Dr. Cole, meet Dr. Jekyll.
The latest variation on the Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde dynamic, NBC's Do No Harm, premiering Jan. 31, stars Steven Pasquale as a doctor with two personalities: Jason, a dedicated surgeon, and Ian, a violent sociopath.
Dr. Cole's condition has a real name - dissociative identity disorder - but producer David Schulner is quick to say that his story is based less on real life than on the Robert Louis Stevenson horror classic. Don't over-think it, he says; just enjoy.
"I wanted it to be fun," says Schulner. "I wanted it to be thrilling. I wanted it to be a roller coaster ride."
While the show requires Pasquale, who's best known to most viewers for his stint as a dim firefighter in Rescue Me, to convey two very different personalities, the difference is all in the performance. Unlike most versions of this story, the "Hyde" character does not look any more monstrous than Jekyll. That's fine with Pasquale, who jokes that he came prepared to don a "hump and a unibrow."
Instead, he's just him, times two, in almost every scene in the show. "It's really exhausting, but fulfilling in every way."
