ABC/Allyson Riggs(LOS ANGELES) — The ABC drama Station 19 returns Thursday night for the start of season three, and stars Jaina Lee Ortiz and Boris Kodjoe tell ABC Audio that the stories we’re going to see will be a gutsier this time around.
“This sort of new season of storytelling where we’re taking real life events and, you know, the situations that the characters are put through kind of resonate with the audience,” says Jaina, who plays Lieutenant Andy Herrera on the series.
“So we go deeper,” adds Boris, who portrays the fire station’s new captain Robert Sullivan. “Deeper, dirtier, realer, because that’s real life. That’s what you want to see as somebody who’s watching the show, you want to be able to relate to these things.”
Ortiz says the new season will pick up where the fall finale of Station 19‘s parent show, Grey’s Anatomy left off.
“A car crashes into Joe’s bar and you have characters from Station 19 in there you have Jackson, Ben, Pruitt and a bunch of the interns from Grey’s,” she explains. “So, you know, we don’t know what could happen. Station 19, as you know, is in there trying to save everyone’s lives.”
The two warn they’ll be “A lot of death and devastation…So hold onto your seats. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
To offset the the show’s heavy subject matter, Jaina and Boris says the cast tries to keep the atmosphere light when the cameras aren’t rolling.
“You’ve got to balance it out a little bit because you can’t if you’re playing doom, doom, doom all day,” says Boris. “It has an effect in here on your soul. So sometimes you got to make light of it. We have a great time. It’s a family.”