The set of “Black Box” is very likely the only one where a quote from Virginia Woolf has been used as an element of the production design. One of Woolf’s sentences, “I am rooted, but I flow,” is printed on a fabric square and mounted on the wall in the hospital nicknamed “The Cube,” an institution devoted to the treatment of brain disorders.
Quotes from famously troubled artists adorn the other walls of the hospital, nicknamed “The Cube.” A nugget of wisdom from Kurt Cobain — like Woolf, a suicide — says “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”
Allusions to these complicated artists helps “Black Box” provide a classy introduction to its central character, Dr. Catherine Black, played by British actress Kelly Reilly, who starred opposite Denzel Washington’s in the 2012 movie “Flight.” Described as a brilliant neuroscientist, Black has a secret she keeps from her colleagues: she’s bipolar and, as the pilot makes vividly clear, addicted to the highs. On a trip to San Francisco to deliver a speech at medical convention, she seduces the driver of her town car and hallucinates that she is able to fly off the balcony of her hotel.
“I love the idea of playing somebody whose job it is to heal people with brain problems but she is one of these people herself,” says Reilly, a stunning redhead whose performance as Desdemona opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Othello had ticket-buyers lining up at 5 a.m. in London. “We’re not doing a documentary on bipolar people. We’re doing an individual who’s quite brilliant but quite disturbed.”
Before you can say Carrie Mathison, Reilly addresses the inevitable comparisons with the Claire Danes character from “Homeland.” Resting between
scenes on the office set of Dr. Owen Morely (Terry Kinney), Catherine’s one-time mentor, she says, “I don’t know if I can be concerned about that. The only thing we have in common is that we’re bipolar. What Catherine has is an addiction to her mania. If Carrie experiences a lot of the depression, it’s just a different color of the disease. It’s by no means the same woman. It didn’t enter my mind.”
“Black Box” was created by Amy Holden Jones, whose screenwriting credits include “Mystic Pizza” and “Indecent Proposal.” She is also an executive producer on the series, along with Ilene Chaiken, who brought us the Showtime lesbian soap “The L Word.”
Holden Jones was influenced by the book “An Unquiet Mind” by Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist who suffered from manic depression. She also brings an encyclopedic knowledge of mental disorders caused by physiological problems, like the case study of a 40-year-old man whose manifestation of symptoms of pedophilia were connected to a brain tumor. Nothing that lurid will be attempted on “Black Box,” but the case studies are going to be unlike those we’ve seen on scores of popular medical series such as “House,” “ER” or even “Chicago Hope.”
“People haven’t done stories on the 21st-century understanding of the brain. And there’s an endless supply of them because the brain is so complex,” she says. “There are neuroscientists and neurologists who believe the amount of free will we have is very limited.”
Catherine exercises her free will with abandon. “Black Box” may have its roots in medical science, but don’t forget it’s on the network that brought you “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal.”
“Catherine is a fun character, regardless of what the bipolar condition makes her do,” Reilly says. “She has an appetite for life and experience
that I quite enjoy.”
That includes two boyfriends. Will (David Ajala) is a ripped Brooklyn restaurateur and homebody whose loyalty to his alcoholic father makes him a natural to tend to Catherine’s moods — he includes her bottles of medication on the tray when he delivers breakfast in bed. Dr. Ian Bickman (Ditch Davey) is a charismatic sex addict who also happens to be the chief of neurosurgery at The Cube.
“What Catherine and Ian see in each other — they see fire — that wild freedom. The perfect mix between cerebral and animal,” says Davey, who is Australian living in Melbourne. “It’s the thing they get about each other. There’s a match there. There’s a sparring partner.”
Will’s not looking for a fight, though. “He wants to make it work with Catherine, but clearly in their relationship she’s abusing their trust,” says the Londonborn Ajala. “That bloody hurts. He’s not Superman.”
Reilly, Davey and Ajala are three foreigners doing their first American TV series (an ABC representative on set swears that the parent company, Disney, is not instituting an exchange program). Vanessa Redgrave is another Brit along for the ride. She plays Reilly’s psychiatrist who gets an earful every time she picks up the phone. Jones reveals that Redgrave, who has also appeared on such series as “Nip/Tuck,” was at the top of the list of veterans considered for the role. That Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn”), who directed the pilot, was a friend help close the deal.
“Simon was able to text her and say, ‘I’ve got this script.’ She responded right away,” Jones says. “I think she wanted to work with Kelly. She is very well known in England, in the theater world.”
Another “Black Box” actor who works closely with Reilly is Steppenwolf founding member Kinney, who plays Morely, a hospital administrator who has seen Catherine bypass him. Kinney is one of the more well known Americans in the cast and says he has to stay on his toes around Reilly. “To work with Kelly is such a lively and complex experience, in all the best ways. There’s the tied down Catherine. Then there’s the bursting at the seams, disordered Catherine and you always have to be very present when you work with her or get left behind.”
The actors must also digest the complicated terminology associated with the brain disorders. Holden Jones and Chaiken provide a glossary in the scripts and retain an on-set consultant to help with pronunciation. Still, after a long shoot, the mind starts to go.
“It’s very challenging for me, the medical jargon,” says Reilly. “We’ve been filming now for six months. My brain cells have been dying off. They started off strong.”
With a time slot in the spot once occupied by “Scandal,” whose early season finale was determined by Kerry Washington’s pregnancy, “Black Box” is well situated to become a summer hit.
“It’s such cutting-edge science and it’s constantly evolving so it will probably stay ahead of us,” says Chaiken. “If we get to go for 10 years, we’ll simply follow the science and there will be new stories to tell.”