Adepero Oduye Interview: Five Days At Memorial

Adepero Oduye plays Karen Wynn in the AppleTV+ show Five Days At Memorial. The series, based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink, tracks the events of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath at the titular hospital. Part disaster thriller, part medical ethics drama, the show was created by John Ridley and Carlton Cuse. Karen Wynn is just one employee of the hospital who has to deal with the events of the hurricane that traps her and the rest of Memorial’s workforce in the hospital as the floodwaters rise. While they wait for rescue, the health care professionals are forced to make decisions that will be scrutinized for years to come.

In addition to Oduye, Five Days At Memorial also stars Vera Farmiga, Cherry Jones, Cornelius Smith Jr., Julie Ann Emery, and Michael Gaston. Each episode tracks one day of the events at the hospital before eventually examining the long-term effects of the situation.

Related: Five Days At Memorial Show Trailer Explores Fallout Of Hurricane Katrina

Screen Rant sat down with Oduye to discuss Five Days At Memorial including her experience on the set, why it was important to tell this story, and more.

Screen Rant: Five Days was a tough watch, but it was a good watch, and I’d imagine it was tougher to film. What was this experience like filming the show?

Adepero Oduye: It’s everything that I want to do as an actor, to be able to tell the stories that don’t have a chance to be told often. And combined with the people that were involved, combined with the care that was taken in the storytelling, it’s very, very important, important for me. It’s like a very important like alchemy.

Were you familiar with the story of Memorial before you signed on? Or did you do a lot of research after you found out about the project?

Adepero Oduye: Yeah, I had heard about it. Initially, when everything with Katrina went down, I had heard about something that happened in a hospital. But I didn’t deep dive into it, because everything was already so crazy and heartbreaking.

And then, when I got into the project, I had to do, obviously, a lot more research and find out a lot more details and just to see, to learn the levels of the breakdown in the systems and how people were abandoned in such a way it was. It was heart-wrenching, and confusing.

Do you find it tougher when you’re tackling a real-life story versus a fictional story?

Adepero Oduye: It’s a little bit tougher, just because I know for certain that there are real people who’ve had these experiences. And so I want to honor those people as best I can, and just be super responsible in the care and, and making myself available in terms of being vulnerable and open and just taking in as much information. Because I want to respect the [people] that lived those things and are still affected by what happened 17 years ago.

Was there any particular sequence or scene that was tough for you to shoot?

Adepero Oduye: There were a lot, but just having interactions with other actors, particularly the actors who are playing patients, and very small interactions, but just being in a position of playing Karen. Having to care for someone and just seeing someone struggling to breathe. Obviously, we’re all acting here, but then it makes you think about what happened in real life. And it can be a little bit jarring.

You have such a great cast around you who’s doing phenomenal work, but it’s almost immersive to the point you need to step back. How did you take care of yourself on set?

Adepero Oduye: Yeah, as it pertains to being on set, I had to because your body, your mind wants to separate itself. And it’s really the inclination is to go, wait, what’s happening here? But my job is to go deeper and further.

Then, in terms of taking care of ourselves, the days were long, but whenever we had moments to get together and gather and eat and enjoy each other, we took full advantage. It really did help in terms of just having that camaraderie and that support and that sense of community. Then we have to come back in and really tackle very challenging scenes. We had each other’s backs. It was wonderful.

And you were also filming during the pandemic so you had that added metatextual layer of government failure.

Adepero Oduye: Yeah, it’s just all around relevance.

Five Days at Memorial Synopsis

Based on actual events and adapted from the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheri Fink, “Five Days at Memorial” chronicles the impact of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on a local hospital. When the floodwaters rose, the power failed and heat soared, exhausted caregivers at a New Orleans hospital were forced to make decisions that would follow them for years to come.

Check out our other interviews with Five Days at Memorial stars Vera Farmiga & Cherry Jones and Julie Ann Emery, as well as EP Carlton Cuse.

The first three episodes of Five Days at Memorial premiered on August 12 on Apple TV+, followed by new episodes every Friday.

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