Apple TV+'s ‘stomach-clenching’ hospital drama gave cast ‘real medical training’ for intense surgery scenes

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Berlin ER’s cast went the extra mile to ensure this gritty new Apple TV+ drama feels as authentic as possible.

Worlds away from Grey’s Anatomy, this new series from British showrunner Samuel Jefferson explores day-to-day life in a chaotic emergency room in the German capital.

Haley Louise Jones takes on the role of Dr Zanna Parker, who leaves behind her life in Munich for a fresh start managing an underfunded and anarchic hospital in Berlin.

Her underpaid and exhausted staff, including the brilliant yet unpredictable Dr Ben Weber (played by Slavko Popadić), fight her at every turn when she tries to implement unpopular yet necessary reforms.

However, she soon learns the hard way that compromise is key when lives are at risk every single day.

Speaking to Screen Time and other press, Jones and Popadić revealed the extensive preparation they went through to ensure Berlin ER’s frequent and painfully detailed surgery sequences were as realistic as possible.

“You don’t get a lot of time to breathe,” Jones recalled. “But I think that’s the fun part about it.

“The atmosphere and the ER really helps get your pulse going. It’s very fast-paced behind and in front of the camera and in this case it really helped the filming.”

Popadić added: “[The creators] wanted you to be inside [the action] and to really feel the pace and the chaos.”

Berlin ER’s frenetic staging and camerawork that puts viewers in the centre of the action all contribute to a drama that requires some considerable willpower to endure to the end.

While some viewers may not have the stomach for Weber and Parker’s relentless and often bloody sessions in the surgery ward, those who do stick out the whole series will be rewarded with one of the realest medical dramas in TV history.

Popadić revealed: “The production helped us a lot, we had a brilliant internship in a hospital and medical boot camp for some weeks.

“Our instructor, Dr Leon, showed us the basics, how to do all the stuff you do as a doctor and how to speak to patients.”

“Because there’s so many aspects of it, you know?” Jones added.

“Even, how do you put on a glove while you’re walking to a patient? I thought, ‘Just put on a glove’. But if you’ve ever tried to put on a glove with sweaty hands… And just make it look natural, make it look like you do that every day a gazillion times, it’s actually quite challenging. But it’s fun.”

“And when you shoot, you have the other characters you have to deal with,” Popadić chimed in.

“You have all the medical aspects, you have to do them like you’ve done them for years. There are a lot of different things you have to manage at once.”

Despite being well-prepared by the time they got to filming, the cast were still daunted by the prospect of some of the most challenging on-screen procedures brought to life in explicit detail.

“It was intense. Not just us, but the whole crew, you could feel everyone was moved, everyone was tense,” Jones recalled.

“If a scene like that comes up you can feel it in the day already, there’s something else in the atmosphere. When I remember [one] scene, I can still feel… I just get cold, you know? I can feel my stomach clench because it was just so intense.”

Will you be braving the emergency room when the adrenaline-pumping medical drama drops this week?

Berlin ER premieres Wednesday, 26th February on Apple TV+.