspired every minute by all the actors, and the direction, and the camera team, the art department. Everybody is working at such a high level that it really makes us all feel like we want to rise to the occasion.”

The actors also prepared for their roles by watching Ken Burns’ PBS documentary The Civil War.

“I love how human this series really is,” Winstead says, “and how you’re able to see characters on both sides of the war, and how they justify their actions in a way that we can relate to.”

Mercy Street premieres on PBS Sunday, January 17 at 10pm.