Do you remember Ted Mosby who was too busy finding the one in How I Met Your Mother? Well, Josh Radnor has come a long way from his HIMYM days! Contrary to his lovestruck character in HIMYM, Josh Radnor now plays an arrogant, civilian surgeon Jedediah Foster, who has an overwhelming passion for medicine and reforming the abuse in the military medical department.
Josh Radnor as Dr. Jed Foster. Source: PBS
“I think he has a legitimate passion for research and for helping people. He feels like he is on the brink of breakthroughs, like he can smell a medical revolution coming and he wants to be at the forefront of it.” Says Josh about his new 19th century character.
Radnor further elaborates on Jed Foster’s persona for PBS, “He has a kind of stereotypical surgeon’s coldness, but there is this warmth that starts to come through him. I think the war humanizes him and softens him up a bit. His counterpart, Dr. Hale, doesn’t want us to be treating Confederate soldiers, and Foster is of the opinion that everyone should be treated equally. As he says, “Blood is not gray or blue.” He believes there is only one kind of patient — a sick patient. So beneath the bluster, there is a great humanist and someone who really does take his oath very seriously.”
Gorgeous shot behind-the-scenes today from our Exec. Producer Lisa Q. Wolfinger. #MercyStreetPBS pic.twitter.com/oD9CYkutfy
— Mercy Street PBS (@mercystreetpbs) May 19, 2016
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Radnor made it clear that he does not like repeating characters,
“I was on the lookout for not repeating myself, so anything that came along that was a lovestruck guy looking for love, I was like, ‘No, I think that’s been done for me.’ ”
The 41-year-old also revealed how the PBS period piece is neither intimidating nor alienating,
“I don’t think you have to be a Civil War buff to appreciate this. It doesn’t feel like a museum piece. It’s got a real pulse to it.”
Mercy Street is a PBS original series that covers the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the Civil War.