The cast ofERreunited 12 years after concludingthe show’s 15-season run on NBC in 2009 — and it was well worth the wait!
On Thursday, the OG County General crew made a virtual appearance onStars in the Houseto support costarGloria Reuben’s (Jeanie Boulet) organization,Waterkeeper Alliance. The non-profit works to ensure that communities around the world have clean water.
The special Earth Day episode — which streamed exclusively on PEOPLE’s social platforms — saw former cast membersGeorge Clooney(Doug Ross),Julianna Margulies(Carol Hathaway),Noah Wyle(John Carter), Dr. Laura Innes (Kerry Weaver), Anthony Edwards (Mark Greene),Goran Visnjic(Luka Kovac),Ming-Na Wen(Jing-Mei Chen), Laura Cerón (Chuny Marquez), Conni Marie Brazelton (Connie Oligario), CCH Pounder (Angela Hicks), Ellen Crawford (Lydia Wright) and Reubenall catch up together live. The cast reminisced over their positive experiences working on the medical drama and shared several behind-the-scenes memories.
Here are the biggest revelations:
What the cast misses most about the show
Edwards added, “I feel like I laughed and stayed in love for eight years. It’s all of these people that I love and miss.”
Clooney, in turn, noted that was “the secret to the whole thing.” He continued, “We had fun because we were like, ‘Wow, this is really crazy!’ We know how lucky we are and we knew that would never happen again.”
Noah Wyle had a unique way of practicing his scenes
As a way to practice technique for hisERscenes, Clooney revealed that Wyle was “stitching a pig’s foot” off-camera.
Cast ofER.Sven Arnstein/NBCU
Dr. Laura Innes once accidentally switched her character’s cane from one hand to the other
“I was walking down the hall and I was like, ‘Oh, s—.’ I started doing something with the wrong hand,” she recalled. “So, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t say, ‘Let’s do another take.’ I was afraid of getting into trouble, so I just went. ‘Oh well!'”
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George Clooney’s wife, Amal Clooney, doesn’t like hisERcharacter
Clooney, 59, revealed that wife Amal, 43, has a bone to pick with the actor’sERcharacter after she began watching the series for the first time amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This has been a very, very disastrous thing for me because I forgot all of the terrible things I’d done as Dr. Ross,” the Oscar winner said. “My wife keeps going, ‘Is that it? Are you done? Season 3 — do you finally settle down with Nurse Hathaway?’ It’s been a disaster for my marriage,” he joked.
The cast supported Anthony Edwards during hisSaturday Night Livehosting gig
The County General bunch cared about one another so much that they made the trip to N.Y.C. when Edwards hostedSaturday Night Livein 1995.
“Remember [when] Tony was hostingSaturday Night Liveand we all got on a plane and flew out for the night because we just wanted to be there for him when he did it?” Clooney recalled.
George Clooney onER.getty images
How Julianna Margulies went fromERguest star to series regular
TheGood Wifealum’sERcharacter was supposed to originally be killed off, but she explained what transpired behind-the-scenes that resulted in her guest-starring part turning into a full-time role.
“George called me. He said, ‘If you’re thinking about taking a job, I urge you not to. I think in the next couple of days, you might be offered a series regular role,'” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘But I died! How does that work?’ He was like, ‘I don’t know, but I think it’s going to work.'”
She continued, “I was about to go doHomicide: Life on the Streetbecause I had done two episodes of it before I did the pilot ofERand they wanted me back. I didn’t take the job. And a week later, they called and said, ‘We’re going to make you a series regular.'”
Clooney noted that during the test screening, the network realized that Margulies’ character was “an important part” of the positive reaction that the show received. “There was no way they were going to kill her off,” he said.
George Clooney reflected on his late aunt, Rosemary Clooney, appearing on the show
The cast reminisced over Rosemary’s 1995 guest-starring part onER, for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. She played an Alzheimer’s patient who communicated through singing.
“It’s very hard to play less intelligent than you are or more confused than you are, and she had a really interesting quality. And then when she began to sing, the expectation is that she would fall into her old sort of performance rhythm, but she didn’t,” Wyle, 49, recalled. “She found a sort of vocal quality that seemed much more pedestrian and less polished than a professional would be, which made it all the more heartbreaking.”
Clooney then joked, “Noah was the nephew she always wanted.”
Cast ofER.Getty Images
The cast isn’t sure about anERreboot
While discussingthe possibility of anERrevival or reboot series, Clooney suggested that it might be hard to recapture what made the show so good.
“I don’t know. The hardest part is that when you look at the show and consistently over so many years — it would be hard to say that you could do it at the level that we did it. I’m not sure that that’s available,” he said, noting that “it’s hard to catch lightning again.”
Margulies, 54, added, “You can’t capture lightning in a bottle twice. I think you have to leave what was so beautiful and move on, because it just feels cheap. … It would cheapen it for me.”
George Clooney comparedERto his time onRoseanne
The actor contrasted his positive experience being onERto working on shows that “were really miserable” for him.
While discussing being on the first season ofRoseanne, he said: “Oh my God. There was some crazy s— that went on there.”
source: people.com
