René Girard, please call your office

About Alice Flaherty:

Years later, she consulted on a pilot for a television drama based on her life: doctor develops mania after personal catastrophe. Although the show never got off the ground, the experience became a roomful of mirrors and mirror neurons, for who better to teach empathy to a doctor than an actor?

“The actress playing me was trying to pick up my mannerisms. At the same time,” she said, recalling professional lessons learned, “I was trying to pick up hers, because she was much more convincing than I am — she had a little smile that was triumphant, but also just so happy for the patient. I was imitating her imitating me.”