How Five Days at Memorial Honors Healthcare Heroes

Vera Farmiga and Cherry Jones aren’t just looking to entertain with Five Days at Memorial.

The stars of the Apple TV+ limited series, which premiered Aug. 12, are hoping that viewers will come away from the show with a renewed sense of gratitude for the nurses and doctors who worked tirelessly through the coronavirus pandemic and other events. “Our healthcare workers, our doctors and our nurses, who operate with capital E empathy and determination, especially in the last three years, deserve the spotlight,” Farmiga exclusively told E! News. “I do feel that in many ways, our show is an honor to them, a celebration of them.”

Five Days at Memorial centers on Dr. Anna Pou (Farmiga) and Dr. Susan Mulderick (Jones) as they help patients during Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked havoc in New Orleans and neighboring cities in 2005. The natural disaster forces the doctors to make difficult decisions about the welfare of the patients, as well as their own staff, in the face of turmoil. 

Farmiga said she realized through playing Dr. Pou that these medical workers “have earned the name hero” for their work. “Just the sheer willingness to report to duty in catastrophes,” she said, “that takes a remarkable type of human human being.”