im not trying to be insensitive here. chicago fire is a drama that has put their characters through traumas since season 1, i dont know miranda personally, but to me she strikes me as an empath who feels and cares deeply. she cares about stella so to have her play stella going through a miscarriage and then losing a mentee, i can understand why that would affect her and give her anxiety. however shes an actor and this wont be only time she’ll have to do intense storylines and scenes. i dont just mean in chicago fire. being an empath is not a bad thing at all. its what makes someone a good person and it can make an actor good at their job. she just need to find the balance of continuing to being empath while also like she said mentally and emotionally separating herself from work. think about all the traumas severide, gabby, casey, violet, herrmann have gone through or on med ethan, april, dr charles, maggie, goodwin or on pd kevin, dante and especially hailey and kim have gone through. how did their actors keep it from affecting them mentally and if it did affect them how did they deal with it? separating themselves from their work.
I'm not trying to be insensitive. Proceeds to be insensitive. Jesus I'm so tired of this narrative and I wish i had the privilege to not be able to use critical thinking skills to understand nuanced concepts. It's not that simple and I'm sure Miranda has plenty of tools in her tool bag to help her detach from her roles as she mentioned leveraging a therapist in another clip; but when you play a character day in and out like this that is constantly being subjected to this shit it's hard to just put it down when in less than 10 hours you have to tap back into the bullshit.
What we know is they film 10+ hour days 5-6 days a week depending on the episode then multiple episodes at that. They get minimal breaks outside of their hiatus and the scheduling is gruesome. To give the performances that need to be given any actor worth their weight is going to immerse themselves in the character they play and the stories they're tasked with playing. The thing here is that Stella's character repeatedly and continously got dogpiled on with no true reprieve, breaks or lighter storylines to balance it out. It's not just the MISCARRIAGE! It was a combination of things starting in S13 and then snowballing throughout S14.
Miranda was in a continous cycle of tapping into a character that was in a constant state of grief and despair with no pay off in sight. Had Stella been able to actually work through and process a portion of that grief I'd be curious to know if Miranda's sentiments would be the same. Had anything she actually worked so hard to portray actually be for something!? A season wasted and down the drain.
And yes other characters go through trauma but let's talk about how their trauma is also balanced out. Hermann loses his house and then gets 6 episodes post to work through it with himself, his family and his friends. Then guess what in the end he gets money to rebuild their house, his daughter gets involved with GOF and a vow renewal with his wife. He had one traumatic thing happen to him this season and he was given the space and opportunity to grieve, process and move forward.
Gabby lost Shay and guess what she got episodes and scenes post that loss to talk about it and grieve. When she was talking to the priest? And in sobs said she switched places with me. Where is that scene for Stella? Gabby and Casey lost their baby but other people in the house knew about it and they were there to share their storylines support and uplift them. Even in their dark moments like when they loss Louie and Casey was upset he was packing the room up. We actually got to SEE those emotions. I'm not here to speak on every trauma the characters of OneChicago has been subjected to. But I will discuss how it was handled and in my opinion this was handled poorly by Andrea and whoever else responsible.
Stella has had a failed adoption, miscarriage, Isaiah left abruptly, Macy died, and that's just the people she's LOST not even touching on the shit she had to navigate on the job. Idk why this is such a hard concept for people to understand and acknowledge. No one is saying she can't or shouldn't be given hard storylines but when it's disproportionate compared to everyone else then it becomes a problem for me.
Miranda is on record twice now stating she is hoping for lighter content for Stella next season. Instead of people trying to police the emotions and mental health impact she very clearly stated she experienced and tell her she needs to find ways to "separate herself" they need to examine the systems and leadership that was in place that allowed a seasoned actor to get to a point of emotional burnout that it negatively impacted her mental health. Full stop.
Everyone regardless of professional obligations should be able to clock in for work and clock out without it inducing fucking anxiety. 🙂
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