‘New Amsterdam’: Jocko Sims on Lyn’s News & How Reynolds Navigates the ‘Unique Situation’

Frances Turner as Dr. Lyn Malv, Jocko Sims as Dr. Floyd Reynolds in New Amsterdam
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Universal Television/NBC

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for New Amsterdam Season 4 Episode 10 “Death is the Rule. Life is the Exception.”]

And Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) thought his personal life was complicated before!

The now-Chair of General Surgery almost lost his job, due to Dr. Veronica Fuentes’ (Michelle Forbes) proposed cuts, but Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) stepped in, and instead, the doc who had his new position — Dr. Claude Baptiste (Andre Blake) was let go. Oh, and Claude is the husband of the woman Reynolds is seeing, Dr. Lyn Malvo (Frances Turner). Sure, they have an open marriage, but Claude wasn’t too pleased when he learned his wife’s boyfriend’s identity. And now, the New Amsterdam midseason finale ended with Lyn telling Reynolds she’s pregnant!

Sims teases what’s ahead after that shocking news.

Lyn’s pregnant, and so far, all we’ve seen of Reynolds’ reaction is shock. How is he going to handle that news going forward?

Jocko Sims: It’s going to take time to find out, first of all, is this Reynolds’ baby? And I think that whether it is or isn’t, it’s going to really affect Reynolds. It’s going to affect his work. It’s going to change him, going to make them think about being a father, which is something that is untapped for this character thus far. So I think it’s exciting and complex and I’m looking forward to see how they decide that the character will navigate that.

Jocko Sims as Dr. Floyd Reynolds, Frances Turner as Dr. Lyn Malvo, Andre Blake as Dr. Claude Baptiste in New Amsterdam

Virginia Sherwood/NBC

What can you tease about the conversations that he’s going to have with Lyn and with Claude?

I will say that both Claude and Reynolds are obviously in a similar situation in that they’re curious to know who the father is. We get very caught up into trying to figure out who the father is in this Maury Povich type of situation that we forget about Lyn, and that affects her, and so it’s a learning moment. We have to pump the brakes a little bit and focus on the situation here together at the time being.

Who’s Reynolds going to lean on during this?

Normally, it’s [Dr. Lauren] Bloom [Janet Montgomery], but there haven’t been enough scenes this year for me between Reynolds and Bloom because she would get a kick out of all of this. But oddly enough, he’s leaning on Lyn and he’s leaning on Baptiste. It’s just such a unique situation.

 

You mentioned that he would usually lean on Bloom, but he kind of blew up her life because he told [her girlfriend, Dr.] Leyla [Shinwari, played by Shiva Kalaiselvan] about the donation [made that opened up a fifth residency spot for her].

Yeah, there’s going to be drama. I find myself kind of in the middle of that fight between Leyla and Bloom. There’s a great scene we have coming up, Bloom can see right through the fact that I know that I’d seen Leyla, because she’s looking for a letter of recommendation for a residency. And I am attempting to do something for her, hire her in some capacity, maybe even here, which she passes on. Bloom hadn’t seen her for a while, but I had, and I couldn’t hide that from my face and she calls me out and it’s a great scene. We haven’t shot it yet. I actually just read it.

Reynolds had been so sure Max wasn’t going to leave, but he did, so what’s going on at New Amsterdam going forward?

It’s business as usual. We have some lives to save. We got to keep things going and it’s almost that whole “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” thing. And that’s the case that we find with Veronica. We gotta make this work, and she does have some redeeming qualities. There’s a method to her madness. She’s smart in her own way. She can be seen as brutal, but she made a good point to Max in a past episode, she said, “No one ever calls me to replace a good medical director,” which is brutal, but Max himself is unconventional. So they called her in for a reason.

New Amsterdam, Tuesdays, 10/9c, NBC