Two new characters play a role in this week’s LIFE SENTENCE. The first, fellow cancer patient Sadie, was briefly introduced in the series premiere when Stella returned to the hospital she knew so well to try and come to terms with her cancer-free life. The second is Sadie’s oncologist, Dr. Will Grant, played by Riley Smith, who joins the show as a regular.
During a visit to the set of LIFE SENTENCE in the fall, the cast spoke to TheTVAddict about Sadie and Stella’s friendship and how Will might complicate Stella and Wes’ marriage.
Stella Steps In to Help Sadie. “I think Stella sees a lot of herself in Sadie,” Lucy Hale (Stella) said. “Obviously, they’re going through the same things and the same situation. Sadie doesn’t have, really, the support system that Stella had, so Stella steps in and wants to save her, because Stella’s a fixer. She wants to make everyone happy – maybe a little too happy. She’s definitely a people-pleaser. But I think with Sadie, she sees someone she can really take under her wing, and the things that Stella did wrong, she’s guiding her to take a different turn, to make the right decisions. They definitely are attached.”
“I feel like Sadie and Stella have a relationship where they can share anything with each other and sometimes they may be holding back [sharing] certain things, but they can kind of tell there is something going on,” Nadej Bailey (Sadie) explaiend.”I feel like with Stella and Sadie, with their relationship they teach each other new things and learn from each other. Since Sadie is at a hospital where she doesn’t really have much people to talk to, I feel like Stella is like her best friend.”
Enter Dr. Will Grant. While Stella has good intentions to befriend and try to help Sadie go through her own treatment, doing so puts her straight in the path of Will. “Stella’s volunteering at a hospital and I play her patient’s doctor that she’s volunteering for,” Riley Smith said. “We hit it off right away and there are things about my character, Dr. Grant, that Stella really connects to and he connects [with] her. He understands her unlike probably anybody else does that she’s met since she’s been in recovery. There’s a nice, deeper dimension to our relationship [and] you’ll start to see sparks form and complicate matters for her relationship [with Wes]. But what I like about it is that Dr. Grant’s a nice guy; he understands she’s married and he’s not trying to come onto her or steal her away. It’s just real life situations that do happen and they’re tricky, they’re messy and they’re trying to figure it out. [As time goes on] he’s actively trying to continue to keep his mind off her by seeing other people and it’s not working for him and she’s trying to not think about him and it’s not working for her.”
“Stella never had the chance to date or have crushes or do any of that, so when she realizes she’s going to live, I think she starts recognizing people and things and seeing them in a different way,” Hale explained. “So I think, initially, when she meets Dr. Grant, she’s taken by him. There’s definitely a little spark of chemistry there. But also, that storyline develops into where a lot of issues happen with Wes and Stella. Stella tries to block it out because she knows that, ultimately, the person she wants to be with is Wes, but it’s sort of this person that keeps coming into her life.”
LIFE SENTENCE airs on Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.