Plus, we briefly revisit her pop singer start.
We’re living in an age when scammer stories are unavoidable — everyone knows someone who’s been the target of a hoax. Unfortunately, thanks to social media, online dating, and other digital communication innovations, it’s never been easier to scam successfully.
Those who’ve evaded such scenarios might credit their obsession with con-con — what I’ve decided to dub content about con artists — for this achievement. There are countless podcasts, TV shows, and movies about the intricate ways predators trick their prey into emptying their pockets (or worse). And if you’ve devoured any of this content — think The Dropout, Scamanda, Inventing Anna, Tinder Swindler, Dirty John, and Dr. Death — you’re an expert at convincing yourself that you’d never fall for the con du jour. Whether it’s a fake doctor, a deceitful suitor, or a suspicious business opportunity, you’re certain that whatever you’re hearing about could never happen to you. But with season 2 of Dr. Death, star Mandy Moore wants to change your mind.
Season 2 of the crime series — which adapts true stories of extreme medical malpractice — focuses on star surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, whom you may have heard of during his prime. He was all over the news for his innovative artificial trachea replacement and experimental procedures, partly because of the work of Benita Alexandra. The award-winning former NBC News producer helped craft a special about him for Meredith Vieira in 2013 and ended up falling for him in the process.
Macchiarini’s resume was the stuff of legends: He was working at Karolinska Institutet, the medical university where the Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine is selected; he’d treated important public figures like former presidents and the Pope; and his groundbreaking research was being published in some of the most reputable medical journals. That resume, unfortunately, was full of lies. His research was biased and dishonest, he never worked for those public figures, and his artificial tracheas were unsafe. Macchiarini transplanted plastic airways into at least eight patients, but only one is known to be alive, and that person eventually had their artificial airway removed.
Now, his multi-pronged story of deception is hitting the small screen. Not only is there a new docuseries about the saga on Netflix, Dr. Death season 2 premieres on Peacock Dec. 21, and stars Moore as Benita, and Edgar Ramirez as Paolo.
“My hope for this particular series is for people to see themselves in Benita,” Moore told us. “This is an incredibly capable, brilliant woman who’s at the top of her game, who in any other circumstance would never have fallen victim to this particular situation. But when you have someone so adept at manipulation and deception and can engage in such a charm offensive, there’s no defense against that.”
We spoke to Moore about how people fall victim to cons like Paolo, how this project changed the way she sees the medical system, and the TV she can’t keep her eyes off of these days. (Plus, we travel back in time to her early days as a pop star — candy, anyone?)
Katie Couric Media: What did you draw on from your personal experience to channel the betrayal that Benita experienced?
Mandy Moore: We all have so much baggage in our lives that we’re able to draw on to embody any sort of betrayal. My hope is for people to see themselves in Benita. You have this surgeon who’s at the top of his game, who’s famous, who’s pioneering this very exciting field of medicine, and you’re doing a story on him, and he chooses you to woo and fly around the world, and then eventually proposes to you. It’s the stuff of fairytales.
For a woman like Benita, a single mom super focused on her career, this wasn’t something she was pining for or looking for. I think she was pretty fulfilled in life. She was swept off her feet and I think that’s the reason it worked and she was tricked into this relationship with this deceitful person. It all happened so slowly that it was believable. This was someone who definitely would’ve had alarm bells ringing, if the person weren’t as adept at this kind of deception as Paolo was. If you’ve bought into how her life is unfolding in the most magical sense that she never expected, and then for all of that to come crashing down in such a magnificent way, it’s easy to feel betrayed. It’s easy to go back and sort of pinpoint every single lie, every single thing that just was never true, and feel angry.
When you watch or read stories like this, are you the type of person who thinks, That would never happen to me, I could never fall for it? Do you think you could have fallen for Paolo?
On its surface, if you were just to tell me, “This man proposed and then promised that the Pope was going to officiate the wedding,” of course, on the surface that sounds like the most insane thing. But it all happened so slowly that it feels more believable — that he’s this famous surgeon who’s performing surgeries in Russia and London and Chicago, and he’s Italian and based at Karolinska, where they give out the Nobel Prize. He was able to keep so much about his life quiet and private that it was believable that he was a part of this secret society and the doctor for the Pope, ex-presidents, and international diplomats. And having accepted all of that gradually, once we’re getting married it’s believable that the Obamas and the Clintons and all these other fancy people would be on the guest list. Because those seeds had been planted over two-plus years, I think it’s plausible any regular person would be like, “Well, this is just sort of what our life looks like together.”
Of all the crazy things that were discovered about Paolo, what shocked you the most?
Oh my gosh, probably the fact that he was able to get away with what he did on the professional side of things for years and years. That he was able to evade that sort of scrutiny that you would expect doctors to come under, especially after losing a patient with such an elective surgery of this sort of stature in this field that he was pioneering, is terrifying. I would say on the personal side of things, the fact that he had a secret family and how duplicitous he was, that he had an entirely other side of his life that he never spoke of… To me, it’s just so mind-blowing that people can compartmentalize in such a way that they can live in such duality.
What are you more of a fan of, content-wise: true crime or something more wholesome, like This Is Us? I assume you’re not sitting there thinking, Let me watch myself…
No, I’m probably not going to go back and watch This Is Us [laughs]. I certainly love a good binge-y ripped-from-the-headlines TV show, but then I balance it out with something more wholesome. You need a little bit of give and take in your life, but I certainly am into an experience like Dr. Death — I loved the podcast and first season of the show. There’s something so fascinating to me about this world: the innate trust that we hand doctors and the medical system, thinking we’re going to be taken care of and we don’t necessarily have to advocate for ourselves, because somebody is looking out for us. It’s wild to think that that’s not necessarily the case.
On another note, your career has spanned decades and you got your start as a pop singer among the likes of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. I’m curious if you’ve read Britney’s memoir, or if you have any thoughts about how this has all unfolded.
I haven’t read her memoir. I’m interested — maybe over the holidays would be a good time to pick it up. I think it’ll be really interesting to transport myself back to that period, which feels like another lifetime ago. But she’s in a much better place, and I’m so happy for all of her success and that people love that book.
