The brand new season of Stan’s Dr. Death follows the real-life story of “Miracle Man” Paolo Macchiarini (Édgar Ramírez), a charming surgeon renowned for his innovative operations; however, in a devastating twist, most of his patients suffered a traumatic end, suffocating on the decaying plastic windpipes he placed inside them.
Speaking to Mediaweek before the season premiere on Friday, December 22, Emmy Award-winning Luke Kirby (who plays Dr Nathan Gamelli) and actor Gustaf Hammarsten (who plays Dr Svensson) reveal how the events portrayed in the series’ second season, are truly “shocking”.
“It was really shocking to me, the bill of goods that was sold to people who rarely had the funds and the power to make this happen,” Kirby said. “And to overlook the lack of research, peer review and empirical data, just the willingness at the promise of something so great, to just overlook important information was striking to me, because when you hear what he was promoting and promising, you go like, how is this possible?”
Luke Kirby and Gustaf Hammarstan, Dr Death. Stan
For Swedish-born Hammarsten, it was truly distressing that it could happen somewhere like Sweden.
“[It’s] A country where everything is safe and boring, and controlled,” he said. “Everything is shocking. It is shocking that you have a prestigious institution — wherever it might be — that could go on [like this] for so many years. And, it’s so hard to hit the break and tell the truth and nobody wants to hear about it.”
Luke Kirby and Gustaf Hammarsten play an amalgamation of whistleblowers involved in the true story
In this story of lies, manipulation, heartbreak, and betrayal, the whistleblowers — doctors around the world — peeled back the layers of Macchiarini’s deception until they realised how vulnerable patients put their faith in not a ‘Miracle Man’, but a ‘Dr. Death’.
Hammarsten and Kirby, alongside Ashley Madekwe (who plays Dr Ana Lasbrey), play characters who are an “amalgamation” of those who participated — whether willingly or not — in the scheme and as they began to make shocking discoveries of their own, it called everything about Macchiarini into question.
Gustaf Hammarsten, Luke Kirby and Ashley Madekwe, Dr Death. Stan
“It’s a fiction sort of borrowed from true life,” Hammarsten said. “All the three whistleblowers have a different kind of part in the story and they come from different angles and so they they need each other to do this.
“Luke’s character was sceptical from the beginning and he wants to do something about it. But I feel that I can’t do that because I have to protect my family.”
Meanwhile, Kirby said that those Doctors who were roped into the scheme paid a “hefty price”.
“It held the promise of so much profit. It’s peculiar,” Kirby said. “Every individual, their self-interest is that you have to provide for their family. You are kind of a financial funnel for your family. And everybody is to some degree, given this sort of crossroads not only professionally but also, I think, financially.
“Work doesn’t just come running your way after doing something like this. It’s a really serious thing to contend with and it is strange that that’s the game that was agreed here.”
Paolo Macchiarini’s patients unwillingly put their lives into the hands of a con artist
For the patients and their families who suffered at the hands of Macchiarini, it was a life-and-death situation.
“The patients were desperate,” Hammersten said. “But for someone like Macchiarini, he needs an environment, he needs other people to nourish him.”
The series also follows investigative journalist Benita Alexander (Mandy Moore) who approaches Macchiarini for a story. And when the line between personal and professional began to blur, it changed her life forever.
Mandy Moore. Stan
Throughout the season, we will see his perfection unravel and Benita will learn just how far Paolo will go to protect his secrets.
The brand new season of Stan’s Dr. Death is based on the Wondery podcast.
Stream Dr Death season two on Stan from Friday, December 22.