When Grey’s Anatomy returned this year for its 17th season, audiences walked away from the two-part premiere in total disbelief at the dreamy return of Dr. Derek Shepherd. But while the big reveal was blowing minds, another character’s return was capturing hearts.
We first met Dr. Zander Perez as a surgical resident at Pac North Hospital in Season 16. He was an instant scene-stealer, telling it like it is to the likes of Catherine Fox and Miranda Bailey. And when Zander turned that attitude on a racist patient in this season’s premiere, the internet begged for him to become a series regular or get his own spinoff.
In different hands, Zander would come off merely as a sassy sidekick. But it is thanks to the heart and soul behind him, Zaiver Sinnett, that Zander also possesses a joy and vibrancy which make him suddenly endearing.
When he was younger, Sinnett thought he wanted a career as the Pink Power Ranger and would play out his own made-up version of the show. But when Sinnett’s dad suggested he map out what he wanted the characters to say, Sinnett gave up the superhero path and started his life’s work of being a writer instead. He was eight years old then.
Later down the line, came Grey’s Anatomy: the show that made him want to write for TV, that made him feel less alone in his rural home in West Virginia, and that ultimately changed his life.
Now, Sinnett not only plays fan-favorite Zander — a dream he never saw coming — but also writes on Station 19, a piece of the dream he’s had all along. With the first full episode of television he’s ever written, S19 episode “We Are Family,” airing on December 3, Shondaland chatted with Sinnett about how his dream came full circle.
BARBARA FRIEND: When did you first know you wanted to be a TV writer?
ZAIVER SINNETT: When I was a teenager, I really started to fall in love with television. My holy TV trinity at the time was One Tree Hill, Grey’s Anatomy, and Desperate Housewives. And I remember very specifically watching the Grey’s Season 3 DVD extras, and Shonda was talking about how she started that season with Izzie in her dress from the hospital’s prom, devastated on the bathroom floor, and ended it with Cristina crying in her wedding dress after getting left at the altar. Shonda had created this beautiful bookend, and that blew my mind. I was 14, and I realized that writing for television was a career, that it was a thing I could do.
Grey’s was and still is my favorite TV show, and I really looked up to Shonda. She had gone to USC for screenwriting. So, I said, “That’s what I’m going to do, too. Exactly like she did. I can feel it.” That really was the genesis of it all for me.
BF: What was it about TV and TV writing that you loved so much?
ZS: I was born and raised in West Virginia, and I love West Virginia, but I’m Black and gay and femme. It could be isolating at times because I would look around and didn’t see people who looked like me or who I could relate to. So, I fell in love with television and Grey’s, specifically, because it allowed me to look at Callie Torres and see this bisexual woman of color just doing her thing. Bailey and Richard looked like me. I could watch that show and feel a little less alone in the world, and I knew I wanted to give that feeling to everyone else for the rest of my career and the rest of my life.
The beautiful thing about television is you let it into your home. Television is in your living room. It’s in your bedroom. It’s in your bathroom. These characters are with you for five, 10, 17 years, and they become your friends. I want to create shows — or even when I write episodes — to platform characters that we don’t see a lot so that people like me, in those small rural areas and everywhere in the world, can feel less alone.
BF: Young Zaiver had this dream inspired by Grey’s and by Shonda. Fast forward a decade… and not only did you achieve your dream, but you achieved it in Shondaland — first as an assistant on Grey’s and now as a staff writer on Station 19. Can you even believe your life?
ZS: My first day at Grey’s Anatomy as an assistant was amazing. It was like I was given the keys to the candy store because now I had access to these stories and these characters I loved so much. Walking into the writers’ room for the first time was such a moment for me. I felt like I’d made it. At the same time, I had a job to do. I was getting lunches. I was the assistant to the assistants. But I wanted to add value to the show in any way I could. If I was getting coffee, I felt like, “I will get your skinny latte, honey, and it’s going to be the best skinny latte you will get all week.” I just wanted to contribute.
But I knew I didn’t want to be an assistant forever. There were staff changes in Season 15, and I was offered a job as the assistant to [Executive Producers] Meg Marinis and Andy Reaser. Krista [Vernoff, Grey’s and Station 19 Showrunner] explained that that job would give me more time to write. I knew I could be outside Meg and Andy’s offices, listening to them talk stories, absorbing all that I could, but also trying to write my way into the next stage of my career.
I wrote script after script. Literally, I wrote a disgusting amount before eventually applying to the Walt Disney Television Writing Program. And I got in! So, in the middle of Season 16, I left Grey’s for the program. I never thought I’d leave. I thought they’d have to force me away from that place. But a couple months later, the program reached out to Krista to see if she’d consider staffing me as a writer, and she scooped me back up and put me on Station 19.
Whenever good news happens to me, I just lay in my bed all day listening to sad music and staring at the ceiling [laughs]. That’s how I process. I did this when I got into USC. I did this when I got my job at Grey’s, and I did this when I got staffed on Station 19. To work so hard for this one thing and be able to achieve it in the same camp felt like a reflection of how they saw me and the work I put in there. Ultimately, I was just really proud.
BF: What can you tell us about the very first episode of TV you wrote?
ZS: At the beginning of the season, we pitched episode ideas to Krista. I pitched an episode with drag queens, and she said, “Absolutely! We’re doing that.” It was so cool to be writing these characters I felt so passionate about. It’s four drag queens [one played by Shangela, of Drag Race fame] on network television. That wouldn’t have happened without Krista and Kiley [Donovan, Co-Executive Producer] supporting that all the way through. It felt really special.
Even throughout the prep process, I was getting emails saying, “How does this wig look?” I was like, “Oh my goodness! This is my job? Picking wigs?” I couldn’t believe it. And [Executive Producer] Paris Barclay was my director. He’s so wonderful! We were having the gayest, best time on set. Literally, every star aligned.
My hope is that someone like me is going to be watching this in the South or the Midwest or wherever and say, “I see people on screen that I relate to.” I feel so lucky that I got to do that in my first episode.
BF: I want to talk about what all the Grey’s fans are talking about these days: Dr. Zander Perez. Take us behind the scenes to the creation of your character.
ZS: Sometime in Season 15, there was a flicker of a character who was sassy like me, but that storyline went away. Then in Season 16, Andy Reaser seemed hellbent on getting a character like me on the show, but Zander kept getting cut out. Finally, Kiley wrote him into “Let’s All Go to the Bar,” and he stuck. I read the part in the writers’ room and the cast table read. The part got a lot of laughs.
Then — and I learned later that Andy had planted the seed — Krista looked at me and said, “I think you should just play Zander. Would you want to?” Absolutely I did. She asked if I had any acting experience. I said, “Ummmm. I did some shorts in grad school?” I had to go through a formal audition process with [Executive Producer] Debbie Allen. And I got the part!
BF: You’ve played Zander in four episodes now. Clips of you have millions of views on TikTok. You’re an internet star! What has playing this role done for you?
ZS: Acting has made me a better writer. Because I’ve been on set and know how to analyze a scene in front of the camera, it’s given me a new perspective. When I write scenes now, I look at them differently.
It’s also connected me to this fandom that I’ve been a part of for so long. That was me a decade ago and still is. Like, I was just as shocked to see good ol’ Derek Shepherd on that beach. I was one of these fans, and I feel like I now get to say to them, “One of us made it, y’all!” I think it speaks to the machine and the success that is Grey’s Anatomy. To watch that show as a teenager, and then it’s still on when I’m an adult. And then I got to work on it after I graduated. And then it’s still on long enough that I got to act in it… I’m just so grateful to contribute to that legacy, whether as an assistant getting coffee or getting to say lines as Zander. I still haven’t fully processed it.
BF: Have you ever seen yourself fully represented on TV before?
ZS: Fully? Okay, to be fair to the universe [laughs], I’m a very specific person. I’m Black. I’m gay. I’m super femme. I’m fine with he/him pronouns, but mentally, I don’t fully align with men even though I’m comfortable in my body. And I’m also chunky! So, to capture all of that on TV is a very hard thing. There are not a lot of us, but there are more of us than you think!
The closest I’ve come is watching Pose. That was the very first time I’d seen characters in a scripted show that really connected with me. Even though those characters are primarily transgender women, I still felt connected to them in a very specific way that I hadn’t experienced before. But no, I’ve never fully seen myself on screen until I was literally the one onscreen playing Zander.
BF: What do you think it means for other people to see you, to see Zander?
ZS: Someone tweeted at me recently that they finally felt represented when they saw Zander on TV. When I was first playing Zander, I wasn’t even thinking about that. It was just this fun, amazing thing I got to do. But to know that I, this chunky, Black, gay femme from West Virginia, could represent someone else who had been craving that representation felt really special. It took me back to when I was a teenager and desperately wanting someone on TV to identify with. The fact that I’m doing that now for someone else still baffles me.
As creatives, most of us are here to connect with people in that way. I want to be a creator, a showrunner. If I don’t see more characters like me on screen until I write them, that’s okay because I’m going to be writing them. I’m going to be putting all kinds of characters that people haven’t necessarily seen before on television. And not just putting them on screen, but making them fully developed characters with jobs and love lives and families, the good and the bad, the positives and the negatives. I’m so excited to get to do that.
BF: Most important question: are we going to get more Zander this season?
ZS: I hope so! We shall see.
Barbara Friend is a queer television writer whose credits include Station 19 and the web series Grey's Anatomy: B-Team. Find her on Twitter at @babsamiga.
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