St. Denis Medical featured a blink-and-you-miss-it comment about Ryan Reynolds — but did you catch the shade?
During the Tuesday, April 22, episode of the NBC sitcom, the staff of St. Denis Medical Centre attend an annual fundraiser where Bruce (Josh Lawson) attempted to win the Dancing with the Caregivers competition. He wasn’t thrilled, however, when Serena (Kahyun Kim) downvoted him as one of the judges.
“I don’t believe in giving 10s,” Serena shared in a confessional. “Ten means you can’t imagine anything better.”
She continued: “Like, Ryan Gosling is the hottest man alive but is he a 10? No. He’s a nine. Ryan Reynolds is a six.”
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St. Denis Medical, which has been renewed for a second season, follows overworked doctors and nurses trying their best to care for patients at an underfunded Oregon hospital. In addition to Lawson and Kim, the mockumentary stars Wendi McLendon-Covey, Grier, Mekki Leeper, Allison Tolman and Kaliko Kauahi.
“It’s so fun to be in a mockumentary. I cherish the moments where I get to look into the camera and have that relationship,” Kim, 30, exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2024. “Especially with Serena, it’s really fun because she’s so honest and you can really tell how she feels from her face. I love having that connection with the audience in that way.”
Leeper, 30, meanwhile, told Us his time on the St. Denis Medical set was “a blast,” adding, “I grew up wanting to be on a show like The Office or Parks and Recreation. Then I think there were some years where they weren’t making as many of those types of shows. It took somebody like Quinta Brunson [from Abbott Elementary] to blow open the doors again for shows like this to be popular.”
The costars revealed the biggest challenge when making St. Denis Medical was remembering to look at the camera.
“It took a hot second to get used to. Personally — for me — once I got used to it, I took any moment I could to look into the camera. I love it,” Kim recalled. “It’s so fun to explore that space that I never got to because we’re so used to hearing, ‘Don’t look into the camera.’ So it’s a blast for me.”
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Leeper found that filming a mockumentary offered “an extra dimension.”
“You have this whole bonus space that is never available and you can put truly whatever you want in it. It’s different for everybody because Wendi looks at the camera differently than David does,” he explained. “Ron and Serena, those are characters that are always exhausted [by] the person that’s in front of them. Joyce is trying to cover to make the hospital seem nice. Matt is always caught doing something embarrassing. So having that as a tool is amazing. Just getting to directly do a joke to the camera is just so fun and satisfying.”
St. Denis Medical airs on NBC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET. before streaming the next day on Peacock.
