Art imitating life. Season 3 of New Amsterdam will focus on how the hospital handled the novel coronavirus from many different angles. Star Ryan Eggold can relate firsthand, as he revealed via Instagram in September 2020 that he tested positive for COVID-19.
Going through the scary experience helped him relate to the show on a more personal level, he shared with Us Weekly exclusively on Monday, March 1.
“Fortunately, my experience with it was not life-threatening or anything. It’s hard to talk about because part of me wants to say to people, ‘Don’t worry too much. Don’t be too afraid,’ because I had it and it felt like a flu, and it really sucked,” Eggold, 36, said while promoting season 3. “But then again, you don’t want people to take it lightly and there have been so many deaths and people who have really struggled with it more severely.”
The Blacklist alum noted that there is a “sense of relief” having gone through it. “I got to donate plasma a few times to try to get the antibodies out there, which was nice,” he shared with Us. “It doesn’t feel as much of a headline when you’ve gone through it.”
In the fall, Eggold shared a photo of himself donating plasma in New York City, thanking all the frontline workers.
“I think in this crazy time it’s important to figure out what concrete steps we can take to help get everyone through this. Let’s be smart not afraid,” he wrote via Instagram at the time. “Mt. Sinai and many other hospitals are doing this amazing thing. … They’re collecting plasma from folks like me who’ve had it and recovered in an effort to distill the antibodies into a more concentrated form to help treat other folks and protect our much needed frontline workers. It’s called #HyperimmuneGlobulin So if you’ve recovered from Covid I highly recommend donating your plasma. Took about an hour and was relatively painless.”
The NBC drama’s third season kicks off with an episode titled “The New Normal,” giving a peek at what life looks like after the pandemic eventually ends.
“I think for these characters, being based on these real doctors and nurses, they’ve been through the wringer. It’s been a difficult time where the system was completely overwhelmed by this pandemic and we were all sort of unprepared for it,” the California native told Us. “Now it feels like we can kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel and there’s a vaccine and things are opening up and numbers are going down and there’s a real sort of excitement to reconnecting.”
For more from Eggold, watch the exclusive interview above.
New Amsterdam season 3 premieres on NBC Tuesday, March 2, at 10 p.m. ET.
