EXCLUSIVE: Dick Wolf’s NBC medical drama Chicago Med has secured the bulk of its original cast. S. Epatha Merkerson, Oliver Platt, Nick Gehlfuss and Brian Tee have closed new multi-year deals to continue on the popular Chicago Fire spinoff series from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television. Remaining original cast member Marlyne Barrett has one more year on her existing contract and also is set to return.
The initial contracts of the original Chicago Med cast expired at the end of the most recent sixth season. As Deadline reported, two of the actors, Yaya DaCosta and Torrey DeVitt, exited at the end of the season when their characters’ stories were wrapped up, while Merkerson, Platt, Gehlfuss and Tee had been negotiating new pacts. (DaCosta quickly was cast as the lead of the new Fox drama series Our Kind of People.)
Chicago Med, NBC’s most-watched scripted series in Live+Same Day, is one year into a three-season pickup, and the main cast’s new agreements should keep them on board at least though the end of Season 8.
Emmy winner Merkerson plays Sharon Goodwin, the chief administrator of Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. Platt plays Dr. Daniel Charles, chief of the psychiatry department. Gehlfuss plays Will Halstead, the ER’s supervising attending physician. Tee plays Dr. Ethan Choi, a former Navy flight surgeon who now is the Chief of Emergency Medicine. Barrett plays charge nurse Maggie Lockwood.
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Merkerson won an Emmy, an Indie Spirit Award, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for Lackawanna Blues. She also won two NAACP Image Awards for her long-running role on Law & Order. Merkerson, a Tony nominee for The Piano Lesson, is repped by ICM Partners, manager Bob McGowan and Kraditor & Haber.
Platt is a four-time Emmy nominee for Nip/Tuck, Huff (twice) and The West Wing. He next will be seen in the film Emperor. Platt is repped by WME and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel.
Gehlfuss, who recently joined the feature Butterfly in the Typewriter, is repped by UTA, MJ Management and Jackoway Austen Tyerman. Tee, whose film credits include The Beautiful Ones, Unspoken: Diary of an Assassin and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, is repped by A3 Artists Agency, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Behr Abramson Levy. Barrett, seen in After Everything and Quest: The Truth Always Rises, is repped by Gallant Management and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.