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alexandra breckenridge She drew on her personal experience with her son as she approached a tragic story in Season 5. virgin river,
In the new season of the Netflix show, which premiered in September, fans watched as Mel (Breckenridge) suffered a miscarriage with fiancé Jack (martin henderson) Child in the middle of giving birth to someone else’s child. Breckenridge, 41, later revealed that going through a past health crisis with her son Jack, now 7, helped her connect with the tragedy. (The actress shares Jack and 5-year-old daughter Billie with her husband casey hooper,
“My personal experience is; One of my children was very, very sick when he was young and could have died, so I have a personal connection and understanding of the emotional loss of a child,” Breckenridge said. deadline On Monday, November 27. “When you’re a parent and you get so close to that edge of not having them, I’ve already experienced it in a different way, so I came to that scene to relive that experience . That’s how I approached it, because that’s what I know.”
Breckenridge further said that he allowed himself to “go back to that emotional point” where he almost lost his son.
“Yeah, I didn’t need a lot of quotes, disrespect, acting, to say that,” she explained to the outlet. “In that moment, it was all absolutely surreal to me.”
Breckenridge said the storyline was important for the show to cover.
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Alexandra Breckenridge as Mel Monroe in “Virgin River”
Netflix“We felt like [if we didn’t do it] We were dealing with an injustice to women who have trouble conceiving and have fertility issues – which is a lot of women – and this story felt very real and very powerful for those women,” Breckenridge said. deadlineSaying that she “feels a responsibility to women who experience infertility to be as grassroots as humanly possible.”
virgin river showrunner patrick sean smith Breckenridge’s character was previously mentioned in season 5 as needing to deal with infertility issues.
Smith explained, “It was an opportunity not to ignore something that defines Mel’s character, which felt like an important topic to explore further.” glamour In October. “So it felt like an organic way to come forward. The last few seasons have been very much defined by his trauma [Jack’s], and it is a shared trauma. Now we see this couple struggle together through this loss because this was the thing that literally destroyed her last marriage.”
Smith wanted the series to depict an actual abortion on screen where Mel sees blood in her underwear and gets herself an ultrasound.
“The network didn’t hesitate on this. I think you’re always wondering if there’s a softer way to dramatize something that’s painful, but at the same time, we couldn’t come up with something that felt as important to show,” he explained. glamour, “We also wanted to clarify what was happening to him at that moment. This was an opportunity to show a woman going through a very specific experience, and if you’re going to do it, do it.