Based on actual events and adapted from the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink, the drama series Five Days at Memorial, from co-creators Carlton Cuse and John Ridley, gives a glimpse into what happened in the local New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. After the terror of the storm came the rising floodwaters, the power failure, and the oppressive heat, forcing those whose job it was to save lives to make unspeakable decisions.
During this interview with Collider, co-stars Vera Farmiga (who plays Dr. Anna Pou, a head and neck cancer surgeon who finds herself riding out the hurricane at Memorial Hospital) and Cherry Jones (who plays Susan Mulderick, the Director of Nursing) talked about what made them want to tell this story, connecting to the personal angle of it all, what it was like to work in the hospital for the shoot, and the horror the real-life people in this story must have experienced. They also talked about what they look for in a project, and joked about how they should do a reboot of The Golden Girls.
Collider: It feels like Hurricane Katrina was far enough away and enough other hurricanes have happened that you can almost forget the aftermath, at this point. When this came your way, what most struck you about it? What made you want to be a part of telling this story?
CHERRY JONES: I wanted to be a part of it because it was really one of the great calamities that the majority of the country watched from home. It should not be forgotten, and is necessary now more than ever, to remind folks because it touches on so much, so many of the issues that we’re confronted with right now. You can just tick them off, in every direction, whether it’s racial inequality, economic inequality, or healthcare workers who are not valued as they should be. Of course, the big elephant in the room is climate change. Stories like this do feel like sacred trust to retell because we learn from them, hopefully.
Vera, when you take on a story like this, that is such a big story, is it the personal angle of it that becomes the most interesting for you?
VERA FARMIGA: Yes, in the end, it is the personal angle on it because I’m taking the character on. I need to vie for her. I need to defend her and I need to present her case before the grand jury, or the audience, and say, “Look at what it’s like to be in her shoes.” That is a tremendous responsibility. I do look at the character as a female characterization. This was an extraordinary woman going through extraordinary circumstances, facing extraordinary challenges and having to make impossible decisions under extreme duress and exhaustion. All I focused on was doing justice to her. I cannot even begin to imagine what she went through. I can’t. I did my best, but I don’t even claim to understand it. That’s what was asked of me. I just have a tremendous respect for these doctors and nurses. The script, to me, read as a glorious tribute to doctors and nurses and our healthcare workers, what they go through, and their incredible strength, compassion, kindness, and stamina, for what it takes to take care of people.
I was so aware of Hurricane Katrina when it happened because I had always wanted to go to New Orleans. I had my first trip scheduled right around that time, and I ended up having to cancel it because of what happened. When I did finally get there, I was really emotional because you could see how resilient the city is and the people are, after all of these horrible things happened. As a result of all that, I thought it was an interesting way to approach the story to really take a personal angle with it and allow the audience to emotionally connect to the characters, as opposed to trying to think about what it must have been like to have all of this going on.
JONES: I just want to add that New Orleans lost almost half of its population after Katrina. The people who remained in New Orleans are the ones who absolutely refused to be anywhere else but New Orleans. That’s who you got to meet.
I also thought it was really interesting how, with the first five episodes, each is a day of the five days, with the remaining episodes being the investigation. What was it like to spend so much time inside of the hospital, or sets for the hospital?
JONES: I never leave the hospital, except for that very powerful scene. What was so remarkable was to watch the hospital as it was degraded. Hour by hour, watching the degradation of the interior of that hospital was such a clear metaphor for the human bodies of everyone in that hospital. Whether you were deathly ill, or had just had your appendix out, or you were a hail and hardy young attendant, the bodies were degrading, and their minds were degrading. In 110 heat, for that many days and with that kind of stress, it was the not knowing when you’re ever going to get out and with the claustrophobia of it, having to break windows. All that came in through the windows was the fetid smell of the flood waters and another wave of extreme heat. Because of the art direction, we didn’t have to expend a lot of energy trying to imagine that. That was given to us, visually. It was remarkable.
FARMIGA: For me, it almost was, in a sense, two different stories. I couldn’t wait to leave the distress of the hospital, only to go into a different portion of distress. My character does go from a compassionate caregiver hero to an accused murderer. In a sense, it was just a pendulum swing from one harrowing aspect to the next.
JONES: What a way to put it.
Cherry, one of the things that struck me about your character is that, once this storm hits, she decides to start looking at the manual, when you would think that she would already have to know that stuff.
JONES: The thing is, she did. She knew this job, backwards and forwards. The character had been there for 30 years, and had been on the emergency committee that wrote the manual. They had a plan for everything. But it never occurred to look because when hurricanes would hit, the water would come in, and then the water would go out. It never occurred to them that they would have to evacuate 2,000 people in 10 feet of water. That just never occurred to anyone. You can argue, because New Orleans is a fishbowl, and there’s a levee and a lake above it, that maybe that should have been considered, but for whatever reason, it had not been. I cannot imagine the horror that they felt. I also think they probably didn’t imagine, if it did flood, that they would have to evacuate because there were pumps and the water would go down. I understand why it wasn’t in the manual. I understand why it wasn’t, but boy, it must have been just shattering to realize it was not.
Vera, your character is a hard one to figure out. On the one hand, she seems like she could be this perfect person in an emergency situation because she’s so calm. But on the other hand, that could also be interpreted as cold and unemotional.
FARMIGA: She’s a surgeon. She’s an excellent surgeon. She’s at the top of her game. She’s a head and neck cancer surgeon. She’s got to be calm. She’s got to keep a cool head. She’s got to keep her focus. She’s not prone to becoming emotional. What would that be like? That’s who she is, by virtue of the fact of what she does. Yet, she was up against such unimaginable circumstances. Feeling the emotion of the frustration and the shock of knowing that nobody’s coming to rescue you, and the disgust of that. She’s completely flabbergasted that there is no game plan. The dementia of exhaustion and the lack of sleep, we know what that’s like. I didn’t sleep last night, and I was crying before I had to come in to do 50 interviews in a row. We know how lack of sleep plays into stamina and perseverance and dedication, but yet she did it. To the very end, she was the last woman standing there, or one of the last people to stand there. She had an enormous responsibility and impossible decisions to make for the people who were going to be left behind, which she couldn’t move herself, under that mandatory evacuation, and doing her best to ensure that they did not suffer pain.
I’m such a fan of the work that both of you do. You have both worked across all types of genres and played such a wide variety of characters. Is there a genre that each of you feel like you haven’t really gotten to do?
JONES: For me, I like things that have a social worth. Life is short, and there are awfully good projects out there that drive home issues that we all need to be aware of. Ideally, if you’re asking me what I prefer, I would do that until the cows came home. But if I could be really funny and be on The Golden Girls, I would do that.
FARMIGA: I would do that with you, Cherry. I want to be on The Golden Girls.
And I would absolutely watch that reboot. Vera, you’ve done real-life stories, like Five Days at Memorial and When They See Us, you’ve done superhero projects, like Hawkeye, and you’ve played Norma Bates. What’s next?
FARMIGA: I never really know what’s going to waft my way. I sometimes feel like they choose me. I don’t necessarily choose them. I think there is a magnetism involved. There are a lot of stories that don’t feel like they’re worth my time, or time away from my family. Usually, it’s got to pack a punch in some way, or challenge me in some way. I know right away. I know within 10 pages. My husband knows within 10 pages. I’ll start reading it to him. I’ll start reading it out loud. My husband can tell, even before I do, because he just knows what to expect of me.
Five Days at Memorial is available to stream at Apple TV+.
