'Station 19' News: Jaina Lee Ortiz Reveals What She Had to Go Through for Her Role in Shondaland's New Series
The highly-anticipated premiere of "Station 19" will immediately heat things up.
On Thursday, Firefighter Andy Herrera (Jaina Lee Ortiz) will be forced to lead the station after her father, Captain Pruitt Herrera (Miguel Sandoval), suffered from a health emergency during the team's operation at an apartment fire.
This will be challenging for Andy, since she has to do both her duties as a firefighter and a daughter of the station's captain.
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Ortiz spoke with Variety to reveal the challenges that she and her character had to face in the upcoming spinoff of "Gray's Anatomy."
According to the actress, she had to go through an actual candidate physical ability test (CPAT) that all firefighters had to go through to be able to qualify for the job. It is composed of eight different tasks that had to be finished successively, and she was able to pass it. The test made her appreciate the job of the first responders during a fire.
The actress also revealed that she did much of her stunts during all the action-packed sequences in the series. "With certain fires we use a stunt double but for the most part I like to do my own stunts because since I have a dance background I'm very quick to picking up choreography and knowing exactly what to do. I love that stuff. I have a thrill for it," Ortiz stated.
Meanwhile, actress Danielle Savre told Los Angeles Times that the new series will follow the fan-favorite "Shondaland method" that is being used in all of the TV series under executive produce Shonda Rhimes such as "Gray's Anatomy," "Scandal," and "How To Get Away With Murder."
"There's drama every turn there's love triangles, the cliffhangers," the actress also said. "How each episode is kind of a lesson, it starts off with a problem and at the end, Jaina's character Andy has an answer to that problem," she added.
The premiere episode of "Station 19" titled "Stuck" will air on ABC on Thursday, March 22, at 9 p.m. EDT.
