The fine folks at A List of Things Thrown Together 5 Minutes Ago pointed me towards the blog kept by the writers of Grey's Anatomy, and I saw this amusing post on just how much thought and planning had to go into a scene where Christina (Sandra Oh, fellow Canuck and pretty darn great actress) cleaves a chicken in half. The post is from one of the "new kids" on the writing staff, Debora Cahn, who wrote some good post-Sorkin West Wing episodes, including Leo's Funeral.
The nervous condition came and went over the first weeks on the job, but I think I officially got over it dealing with Cristina and the chicken. Cristina’s decided she’s going to help Burke get back on the horse after his hand surgery, (so sweet, so generous, so unexpected from Cristina) and she’s going to do it by having him practice operating on dead chickens. So when it came time to shoot the episode, there were long conversations with the fantastic production team about the hacking of the chicken. Was it just a chicken breast? Was it a whole fryer? The folks from sets and props had to design a cutting board that could be built into Burke’s counter top, so it wouldn’t fly off the counter, as there was a lot of concern about Sandra Oh getting hit in the face with either a meat cleaver or a chicken. The conversation continued when we hit the stage to rehearse the move with Sandra. Could she get through the bird in one hack or would it take two? (I thought it should be one. It was important to me. I don’t know why.) We had rehearsal chickens. We had stunt chickens. We discovered that the stunt chickens, which had balloons inside them instead of bones, emitted some sort of evil stinky salmonella gas that threatened to kill Sandra on the spot. It was scary. In the end, she made it through in one incredibly satisfying hack. The whole thing just made me really happy.
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