Scott Wolf Gears Up for the Season Finale of NBC’s Drama ‘Night Shift’

By: Debra Wallace

(AOTN) From the moment one enters the loading bay at San Antonio Memorial Hospital’s emergency room it is clear that “The Night Shift” provides a pulse-racing, realistic medical drama, with a great deal of heart and soul.

For the past four seasons, the Night Shift’s team of doctors and nurses has been anything but ordinary, as they take great risks to save lives, often straddling the line between heroic and impulsive, but it’s always worth the effort.

As devoted fans of the show get ready for the season finale on NBC on Thursday, August 31, at 10 p.m. [ET], they have undergone a wild ride, which they deeply hope will continue for its 5th season. As the 4th season began, the Night Shift team was facing the impending sale of the hospital and the death of a beloved colleague.

While TC, (Eoin Macken), remained overseas stationed in Syria with the soldiers, intelligence staff, and international crews, the doctors at home, Jordan Alexander (Jill Flint) and Scott Clemmens, (Scott Wolf), have been the driving force that has kept the night shift team together.

The 49-year-old Wolf first made his mark on television as Bailey Salinger on “Party of Five.” He also continued to capture attention as Jake Hartman in “Everwood,” and Chad Decker in “V.”

As Dr. Clemmens in “Night Shift,” he has had a great role model – his own maternal grandfather, who was an anesthesiologist.

Wolf and his wife, Kelley, have been married for 14 years, and have three children; Jackson, 8, Miller, 4, and Lucy, 3. They reside in Park City, Utah, when Wolf is not filming, “The Night Shift,” in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Q: Please tell me about what you love about your character, Dr. Scott.

Scott Wolf: Well, right from the beginning this was a character that was really exciting for me and extremely fun to play. You know, he served as kind of a contrast to a lot of the other characters in this world where there’s a very loose, ex-medic, by any means necessary, free-for-all kind of vibe, and it’s the night shift and its wild.

Q: So would you say that this is not his typical element?

SW: Yes. He was this guy who’s like classically trained and very serious about his work, and very in control. He’s a surgeon, so in a way it was kind of a nice foil to a lot of what was going on here, and not just for the sake of being a jerk, but because he believes in a certain way of practicing medicine.

Q: Did something change?

SW: Definitely. Over the course of the last two seasons we have seen that kind of veneer get stripped away and some of it has been his own desire to start to feel like this is a cool family and he wants to be part of it.

Q: How has he evolved?

SW: I would say that some of it has been the circumstances of his life. He struggled with his sobriety; he had this horrible car accident where he paralyzed a young kid, and that completely undermined his sense of his life, and so this season it’s been fun to see him sort of go, ‘You know what? I’ve gotten as vulnerable as I want to be, and now it’s time to get back to being the doctor that I used to be.’

Q: What else is involved?

SW: Well, that kind of clear-headed purpose and focus I think is something that surgeons thrive on, and he feels like maybe on some level that he’s slipped away from a little bit of that, and all this relationship stuff and all this interpersonal stuff, has felt good in the moment, but ultimately, I think, confuses him more than anything, and he’s wanting to get back to the stuff that makes perfect sense to him, which is being in charge of an operating room.

Q: This show lends itself to go pretty much everywhere, but as it continues where would you not want to see your character, or the show go?

SW: Oh, man. What’s great is we’re often asked what would we like to see our characters do, and I think our writers and producers do such a good job of just organically following where these lives seem to be headed. I guess on some level I really like seeing Scott, in this sort of power position that he feels most comfortable in. It is really fun because I feel like he’s not the same guy he was in season one. He’s almost more in control because he’s got so much more of a well-rounded experience.

Q: Tell me more about this.

SW: Some of the heart break he’s gone through, such as having his entire life called into question and that possibly if that kid that he hit in the car accident dies, he’s maybe in prison now. So, here is this guy who now is in control, but in a way that sort of holds all of these things that have become important to him, and so he’s a much more connected person.

Q: How has your character changed and evolved through the seasons?

SW: He’s much more kind…he’s like a benevolent general now, where he was just kind of an ass-kicker before. I feel like we’ve seen him ’mush around’ in his most vulnerable space, and while that can happen again at any time, I like the idea of him not going back into that stuff, and exploring what it means to be in charge now, and especially given everything that he’s been through, and how important a lot of people in this world have become to him.

Q: Anything else you can add about this?

SW: I suppose there are two things that I take away. First, having shadowed a surgeon, and watching him do open heart surgeries and working with the doctors that we have here on set with us, the exposure to it just makes me feel I am really glad that we have people that are so devoted and expert at practicing medicine.

Q: What else is involved?

SW: The second thing is the importance of keeping the whole process as human as possible. There’s a clinical side to it that is completely understandable. Surgeons can’t break down and cry every time somebody comes into their OR, but these are human beings with families, so I feel like I’d be much more aware in the future of how vulnerable people are in this environment.

Q: How have you changed Dr. Scott, and how have you become him a little or how has he rubbed off on you?

SW: I’ve probably softened him up a little bit and in a good way. They could have cast this character in a lot of different ways and frankly, in the beginning, when it was just kind of this love triangle, he was the odd man out of that. So in many shows they would have just cast somebody who is easy to write off or not like. In this case, they wanted to make it a little more challenging for the audience because either choice for her was okay, and the audience could get with either one.

Q: Please tell me more.

SW: I think maybe whereas Dr. Scott is kind of rigid, I feel like I probably added a measure of humor, warmth, and accessibility to him, and I think for him I have learned about what it feels like to kind of unapologetically take charge, which is a fun space to live in, frankly. I’m pretty mindful of people’s feelings, and I’m pretty gentle about how I manage myself in this world, and so to explore this guy who’s not sort of bossy for bossy sake, but it’s more like, ‘if I’m not in charge a person could die and I’m not willing to let that happen.’ That was something that I witnessed when I shadowed a surgeon earlier. It was one of the biggest things I took away from him, and I think that probably is what I take away most from Scott, his sense of taking control when that needs to happen without having to apologize for it.

Q: If I gave you a free day after a hard week of work or long sessions, how would you spend it?

SW: With my kids.

Q: Doing?

SW: Anything they want to do. My 8-year-old is here with me actually. I bring him once a year and he gets to clap the markers, and ride the cameras, and ride wheelchairs down the hallway in the pretend hospital. What really keeps him coming back are the craft services tables, and maybe it’s just a little bit about to be able to hang out with dad.

Q: Do you think you will let him be an actor?

SW: I’ll let him do whatever he wants to do. Come to think of it, we stuck him really quickly in a scene yesterday, and it was like a party scene and everyone was dancing, and that kid like took over for a minute, and everyone was patting me on the back, saying ‘good luck, you know, he got bit by the bug.’ We’ll see. Whatever’s going to make him happy will make me happy, and it would be kind of fun to have someone in the family business.

Q: Right. He could learn a lot from you.

SW: Yeah, if he’ll listen.

Q: If he becomes an actor how would you feel if he did one of your old shows?

SW: Yeah, if he did a reboot of “Party of Five,” that would be a hit. That’s funny. That idea had never gotten in my head until now, and I’m not going to get to sleep tonight.

 

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