‘Good Sam’ gives Sophia Bush and co-stars a crash course in medicine

In the CBS series, Bush plays a surgeon who replaces her father (played by Jason Isaacs) as the hospital’s top heart specialist when he falls into a coma. When he awakens, he wants to resume his work, which means he’s working under her.

For Bush, the most interesting part of the role is doing medical rehearsals and making sure she’s executing a procedure properly. “I’m actually living a dream,” she says during a Zoom conference.

A recent episode found her practicing how to do an incision on a prosthetic body. “I’m just slicing open this body over and over again on the rib cage. I’m like, ‘I really hope nobody finds this and goes, “What demented serial killer did this to our prosthetic?”’”

Rehearsals, Bush says, help the cast get the shot in one take. Props people have built the cast prosthetics to test their skills with bone saws and other instruments. “Through the whole pilot, I sat there tying one-handed surgical knots and I got them down so good.”

Because she and the others are representing medical workers during a particularly difficult time, they don’t take their performances lightly.

Skye P. Marshall, who plays another doctor on the show, says she worked in a hospital when she was in the U.S. Air Force. Now, as an actor, she gets to experience what real surgeons go through. “Creating that choreography in the OR is like a dance routine,” she explains. “It becomes so fun when we nail it. We’re constantly learning.”