Actress Alex Kingston feared she’d made the “the biggest mistake” of her life by joining ER because she “wasn’t particularly happy” living in Los Angeles.
Alex Kingston feared she’d made the “the biggest mistake” of her life by joining ER.
The 63-year-old actress shot fame in 1997 when she was cast in the hit medical drama as Dr. Elizabeth Corday and she moved from her native UK to Los Angeles for filming, but Alex has confessed she didn’t enjoy living in the US city and it took her a long time to get used to it.
She told The Telegraph newspaper: “I wasn’t particularly happy [living in America] to begin with. It was a massive change, and I kept thinking I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
“I was walking around going: ‘Where’s the culture in Los Angeles? Where are the historical buildings?’ I felt like I was in some sort of giant mall. So it took me a while to adjust and find my sense of humour and get on with it.”
Alex was a regular castmember – appearing in 160 episodes before her character departed in 2004 -but she was initially convinced she was going to get fired at the end of her first season.
She added: “I kept thinking: ‘They’ve made a mistake, and they’ll soon realise it.’ I was convinced that after the first season, I would be told that my contract would be terminated.
“I was so expecting that to happen. And in fact, it was renewed, and I felt very much embraced by and welcomed into that family. I loved ER, but the workload was intense.”
Alex has revealed she’s still good friends with actress Laura Innes, who played Dr. Kerry Weaver, and she’s been enjoying catching up with another former co-star, Noah Wyle, as he basks in the success of his new medical drama The Pitt.
She added of Noah, who played Dr. John Carter: “He can still remember pages of ER dialogue, and not just his own.”
Alex is currently bouncing back after a battle with cancer in 2024 and she recently admitted she mistook her symptoms for the signs of ageing.
She underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy after being diagnosed with uterine cancer and she admitted it was a “shock” to be told she had the disease.
She told Prima magazine: “I hadn’t realised that uterine cancer was a cancer that didn’t get much airtime. I think it’s probably because on the whole, it is a cancer where if you recognise something is wrong, your body is able to tell you. And if it’s caught early enough, it is survivable.
“Because I’m such a positive person, even though my body was trying to tell me that something was very wrong, I wasn’t reading the signs.
“I thought that all the things such as the bloating and weight gain, or injuries not healing properly, were because of my age.
“I thought, ‘This is what it’s like to be in your 60s, and it’s just part and parcel of getting older.’
“It was only when I was doing a play and I started haemorrhaging on stage that I realised, ‘Oh there’s something going on.’
“But even then, I thought maybe I’d got a burst fibroid. I never, ever went down the cancer road, so it was a shock.”
Alex Kingston feared she’d made the ‘the biggest mistake’ of her life by joining ER
