Can Kevin McKidd save “Grey’s Anatomy”?
The suave, golden-haired Scottish actor from the memorable HBO “Rome” series has been imported to boost the sagging fortunes of the once-mighty ABC medical drama.
McKidd, 35, plays Owen Hunt, an Iraqi War medic who becomes the new head of trauma surgery at Seattle Grace. His arrival, just as “Grey’s” tumbles in the ratings against a reinvigorated “CSI,” is well-timed. The other male characters on the show – McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), McSteamy (Eric Dane) and McDopey (T.R. Knight) – have run out of gas. McKidd has to fill the mature masculine slot left vacant when Isaiah Washington was fired from the series.
The actor tried starring on his series last season, but NBC’s “Journeyman,” about a time-traveling journalist in San Francisco, never caught on with viewers. He found the experience completely exhausting.
“I wouldn’t say I was relieved [when the show went off air], but my body went into relief mode,” McKidd says. “I’d never worked that hard. What the writing room realized was they were trying to find a [secondary] story line to write about that would let me catch my breath and have a day off. But there was no way I was going to get a day off.”
On “Grey’s,” McKidd will play a pivotal role as Hunt brings unorthodox teaching methods to the hospital, spars with McDreamy and McSteamy and romances Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) while teaching her a valuable lesson.
“Hunt will make her address and refocus her career. Her ambition is about pure vanity,” McKidd says. “My character has seen more trauma in Iraq than a civilian surgeon would see in a year. He doesn’t go in for chitter-chatter or for people becoming attached to each other.”
Born in Elgin, in the Moray district of Scotland, McKidd describes his childhood as “idyllic.” Besides farming and fishing, the rural region was known for its distilleries and that was where McKidd had one of his first jobs, at 17. He built swan-necked copper boilers at the Glenmorangie distillery, paid his way though drama school and developed a taste for whisky. “I definitely know what I like,” he says.
Although his Scottish burr is rich and potentially seductive, McKidd, in consultation with the producers on “Grey’s,” chose not to use it on the show. “They wanted to make it work. I agreed it wouldn’t make sense to have an Iraqi army surgeon be Scottish,” he says.
And so McKidd joins the growing number of actors from the British Isles who can do a convincing American accent and find their fortune on U.S. television. He says he watched a lot of American movies and worked with a dialect coach to get his right. “Doing an American accent is like doing karaoke,” McKidd says. “It’s easy to do bad karaoke, but it’s hard to do karaoke well.”
Asked the British are cornering the market on leading man roles on television, McKidd could only say, “We work pretty hard. Most British actors go through a three-year course that instills a big, strong work ethic. Serve the scene, not thyself.”
The actor lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jane, a homemaker, and their two children, Joseph, 8, and Iona, 6, a girl named island off the west coast of Scotland. “My wife and I vowed we wouldn’t setle here, but [we like] the sun. People are actually nice to you in shops,” he says. “In London, where I lived for the last decade, you walk into shops, it’s like you’ve let off gas. We’re definitely enjoying the sojourn.”
McKidd thoroughly enjoyed his sojourn on the “Rome” series, where he lived in various apartments in the Eternal City while playing the soldier Lucius Vorenus. “It was a one-of-a-kind experience. Living in Italy, doing the show at Cinecitta, Fellini’s studio. Everyone would have loved for it to stick around. It’s the business. Can be harsh.”
Things will hopefully more smoothly for McKidd on “Grey’s Anatomy.” He has signed to do the show through December. “If we feel the story has juice, they’ll keep me on,” he says. “Things are going to progress with Cristina and I think it’s going to get intense and complicated. She and Owen are soul mates.”
GREY’S ANATOMY
Thursday, 9 p.m., ABC