“It has been kind of impossible for me to walk away from,” reveals Julie Ann Emery (“Better Call Saul,” “Preacher”) about her standout role in the harrowing Apple TV+ limited series “Five Days at Memorial.” For our recent webchat she adds, “Maybe we’re not supposed to easily be able to walk away from it. I hope that it leaves a bit of a mark on our audience as well, because I’d like to see real change in our world come from it. We’re going to see natural disasters and collective crises, like the pandemic, happen more frequently and more ferociously. It’s not going to let up and we need to really decide who we want to be together as a society. How do we show up for each other in those moments? And ‘Five Days’ really points to a lot of failings on that front” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“Five Days at Memorial” was developed, written and directed by John Ridley (“American Crime”) and Carlton Cuse (“Lost”), based on the 2013 non-fiction book “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” by journalist Sheri Fink. The eight-episode drama recounts the catastrophic conditions endured at a New Orleans hospital in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina from the perspectives of healthcare workers, patients and law enforcement. The series recounts the five days after Katrina made landfall in the Big Easy, exploring what happened after the floodwaters rose, when hundreds of caregivers and patients were trapped without sanitation or electricity, depleting food and water, oppressive humidity and temperatures of up to 110°F. As exhausted doctors and nurses were forced to make agonizing life-and-death decisions about who lives and who dies, it is revealed that those patients considered beyond treatment were ultimately put out of their misery rather than be evacuated. The series then shifts focus to after the evacuation, as law enforcement soon discover 45 corpses, some of whom we come to find out had met their demise after being injected with lethal doses of morphine and other drugs.
Oscar and Emmy nominee Vera Farmiga stars as real-life surgeon Dr Anna Pou, who was eventually tasked with deciding which patients were to be evacuated, and Tony and Emmy winner Cherry Jones stars as Susan Mulderick, the steadfast nursing director charged with co-coordinating emergency hospital operations during the disaster. Emery co-stars as Diane Robichaux, assistant administrator at Lifecare Hospital, a separate acute-care clinic that leased space from Memorial in the same building. Despite Robichaux being seven months pregnant when the hospital was hit, she heroically tries to evacuate as many of the most gravely ill patients, but soon realizes that many of them would never really be able to leave the facility. Amidst the chaos of those five horrific days, it is Robichaux’s perspective that provides viewers a deeper and more personal insight into the complete breakdown in communication and coordination between Memorial staff and their Lifecare counterparts.
Emery admits that the series left an indelible mark on her because cast and crew were so committed to taking “a deeper dive than any of us have ever taken before,” she explains. “We really felt like we had to go all the way there and, and then go further. John Ridley and Carlton Cuse wanted absolutely every bit of it that we could mine, every aspect of it that we could mine, whether it was on the page, written or not. I’m forever grateful for that experience.” Emery leaves a heartbreaking and unforgettable mark on the series too, going out with an emotional wallop when Robichaux weeps by the bedside of one of her most vulnerable patients before having to leave him behind. Emery recalls that day on set and reveals that it was shot in one devastating take. “We did the take and it was absolutely the most naked emotionally that I’ve ever been on screen,” she admits. “We finished that take and [John] came to me and he took my hand and he said, ‘I don’t think it gets more honest than that,’ and I said, ‘yeah, I don’t either.’ And he always asked me, ‘if you would like more takes, we can absolutely do that.’ And I said, ‘if you’re happy, sir, I am happy.’ And we left it at that. So I think we were going for, I don’t know, maybe we started the day hoping we nailed the scene, but what we ended with was honest and if you can be honest in a moment like that, I don’t know that you can ask for any more than that.”
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