By Jana Monji
Chicago Med broadcasts its 100th episode tonight, March 18, but its Dr. Ethan Choi, played by Brian Tee, is already back in Los Angeles under LA Lockdown due to COVID-19.
Although he’s not a real doctor, Tee is careful to promote all the right moves: social distancing, washing hands and covering the mouth because, during these “very surreal times,” he takes his character to heart. He told AsAmNews in a recent phone interview that he wants to do the right thing by “taking a bit of responsibility and pride, as I should, out in the public eye.”
In the phone interview, Tee said, that last week on Thursday the cast and crew were informed they would shut down and by Friday, that was clarified. “Chicago Med” will be shutting down for the season. Tee felt, “NBC made the right decision.”
Created by Dick Wolf and Matt Olmstead, “Chicago Med” is the third of Wolf’s Chicago-based franchise. The first, “Chicago Fire”, premiered on 10 October 2012. Wolf is the executive producer of the action-drama series that follows the firefighters and paramedics of Firehouse 51 (created by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas). The police procedural, “Chicago P.D.” was a mid-season replacement that premiered on 8 January 2014.
“Chicago Med,” which follows the doctors and nurses of the fictional Gaffney Chicago Medical Center’s emergency department, premiered on 17 November 2015. Tee had just played a Chinese gangster (Jesse Kong) on “Chicago P.D.” in the 8 April 2015 episode, The Three Gs, in Chicago P.D. before he was cast as Choi.
That same year, he was in the blockbuster, Jurassic World as the leader of the security guard unit. In 2006, he had been featured heavily in another movie franchise, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and in 2013, he joined the Marvel-verse by playing the evil minister of justice pitted against Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in The Wolverine.
The 43-year-old Tee admits that he built his “career as being an Asian American gangster.” He was grateful that NBC saw something in him, cast him for a part that wasn’t specifically meant for an Asian doctor and wrote a character around him. He felt they were “truly seeing me as an actor.”
Born in Okinawa, and raised in Hacienda Heights since the age of 2, Tee was “a TV fanatic,” often glued to the television, watching all the classics–“A-Team,” “Different Strokes,” “Quantum Leap,” “Friends” and “Seinfeld.” Of course, he also watched “ER” (1994-2009). “
“ER was one of my favorite shows,” Tee said.
He loved the way the director was “able to move the camera around and use the steady cam equipment” because “it almost felt like theater.”
On “Chicago Med,” Tee’s character is a former US Navy officer and as a second-generation Navy veteran, he suffers from PTSD. While Tee had previously played military characters, the characters were always at war. In the 2002 Mel Gibson film, We Were Soldiers, his Pfc. Jimmy Nakayama was in the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, the Battle of la Drang. That film didn’t deal with PTSD. For Choi’s character, Tee said, “I wanted to get it right, as right as I could get it.” That meant research.
“I’ve read and talked to veterans,” Tee said.
He added that he was cautious to avoid the stereotype that the person is “just crazy or there is something wrong with them” because “every experience is different.”
Looking back, Tee said his one of his favorite moments so far was during the first season when his character, Choi, was suffering through his PTSD and “had a sit-down with Dr. Charles.”
“[The script] gave me this really long monologue,” Tee said. “No notes. No directions. Just go.”
Tee said the experience was liberating.
Another memorable moment occurred during Season 3, Episode 12 (“Born This Way”) in which Choi considers reaching out to his estranged sister. Under the direction of Lin Oeding, Choi “walked up to his sister’s house and knocked on the door.”
“What I loved about it was there were no words,” Tee said.
He explained that on TV shows, the silence is cut out, but in this instance, the camera “really held on us and our feelings.”
Tee also spoke of more light-hearted moments on set.
“I wish we could create a blooper real,” he said.
He added that the cast “pretending to be doctors can be extremely hilarious.” One example he gave was during a medical procedure, he needed to “cut” the patient open.
“I didn’t cut it open wide enough so the blood squirted into my eye,” Tee said.
Tee said he and Choi “are a lot alike in our moral compass” and they are both “very strong characters in ourselves.”
“Ethan is much more black and white in certain scenarios,” Tee added.
Tee sees the world in shades of gray because of his relationship with his wife, actress Mirelly Taylor, and daughter Madelyn. Being married, Tee said, “made me a better human being” and having a child “made him much more patient and much more open.” Those experiences are things that his character, Choi could benefit from.
In this 100th episode, Tee said, “fans will be shocked” because this one pushes Choi closer to the breaking point. Chicago Med was renewed for three more seasons at the end of February. Tee would like to see Choi evolve even more so that he is able to see the gray in life. Because we’ve seen that Choi “regrets a lot of the choices in the past” over the last two seasons, Tee feels that Choi would change if he had “that force of love” he himself felt when he and his wife had a child. Earlier in the season, Choi and his love interest Nurse April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta) had a pregnancy scare so the possibility is there.
Episode 100 is named The Ghosts of the Past and airs tonight at 8 p.m. on NBC. Dr. Manning and Dr. Charles will be helping with a complicated case involving a 4-year-old while Dr. Choi will work on a police officer who has a gunshot wound. As the title indicates, secrets will be revealed. This is the penultimate episode of this season.
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