Kim Raver is a sucker for good old-fashioned romance. She refuses to abandon the fantasy that one day her popular
24 character, Audrey Raines, will reunite with Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer. “For so many reasons, I want that,” she says.
But on this warm autumn night, Raver’s attention is focused on another beloved TV couple. Sitting on a bench outside the medical facility that doubles for Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital, Raver’s eyes are fixed on her new
Grey’s Anatomy> costars Sandra Oh (Cristina Yang) and Kevin McKidd (Owen Hunt) as the two shoot a tender scene for Raver’s recent debut. “They’re so unbelievably cute,” says Raver. “I love Cristina and Owen together. They have such great chemistry. And I really want her to find happiness.”
Sweet thought, but there’s just one problem. Isn’t Raver’s character, cardiothoracic surgeon Teddy Altman, being brought in to mess with their happiness? “That’s the part that’s so difficult,” she continues, almost apologetically. “I was concerned how this was going to work, but the writers do a great job of introducing my character in a very clever way. I have to shut down the fan part of me and come into this with new eyes.”
Between takes, McKidd explains that Owen and Teddy “worked closely together for a couple years in Iraq,” when she believed he was still involved with his ex, Beth. “Teddy’s now been discharged from Iraq and needs a job, so this seems like a good fit,” says McKidd. “She can be that mentor Cristina desperately needs.” But will Cristina see it that way?
Before accepting the role, Raver, 40, wanted assurance from creator Shonda Rhimes that Teddy would not be a carbon copy of the show’s previous cardiothoracic surgeons from hell, Drs. Burke (Isaiah Washington) and Hahn (Brooke Smith), who both resigned from the hospital after alienating nearly everyone. “She does her job,” says Raver. “But she’s not a bitch.” Neither, however, should we expect Teddy to be as cute and cuddly as her name might suggest. As Rhimes tells it, “Cute name, but not a cute person—in a good way. She’s kind of a badass.”
Rhimes created Teddy with Raver in mind after the two worked together last year on
Inside the Box, a pilot set in the world of Washington, D.C., TV journalism that never made it on air. “When I first met Kim, I knew I wanted to work with her in some capacity,” Rhimes says.