Fox’s “Red Band Society” has already drawn comparisons to “Glee,” “The Breakfast Club” and “My So-Called Life,” but the show’s stars believe this is a story unlike anything viewers have seen before. The series, created by Margaret Nagle and produced by Steven Spielberg, focuses on the young inhabitants of a hospital’s pediatric ward and the staff members who often serve as their teachers, mentors and surrogate parents, in addition to overseeing their medical care.

Variety sat down with “Red Band” stars Octavia Spencer and Dave Annable at the Television Critics Assn. summer press tour to learn more about their characters (Spencer plays the no-nonsense Nurse Jackson, and Annable plays Dr. Jack McAndrew, the country’s top pediatric surgeon) as well as their experiences working on the dramedy, which premieres tonight at 9 p.m. on Fox.

What primarily attracted you to the project?

Octavia Spencer: I know Dave probably had the same experience, but there are just a lot of pilots coming your way, and [then] you read this one and it’s special. It’s really the best pilot that I’d ever read.

Dave Annable: Same. This is a game changer. You read this script and… you might have sort of preconceived notions of ‘who wants to watch a show about that and be sad all the time?’ It’s the same thing reading the script, and then you’re like ‘whoa no, no, no — this is so different. This is so much more inspiring, uplifting.’ You walk away with happy tears. It was allergy season, in my defense. There was a cat somewhere, I think I’m allergic to cats. [Laughs.] Then you talk about the people involved, Octavia Spencer, Steven Spielberg …As an actor, you’re hitting the lottery.

What was your research process like in preparing for your roles?

Spencer: Margaret made sure that we — especially Dave and I, just for the technical aspect — do have a nurse on set, but we also have a person in the real world who actually has the type of job that we have, that we get to shadow and exchange information [with].

Annable: We went to the Mattel center at UCLA and … you realize that this show is bigger than us, there’s a real message out there and there’s a responsibility that comes with that. I think this homework that we’re doing is, yes, for the show, but personally I feel like I’ve grown quite a bit in terms of putting things in perspective. Everyone goes ‘I go to the doctor,’ you take it for granted, but these doctors and medical professionals that we’ve studied and talked to… To be a caregiver, to be so selfless that you’re day in and day out working with sick children — because they don’t see healthy kids, they see sick children — and to be able to help them and save them, and watch them grow…

I was talking with one pediatrician that I went out to dinner with, and he said ‘to help a kid and to cure him, he’s still your patient. So to watch them grow, to go through their life until they’re 24 [when they leave pediatrics], that’s the most rewarding thing, that you can’t put into words.’ I felt really inspired by that and I was just like, ‘these guys are very heroic.’ They’re all reluctant heroes.

The show boasts an impressive ensemble of young performers. How have they been to work with?

Spencer: You know what, they’re all very, very unique and I can’t imagine any other person playing any of the roles. [They come from] good families and very solid foundations and they’re eager. They’re like little sponges just soaking it all up, so we feel kind of blessed that it’s like ‘oh my God can you imagine if we had nightmares on the set every day?’

Annable: Yeah, we were just talking about that. To get a job in television, if you’re fortunate enough it can be a long road and the only thing you can ask for is to work with people that you love. We feel really blessed that these kids are so smart, they’re so funny, they’re so talented. And to sort of be mom and dad on set, it’s a new role for us. It’s a lot of fun. You’re kind of like, ‘all right, you’ve got to run the show.’ I was just playing cards with all four of them. My wife was in town and we’re sitting there playing cards and it was great. And I think that’s a real recipe to a show’s success, is when those relationships are real. Because actors can be very good but sometimes if you’re faking it when you hate someone, it’s not an easy thing to work with. These kids and their relationships in the Red Band Society and with Octavia and myself, it works, and I hope that’ll come across on screen.

We don’t see much of your characters in the first episode, but Margaret has promised we’ll be delving into your backstories very soon. When you first joined the show, did the producers sit down with you and lay out your arcs?

Spencer: They did, and we knew that they were going different places. We knew that we weren’t just going to ‘exist,’ because it would be hard to just exist in those stories of the kids. We knew that and we trust Margaret — I mean, look at what she did with [the kids’] stories, so we were excited. They said that they will hopefully follow us home. Pediatrics is a real calling and I think that’ll be a window into our backstories of why we both chose pediatrics, and the highs and lows that come with that on a daily basis. They definitely said we’ve got a lot of cool, fun stuff coming.

Obviously, Margaret has specific, personal experience with these kinds of stories since her brother actually spent a year in a coma, but how collaborative is the writing and filming process? Are you able to suggest things to integrate into your characters?

Spencer: Yeah, she knows everything — she’s a very well-read woman and the hospital, all the medical stuff, that’s her world. As far as the characters, she’s always been open about anything that we felt could help.

Annable: Yeah. The research that we’ve been doing — I’ve been watching a lot of these doctor television series on hospitals and brought a couple ideas, and she’s so open. That’s always the best work environment, when you can be collaborative and it’s not a dictatorship, which I think is the furthest thing from what we are involved in.

What has been the most surprising aspect of the show so far, or something you’ve already learned just from being a part of it?

Spencer: I would always equate hospitals with a sterile, clinical [environment] — ‘everybody’s sick and oh my God, it’s depressing,’ green and white walls, you know? But not at the Children’s Hospitals. The world that she shows us in ‘Red Band Society’ is pretty much the way it is. I did not know that.

Annable: What’s very cool too, is when a child comes in — we were talking to the nurse at UCLA — whether they’re there for a night or five months, they have the ability to decorate their room however they want. They supply them with the coloring books and this and that so they can make their room, even if they’re there for one night, however they want. And I thought that was so cool, to make them feel as comfortable as they can in that situation.