'Grey's Anatomy' Makes History with New Character Who Is Deaf Played by Shoshannah Stern

Grey’s Anatomy is still making history 16 seasons in!

During Thursday’s episode, titled “Save the Last Dance for Me,” the popular medical drama will introduce Dr. Lauren Riley, the first recurring deaf doctor on a network primetime series.

Actress Shoshannah Stern, who is deaf, will be playing Riley. She told Variety that being a cast member on Grey’s Anatomy has always been a dream of hers. Literally — she used to have dreams about being on the series.

“It was always just me walking around in scrubs with the other doctors like I was one of them,” said Stern, 39. “I remember always having trouble adjusting when I woke up from these dreams, because they always felt so vividly real.”

Showrunner Krista Vernoff told the outlet that she didn’t know the episode would be making TV history until they began shooting it, adding that she has been “smitten” with Stern since first meeting her on a 2019 Television Academy panel.

“I fell in love with her as a human, as a communicator, as an actress,” Vernoff said. “I thought she was incredible and I wanted to put her on my show. I did not even know it had never been done before.”

Stern said she spoke to doctors who are deaf while developing Dr. Riley and added that the Grey’s team also reached out “to ensure what they were writing about was accurate.”

Stern, Vernoff, episode writer Tameson Duffy and director Jesse Williams (who also stars as Dr. Jackson Avery) “utilized technology to allow for Riley’s interpreter to communicate via an iPad,” Variety reports. In one-on-one interactions, however, Stern’s character switches to lip-reading and English.

“It was most important to me that Riley was the best at what she did because, not in spite, of the fact that she’s deaf,” Stern said. “It was also important that being deaf isn’t something that defines Riley, it just adds a unique layer to her.”

“I loved how it was executed on the page, too, because Riley does eventually kind of touch on how her being deaf has actually helped her be as good as she is, but she’s kind of an enigma in that you never really know what she’s thinking or why she’s saying what she is.”

Grey’s Anatomy airs Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.