Paige Spara Auditioned for ‘The Good Doctor’ From a Bathroom
The Good Doctor is definitely getting a season five, and fans can’t wait. The last season ended with a lot of loose ends. Lea is pregnant, and fans aren’t sure how Shaun will handle fatherhood. The show is, in a lot of ways, a typical medical drama. The catch is that the lead character, the good doctor himself, is on the autism spectrum. It’s the characters that set this show apart, and that’s thanks in large part to Paige Spara. Spara plays Lea, Shaun’s girlfriend. She almost didn’t take the part, according to Trib Live.
Paige Spara didn’t have many acting credits before ‘The Good Doctor’
Spara didn’t plan on getting a recurring role on the show. She was scheduled to make a guest appearance, but things worked out. She impressed as Lea, and the showrunners decided that she had to stick around. Eventually, her character was given a job at the hospital IT department, meaning she could stay on the show.
Before The Good Doctor, Spara didn’t have many acting credits. According to IMDB, she only had seven acting gigs before this one, most of them fairly small. Her most notable role before The Good Doctor was for Kevin From Work, a television show which only lasted one season. Spara says she felt a little self-conscious about her skills when it came time to audition for The Good Doctor. Things didn’t get better when she got the role. Spara found herself asking, “Can I act? Do I even know how to do this?”
According to Paige Spara, she auditioned for ‘The Good Doctor’ from a bathroom
Spara can certainly act, even if she’s not sure all the time. Her role on The Good Doctor is proof of that. Not only was she promoted from a guest to a star, but she landed the gig even though she auditioned from the bathroom. According to Spara, she was visiting her parent’s house when she got the call for the audition. Even though Spara didn’t have a good space to do it, a printer, or a reliable internet connection, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
She ended up recording the audition from the bathroom, because it had the best light. Since she couldn’t print the script, she copied it out by hand. Her mom helped her rehearse. “I had to set it up in our bathroom because it was the only room during that hour of the day that had enough light. It’s a really small bathroom and it smelled like bleach because my mom had just scoured it. My mom was like, ‘You’ve got this, hun,'” says Spara.
Paige Spara isn’t the only star to audition from a bathroom
Interestingly, Spara isn’t the only star of a medical drama to audition from a bathroom. Hugh Laurie, star of House, also auditioned from a bathroom. He was filming on location in Africa when he got the call for the audition. Laurie was already a big name, and producers didn’t think he would be right for the role. But when Laurie felt the script, he knew he had to get the gig.
Laurie’s dad was a doctor, and he saw something special in the misanthropic Dr. House. Even though Laurie didn’t have space to make a nice audition tape, he made it work. He filmed his audition in his hotel bathroom. Producers were floored by Laurie’s tape, despite the odd setting. They cast him, and ended up making one of the most popular shows of all time.
