#’New Amsterdam’ Star Ryan Eggold on a COVID-Ravaged Hospital & Team in Season 3 Premiere

Roughly a year after the coronavirus ground New York City to a standstill, the staff at New Amsterdam hospital has been through the worst of the pandemic — and it shows!

“When you first see the doctors, they’ve got the marks [on their faces], the indentations from wearing their masks day in, day out,” says Ryan Eggold (above), aka the drama’s idealistic medical director Max Goodwin. “It’s a powerful image — a small physical manifestation of the amount of hours people are putting in.”

In the Season 3 opener, a plane crashes into the East River, and survivors are rushed to the already overwhelmed facility. “It’s another act of god–type event that nobody is prepared for,” Eggold notes. As new trauma surgeon Cassian Shin (Daniel Dae Kim) and the team fight to save lives, psychiatrist Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine) tries to help the pilot remember exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, the virus hits Dr. Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher), and Max has to track down hard-to-get medication to treat the neurology head. With all these professional demands, “his personal life has gone by the wayside,” Eggold says. Max has sent baby daughter Luna away to live with her maternal grandparents during the pandemic, and any romantic interest — say, Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman) — “has taken an even further backseat.”

Through it all, Eggold says Max’s maxim remains: How can we help? “How can we make this better? How can we get back to normal? It’s about pursuing the vaccine.”

New Amsterdam, Season 3 Premiere, Tuesday, March 2, 10/9c, NBC