Mind Your Body with Stephanie Stephens features celebrities and high achievers age 45+ who share their latest projects, healthy living secrets and more.
Heartbeat. Everybody has one. Now everyone will have another one when NBC’s newest entry into the medical drama genre, Heartbeat, premieres Wednesday, March 23 at 8 p.m. ET. Leading a strong cast, Melissa George as Dr. Alex Panttiere delivers an always-surprising portrayal of an outspoken, headstrong, confident and very famous heart transplant surgeon.
She is a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field—a field of powerful personalities who regularly make life-and-death decisions.
The show is based on the book, Heart Matters by Santa Monica, California-based Dr. Kathy Magliato, one of the few female cardiothoracic surgeons in the world. The doctor is also executive producing Heartbeat.
As NBC says, “stubborn and fearless, Alex always operates on her own terms. She revels in a racy personal life that’s a full-time job in itself, manages the daily demands of skeptical faculty and dutiful interns and pushes the boundaries of medical science to impressive new heights.”
Is There a Comedian in the House?
The cast includes Dave Annable, Shelley Conn, D.L. Hughley, Jamie Kennedy, Maya Erskine, JLouis Mills and Joshua Leonard. Watch our video as D.L. and Jamie talk medicine on-screen, and how they take care of their own health.
D.L. plays Dr. Hackett on Heartbeat. (You may remember the successful comedian and political commentator from his family style sitcom The Hughleys.) Having grown up on the tough streets of Los Angeles, D.L. set out to catch his own shining star, hosting BET’s ComicView, plus a talk show on CNN, and claiming his spot on the hugely popular documentary, The Kings of Comedy. He also did morning radio in New York City.
In 2012, he told NPR that “the minute I picked up the microphone, I knew that I would love it for the rest of my life. It was definitely love at first sight.” Want to see him on tour? Here’s the schedule.
Men of Many Talents
Jamie is also a stand-up comedian, producer and screenwriter: Check his website and click “tour” for his upcoming dates. On television, Jamie logged numerous episodes on The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Ghost Whisperer, Fanboy and Chum Chum, The Cleveland Show and others.
He says of his character, Dr. Callahan, that he’s “obnoxious, blunt…but he’s amazing at what he does.” Jamie recently told KRNV-TV in Reno, Nevada, that he gets his comic material “mostly from human beings. They make a lot of foibles.”
Gotta watch this Heartbeat preview below. Also gotta love Dr. Panttiere’s response when asked what she likes to do in her spare time—assuming she ever has any. “I like long walks on the beach, hot bubble baths and the sound of cracking a patient’s chest open like a lobster.”
So there.
View the original at Parade or follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+