EXCLUSIVE: Big Sky alumna Jamie-Lynn Sigler is returning to ABC with a guest-starring role on the network’s hit medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.
Appearing in the Jan. 15 Episode 2208, “Heavy on Me,” Sigler will play Dr. Laura Kaplan, a urologist living with Multiple Sclerosis, who visits Grey Sloan at the request of Catherine Fox (Debbie Allen) and offers Richard (James Pickens Jr.) a unique perspective on his case.
The role was created for Sigler, who has lived with MS for more than two decades and marks her return to television after a three-year break. I hear it was important to the show’s producers and to Sigler that the character is not defined by their affliction and has a full life and a career.
Sigler was diagnosed with MS when she was 20 years old and hid her diagnosis for 15 years, mainly because she feared repercussions for her Hollywood career. Since going public in 2016, Sigler has spoken openly about MS and the stigma often associated with it, including on the the podcast MeSsy, which she hosts with fellow actress Christina Applegate who also has MS.
“MS gave me my superpower, which is vulnerability,” Sigler told People in 2023.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Dr. Laura Kaplan on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Episode “Heavy on Me”
Disney/Anne Marie Fox
Series increasingly incorporate actors’ medical conditions in a meaningful way: Eric Dane just played a patient with ALS on NBC’s Brilliant Minds and Michael J. Fox is playing a character with Parkinson’s on Apple TV’s Shrinking.
Best known for her role of Meadow Soprano on HBO’s The Sopranos, Sigler was most recently seen on ABC’s Big Sky. Coming up for her is indie thriller The Man Across The Street, in which she stars alongside Teri Polo and Dylan Walsh.
Sigler also hosts the podcast Not Today Pal with her former Sopranos co-star Robert Iler. Her upcoming memoir And So It Is… A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope will be published by HarperCollins on May 5. Sigler is repped by Paradigm and Vault Entertainment.