‘Brilliant Minds’ Guest Star Molly Bernard on the ‘Deep and Profound’ Message of Her Episode (Exclusive)

Monday’s episode of Brilliant Minds was a twisted one, and guest star Molly Bernard spoke to PopCulture.com all about it.

In the episode, titled “The Contestant,” Bernard plays a reality show contestant who “lands at the hospital with an unusual delusion.”

Although the episode starts with Bernard’s Lauren on a Love Is Blind-esque reality show, complete with the pods and talking through walls, it’s discovered that she hallucinated the whole thing. She had broken up with her boyfriend and was going through IVF, and she wound up going through psychosis. It was an interesting twist, and Bernard “absolutely loved that episode.”

“I think there’s something deep and profound about the message of this episode, which is the quest for love and romance and meaning, is so, so deep that it can lead some to really extreme circumstances,” she explained. “In Lauren B.’s case, her boyfriend breaks up with her, and she basically overdoses on fertility shots and, as a result, has really, really intense delusions. And I just feel for her.”

“I love playing her because I thought I had a lot to learn from her,” Bernard explained. “She just is deep in her quest for life and meaning. And it was very, very hard at times, when she really realized that she’s in the delusion, it was very painful. Both, honestly, as the reader of the script and then also doing it as the actor, I was like, ‘This is why we do it. This is it. This is the juicy stuff that actors dream of.’”

As for portraying a character that is going through psychosis and IVF treatments, as well as losing their significant other, Bernard sang the episode’s praises, saying it was “written so well and directed so well that I had to trust a lot on my skill set, both of, like, my actor training.” She continued, “And I had to trust myself as an actor that I could really do it. And luckily, DeMane [Davis, director and EP] had such a clear vision of how she was going to execute the Love Is Blind-esque hallucinations. And, also, in the hospital, when Lauren was confronting real life, there was different lighting, there was different sets for each kind of [hallucination].”

“For example, the hallucination scene where you find out I’m actually not in the Love Is Blind reality show, but that whole conversation took place in the back of a taxi,” she said. “We had to shoot those scenes multiple times in multiple different locations, and I think that really helped me place myself in Lauren’s mental state.”

“I mean, the prep work was intense, but I have to give it to the crew and team of Brilliant Minds, and really just DeMane’s really clear picture of what she wanted and how she wanted these hallucinations to feel and breathe,” Bernard explained. “Because it meant that I could just show up and be true to the circumstances I was in. Whether it was me in the cab or whether it was me in the Love Is Blind-esque hallucination, I could just show up to those given circumstances and be truthful of them, which was really cool.”

Lauren B.’s choices were not only hurting her, but her sister, Harper, played by Elizabeth Cappuccino. Harper wanted nothing but the best for her sister and stayed by her side, even considering putting her in Hudson Oaks because she wanted to help, but didn’t know how. That is, until Wolf and Carol talked them both out of it. Bernard said Cappuccino is “just a delight of a person and an actor.”

“There’s one scene in particular that really stood out for me,” she shared. “I’ve not seen the episode yet, but I’m just going off of what we filmed. There’s one scene where I have just ran through the hospital. I’ve tried to escape.And my sister just kind of takes me out of it. You see Lauren coming out of the hallucination, and you hear the sister say, ‘Lo, lo, lo, lo.’ And her tenderness and care for me really was enveloping. It was really a treat.”

Additionally, Bernard praised the entire cast and crew, admitting, “The actorswere so good on this show, and everyone really showed up to do their work very seriously. The whole thing was just a real privilege, kind of an acting moment for me.”

New episodes of Brilliant Minds air on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, streaming the next day on Peacock.