Manish Dayal Opens Up About Directing The Resident's 100th Episode

After making his TV directorial debut last season, The Resident's Manish Dayal has returned to the director's chair to helm the 100th episode of the hit Fox medical drama — an hour that promises to deliver the high stakes of a life-or-death situation and the emotion of a celebration that has been years in the making. Aptly titled "For Better or Worse," the hour finds Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) and Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood) rushing to save the ill daughter of a major hospital donor, on the day of Bell's wedding to Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves).

Ahead of Tuesday's milestone episode, Dayal spoke with TV Guide about his character's personal and professional evolution, his approach to directing, and the one Marvel character that he would love to revisit one day.

After six seasons of playing Dr. Devon Pravesh, you must have a pretty good sense of who he is and how he moves through the world. How would you describe his evolution in the last 100 episodes? Now that the show has settled into this time jump, what are some things that you would like to explore further at this stage of his life?
Manish Dayal: That's a great question. I think what makes him stand out is just the fact that he started this journey as a student, as a person, who was eager to learn and grow in a business and an enterprise, really, that he knew nothing about. And over the course of the 100 episodes, you see him learn and grow but also become hardened and maybe even a little jaded to certain things about medicine and healthcare, particularly the events of what it means to be a private hospital and a public hospital, and what that does for patient care.

But I think what he learns about himself is defining the kind of doctor that he is gonna be, which is a doctor that relies on science and improving results and statistics. He relies on data, and that's juxtaposed with some of the other doctors who rely on instincts. It's always fun to see each character's approach to a different patient that comes to the hospital, and everyone has a different approach when they all come together. That's what I think makes this show and this cast of characters pretty dynamic and interesting.

Something that interests me personally, but also the character, is this idea of finding new ways to research cures and diseases, and he is going on this journey of clinical trials, which I think is super important to patient care and healthcare, and how we are going to find new ways to treat and cure rare diseases and cancers. He's venturing into this new world of research and studying those bizarre, unique situations, and he's bringing that information and data into the hospital and applying it to the patients that he's seen, and I like that direction. I don't think we see a lot of it on TV, because research is hard to illustrate. How do you make that dramatic, and how do you make it compelling for television? And I think that's something that we're constantly exploring on the show.

Do you feel like Devon is ready to take that next step in his personal life?
Dayal: Yeah. At this point, he's with Leela (Anuja Joshi). He's got a pretty steady and serious relationship with her, and I think they have a bond and a chemistry unlike any of his previous girlfriends on the show. She's a physician just like him, so they have this understanding and this relationship that's based in respect for each other's careers, but also what they want from life. I think Devon is very eager to move on to the next stage in his personal life: settle down and have children. It seems like that's the direction that he wants to take, and I think the verdict is out if that's gonna be [with] Leela or not, because she's going in a very different direction in her life and career. So they have to figure out a way to connect and get on the same page about that because, ultimately, they do want different things.

What were some lessons that you learned from directing your first episode that you were able to apply to this second one, and how did you want to approach helming a milestone episode for the show and two big characters?
Dayal: Something that is instinctual in me as a director is to identify the tone of the piece and the message that we're telling—and the theme. Every hour of television has a theme, and whether it is the A, B, C, or even the D story, how do you make every storyline relate to each other? Finding that connectivity is super important to me. I tend to be pretty thorough in prep, and I create something called an episode bible. Basically, I summarize and truncate each scene, I figure out how each scene connects to the next, and then I put the characters in and see what they're doing. The story just surfaces for me, and I refer back to that document typically when I'm directing.

What was unique about this episode and the season as a whole is that Chastain is its own character this year. It feels to me that Chastain is another member of this group and we are fighting to save and protect her and keep her alive. In this episode, you see Kit and Bell fragmented at the top of the episode, and then they both have to go in opposite directions, tackling their own issues medically and professionally. But ultimately, how do they get back together at the end, and what brings them there? There's obstacle after obstacle for Bell throughout the entire story. There [are] about six different ticking clocks for him that he's trying to overcome and battling to get to the church, and there's a big chance that he won't make it. The stakes are super high.

The medical learning in this episode to me was one of the most fascinating because it revolved around a young girl who was Deaf. It was super important to me to cast a real Deaf actress, because there's an authenticity that comes with telling the story. We have to be aware of not just the story in the scene, but also what she's aware of and what she's not aware of. There's a certain protocol, which I learned working with the Deaf community, that if there [are] two people who are deaf in a room and one who is not, your behavior and how you sign and when you sign really matters. When are the actors signing and not signing? When are we also speaking as we sign?

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And luckily, I do know basic ASL, so I was able to communicate with her and we were able to bring all those pieces together. Her journey is tied with Bell's journey—he's trying to get to his wedding, but he's torn because he's committed to this girl, and taking care of her and her mom, who is going through her own medical issues with her heart. So there's a matter of timing, and that's what brings all the characters together.

With the preparation, I guess the most important thing is understanding what these characters are feeling, what they're going through, and I think what I've learned from the second episode is leaning into their emotional state and their relationships. Because when in doubt, a character's relationship with another character will ultimately help tell a story more than anything, and we are so rooted in our characters, so our relationships with each other naturally surface in a scene, and that also helps with telling the story.

What are some of the biggest logistical and practical challenges of directing when you're also acting at the same time? Do you have to rely on certain crew or cast members to help you execute your vision on the day?
Dayal: Yes and no. I did have a couple more scenes in the episode, but we had to make trims based on time, and I had to focus on what drives the story. There was a very charming scene at the top of the episode between Devon and Leela, which I think really had energy and pace. But ultimately, it didn't make sense to keep it in. With broadcast [TV], we're moving so fast, and the idea of doing a take and then going back to see playback is very time-consuming. So what I did in this instance was, I would block the scene and rehearse it as the actor, and then direct while I'm blocking it with the crew and everyone who was there, and I would go to the monitors and watch the second team rehearse what we just blocked. That gave me an idea of what it would look like.

But what I noticed this time was I never really looked at the monitors this time because I just had a feeling. The only thing I had questions on after I was performing was if it was technically okay. Sometimes, a light might not be in the right place, and then we would have to go again, but in terms of performance and the point of the scene, I just knew when we got it. My first A.D. also gave me some feedback if there was something that needed to be adjusted, but ultimately, I just learned to trust my instincts when I'm acting and directing at the same time.

We've reached a juncture in the industry where there is a fundamental demand for diversity in the stories that are being told. What are some of the biggest changes that you have witnessed first-hand for South Asians in the decade that you've worked in the business, and what are some things that you would like to see change more?
Dayal: I have so much to say on this subject. Asian representation, as a whole, has completely started to shift. I think we often ask ourselves that question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And I think about that question a lot because I have two small children, and I realize that it's so rooted in how we identify ourselves in popular culture and what we are witnesses to. You can't really define or answer that question if you never see yourself reflected. That question is so basic and fundamental, but it has such a huge value in our life.

So for Asians, I think there are certain steps. I think that there is the effort to put more South Asians, and Asians in general, on television and in film, and you can pepper the cast with people of color and people who are Asian, but the story itself has to also support those cast members in the life that they're living on the screen. So the story really matters too—and also who's behind that story, who's writing the story and narrating that story.

What I noticed in the beginning was that we just had too few Asians behind the camera—people who are making decisions, people who are writing the scenes, people who are making big executive decisions, and I've seen a real shift there. It's just awesome to see that that's starting to shift, and people are trying to pay attention, because I think the more we can be inclusive and the more we can include people from different areas of life, we are just creating better stories and they're becoming rooted in what's real. It starts with the script, and I think the more Asian storytellers we have, the more elevated we become.

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How do you think a character like Devon challenges outdated archetypes or stereotypes of Asian men in Western media, and why do you think it is so important to depict these rich South Asian characters in romantic relationships?
Dayal: I think Devon is a great example of what it means to be South Asian and American, and also a young man who's after something larger than himself. I will often try to make sure that he isn't a pushover, or somebody who is undesirable, or somebody who doesn't have the fire within him. I think those things often get diluted from Asian depictions on screen, so it's super important that he remains somebody that we can relate to, regardless of whether you're Asian or not.

Asian men for so long on TV have been depicted as just undesirable, or they are not [considered] "leading men," and I think lately we've seen a shift in that idea, and it's something that I'm attentive to with Devon. The more we can broaden the idea of what Asian men look like on TV, the better it is for our community because we need young people to see these characters on TV and find people and qualities that they relate to. Certainly, when I was younger, I didn't see anyone who looked like me on TV. It was all about these prehistoric ideas of what Asian Americans or what South Asians look like on screen, and that was super limited when I was younger, so to see that shift now is super, super compelling.

What are your ultimate professional aspirations? Do you have a dream role that you would like to play or a story that you would really like to tell?
Dayal: I would love to do something for Marvel. Actually, I'm already in the MCU in a small capacity. I have a character [named Vijay Nadeer] who was first introduced in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He has a relationship with the electromagnetic field, and he can control data and information, and he's got a really wild backstory. He loses his parents early in life, and he goes into Terrigenesis—he's in Terrigenesis [again] under the ocean right now—and he emerges with his power to control the field. I played this character years ago, but I would love to tell his story.

The Resident airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Fox. Episodes are available the next day on Hulu.