ENTERTAINMENT

Luis Guzman plunges into CBS medical drama 'Code Black'

Brent Hallenbeck
Free Press Staff Writer

His role as a hard-working, compassionate nurse on the CBS medical drama “Code Black” seems to give Luis Guzman many chances to show his range as an actor.

Luis Guzmán of Sutton portrays nurse Jesse Sallander on the CBS TV show "Code Black."

One minute his character, Jesse Sallander, is rushing around a super-hectic emergency room in Los Angeles trying to save the life of an accident or a shooting victim. The next minute the medical worker nicknamed “Mama” shows his tender side as he consoles a young boy whose father faces a life-or-death situation.

Guzman, who has lived in Vermont for about two decades, doesn’t look at his work through the prism of performance. “I don’t show up to act, I show up to be a nurse and do my job,” he said in a phone interview last week from Los Angeles, where “Code Black” is filmed. “I show up to do a shift in a hospital, and that’s the attitude I approach it with.”

“Code Black” airs its first-season finale at 10 p.m. Wednesday. The series has kept Guzman away from his home in the Northeast Kingdom for most of the past six months, but his absence from Vermont has been tempered by the work he gets to do on “Code Black.”

Luis Guzmán (left) and William Allen Young star on the medical drama "Code Black."

“It really, truly is an amazing experience in the sense of ‘Here I am learning something else now,’” according to Guzman. He said he went to a trauma center with a nurse in Los Angeles to research his character. “What I saw was absolutely amazing, not so much the cases you see but how well these people work together as a team.”

Guzman said he’s learning a lot about medicine on “Code Black,” which also stars Academy Award-winner Marcia Gay Harden. He said he’s had to learn how nurses administer medicine and use various medical instruments. “More than anything,” according to Guzman, “you’re getting the audience to understand it, too.”

Medical dramas proliferate on TV because they have built-in tension with moments of release when characters show their compassionate sides. “You’re working in an environment where people are coming to get a second chance, you know? It’s up to you and the staff there to figure that through,” Guzman said. “One moment you’re in the trenches and the next moment you’re talking to this little young person – ‘Hey, I understand you.’ Having those opportunities to do that I think is part of the reality of the character.”

CBS has not announced if “Code Black” will return for a second season. Guzman thinks, like those patients he described, the show deserves a second chance.

“I believe in this show; I know we have a great audience,” Guzman said. “And it makes a difference.” He said he hears from many people who work in hospitals thanking him for his portrayal, saying things such as, “We wish we had a ‘Mama’ in our ER like you.”

Guzman said he was in Los Angeles “recalibrating myself” after wrapping up the first season of “Code Black.” He’s not just sitting around to wait to hear about the show’s future; the star of movies such as “Boogie Nights” and “Traffic” has a new film, the comedy “Keanu,” coming out in April, and completed a Netflix movie “The Do Over” with Adam Sandler.

Guzman has worked in film and TV long enough to not worry too much about the future of “Code Black.” “I’m at a good place in my life and I’m happy with a lot of things I’ve accomplished and happy to be a good human being and helping others when I can,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. You can’t stress this other stuff. You just get to a point of, ‘That’s who you are and that’s what you’re doing and things will come your way.’”

Luis Guzman of the CBS TV show "Code Black" has lived in Vermont for about two decades.

It helps that Guzman has a place to return to that he enjoys as much as he enjoys Vermont.

“Number one, it’s a beautiful environment. I believe it was a good place to raise my kids,” said Guzman, 59, who previously lived in Cabot with his wife and their five children. He said he doesn’t like to talk about his life in the Northeast Kingdom, but said he appreciates the progressive attitude of politicians such as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders as well as the neighbors-helping-neighbors approach Vermonters showed after the devastation from Hurricane Irene in 2011.

Guzman leads a busy life in Hollywood, but doesn’t see Sutton as his quiet, mellow getaway.

“The good thing about living in Vermont,” he said, “is the air is clean, you can see the stars, but there’s always stuff to do. Vermont keeps you active, that environment really keeps you active.” Those activities, Guzman said, range from raking leaves to chopping wood.

“It’s an active place to be,” according to Guzman. “It’s home.”

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.