Up until she was hired to play overbearing mom Beverly Goldberg on “The Goldbergs,” Wendi McLendon-Covey worked a side job in addition to acting in films like “Bridesmaids” and shows like “Reno 911!” That gig, editing a social work journal on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, provided fodder for her newest role: hospital executive director Joyce in the NBC mockumentary sitcom “ St. Denis Medical ,” premiering Tuesday with two episodes. “These people aren’t doing it for the money,” says McLendon-Covey on a Zoom call just before heading to the photo shoot for this story.
“I mean pay them, pay them what they’re worth. Absolutely. But these people who have such a burden in their hearts for helping people, they work way past their shift time if they need to, they do things that the rest of us do not have the guts to do nor the stomach to perform.
” In the series from creators Justin Spitzer and Eric Ledgin, Joyce is not the one performing surgeries, but she is trying with all her might to keep the Oregon hospital afloat, even if sometimes her plans seem out of reach for the institution. The buttoned-up, pantsuit-wearing former oncologist is not a repeat of the eager “Goldbergs” matriarch, but the character maintains the actor’s knack for playing beleaguered exhaustion for comedic effect. McLendon-Covey spoke to the Los Angeles Times about what she was looking for in a new part, haunted hospitals, and her love of playing a character with a patheti.
