Jamie-Lynn Sigler is opening up about playing TV or movie characters with Multiple Sclerosis, more than two decades after she was diagnosed with the disease.
The 44-year-old actor plays a doctor with the chronic illness on Thursday’s episode of the hit medical show, Grey’s Anatomy, marking the first time Sigler will portray a character with the same disease she was diagnosed with in 2002. As urologist Dr. Laura Kaplan, Sigler’s character navigates her MS diagnosis, while assisting fan-favorite Dr. Richard Webber (portrayed by James Pickens Jr.) after it’s been revealed that he has prostate cancer.
Speaking to The Independent after working on the long-running show, Sigler was adamant that every character she plays in the future will have MS — even if it’s unspecified.
“I have MS. So every character I play has MS, whether we talk about it or not,” she explained. “So that’s up to the creators and the creatives on whatever project I’m working on.
“But anytime you see me on screen, the character has MS,” she concluded.
MS is a disease that causes the breakdown of the protective covering of nerves, as noted by the Mayo Clinic. Symptoms can include numbness, weakness, trouble walking, vision changes, lack of coordination, and fatigue.
Sigler was diagnosed with MS in 2002, when she was just 20 years old. At the time, she was still filming the hit show The Sopranos, where she played Meadow, the daughter of mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). However, she chose to keep her diagnosis private until 2016, well after the show had finished filming.
The actor previously said she was able to hide her illness for so long by lying about what caused her symptoms.
“It became this long series of lies. ‘I have a back issue; I must’ve tweaked my ankle,’” she said during a 2024 episode of her and Christina Applegate’s MeSsy podcast. “I got away with it as long as I could until people would be like, ‘Are you limping? Are you okay?’”
“I was brushing it off because I just didn’t know what that would mean for me to say it out loud and have everybody know,” she added. “I’ll probably get fired. Who would want me?”
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Now, 10 years after revealing her diagnosis, she’s grateful to portray a character with MS, mirroring her own life experience. She said that while she’s wanted to be on Grey’s Anatomy since it first aired in 2005, it was worth the wait to be able to play Dr. Kaplan, a character who resonated deeply with her.
“I think her honoring and talking about the devastation that came with receiving such a diagnosis — her life and career could be over because of it — [and] allowing herself to sort of sit in those feelings and those emotions, and then just saying, ‘Okay, this is the body that I’m in. How do I keep moving forward and how do I still do what I love?’ That’s, I think, the real message of Dr. Kaplan. And I think that’s the real message of me,” Sigler told The Independent.
“This was just a moment for me to honor my journey and what I’ve been through and what I’ve overcome and continue to overcome on a daily basis,” she continued.
“It gave me a lot in my career, personally, to play this role.”
