Shawn Hatosy admits to finding Noah Wyle “annoyingly articulate” when it comes to expressing his passion about The Pitt. He also can’t imagine doing HBO Max drama without the former ER actor.
Speaking at the recent Deadline Contenders at HBO Max event, Hatosy recalled the lack of preparation he had before joining the medical drama, especially in comparison to the young turks like Patrick Ball (who plays Dr. Frank Langdon), Isa Briones (Dr. Trinity Santos), Taylor Dearden (Dr. Melissa King) and Gerran Howell (Dr. Dennis Whitaker), who were cast to play the medical staff at the fictitious trauma center.
“They [the other cast members] did a couple of weeks of boot camp. And I kind of came in maybe a week before, and it really became an exercise of … being present,” said Hatosy, who was joined on the panel by Wyle (Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavich), Katherine LaNasa (Dana Evans), showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, director/EP Amanda Marsalis, head makeup artist Myriam Arougheti and casting director Cathy Sandrich Gelfond.
Watch the conversation here and see photos from the event below.
Hotosy recalled his first scene with Wyle in episode 1 that takes place on the hospital’s roof. Hatosy’s character, Dr. Jack Abbot, is lamenting his particularly hard night in the ER after spending two hours of coding a veteran who was hit by a drunk driver in a crosswalk.
“The rooftop scene in this episode was my second day, and I kind of had heard a little bit … [Gemmill] sent me something that explained a little bit of Abbot’s backstory, so I knew that there was an event, and then we had a little discussion, but I didn’t know very much.
“So it was about being present, and that was a lot of the preparation,” Hatosy continued. “I’m up there on the roof with an actor who is giving everything. It didn’t matter if it was a wide shot. It didn’t matter if the camera was on me. We shot that scene for hours longer than we ever shoot on a genre-type show, because we were outside. It was different. It was at night, not something our cinematographer had been really doing up to that point. So we spent a lot of time up there. And this man [he gestures to Wyle] he was showing trauma in a way that you had to receive and respond to. It was a lesson in just being there. And I thank him for that, because it really made my performance stick out.”
Like Wyle, Hatosy is nominated for an Emmy for his performance as Abbot, a war veteran and amputee who works as an attending physician in the ER. It was one of 13 Emmy nominations bestowed upon the drama from Gemmill and John Wells that’s already been renewed for a second season by HBO Max. Other noms include Outstanding Drama, writing (Gemmill and Joe Sachs), supporting actress (LaNasa) casting (Gelfond) and prosthetic makeup (Arougheti).Team
Marsalis echoed Hatosy’s sentiment by recalling how Wyle wrote everyone a letter about what to expect from The Pitt.
“So the first day, when we met everybody again for the second time, we’re talking about what the show means, and Noah’s on this virtual screen,” she said. “He wrote this gorgeous letter, and we’re still sending it so every actor can understand. He talked about the idea like we were casting a play, and that everybody is important from the top on down. And literally, the other day, I had a guest actor who said, ‘I never get a letter like this.’ No one really leads in the way that [Wyle] leads. So everybody that comes on the set knows that they’re welcomed, that it’s important that they’re there, that we need them … there are going to be days you’re going to have amazing things to do, and there are going to be days when you’re going to walk down a hall and not say a word. That screened out a lot of people. What I loved about this is there was no need to have stars. We really found the right people. It’s the spirit that Noah leads with. It really helped me in many ways.”
Gelfond said it was important for some of the actors — like those who played patients — to understand what they could be in store for in and when they joined the show. “I think one of the things that’s hilarious and hard is all the prosthetics,” she said. “You have to make sure that these actors are comfortable, that not only are they delivering these really meaningful and specific performances, but that they’re going to be okay with whatever has to be done with them.”
(L-R) Shawn Hatosy, Katherine LaNasa, and Noah Wyle
David Jon
Noah Wyle
Michael Buckner
Katherine LaNasa
Michael Buckner
Shawn Hatosy
Michael Buckner
(L-R) Shawn Hatosy, Katherine LaNasa, Noah Wyle, and R. Scott Gemmill
David Jon
Noah Wyle
Michael Buckner
Amanda Marsalis and Shawn Hatosy
Michael Buckner
Besides creating all the fakery that went into those ready-for-camera injuries, makeup artist Arougheti also paid special attention to making sure the doctors looked worn out after 15 hours in the trauma center. “We want to see this transition in their makeup from episode 1 to 15. That was all part of our design,” she said. “By the end, essentially none of the actors had makeup anymore.”
Wyle offered a little tease for Season 2, which is set to take place over the July 4th holiday. “Everybody has been through a mass casualty event. Now everybody’s 10 months more advanced in their career and has their own personal pressures to bear,” he says. “Our job is to just focus in on that and stay true to that.”
But the attention will never stray from one primary goal, Wyle added. “The focus was always on the mental health of people that are in these jobs. That was what the thesis was in Season 1. The fragility of our system is commensurate with the fragility of the practitioners, and if we support them well and we respect them, we would all be better off.”
And great news from LaNasa, whose character Dana ended Season 1 with threats to quit after she was clocked by an angry patient in the ER. Dana will be back, and “she’s starting in a different place.”
“Dana’s sort of a person of power, right? And then she gets humiliated, and to play the response to that physical and emotional humiliation … was very interesting,” LaNasa recalled from Season 1. “To be honest with you, I’m terrified of not doing a good job. I just really want to do a great job, so I just look at the scripts, try to play the scenes for what they’re worth, take their notes, and ask, is this kind of like what we’re going for?”
For the uninitiated, The Pitt chronicles a 15-hour shift in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency department. Other cast members include Fiona Dourif, Supriya Ganesh and Shabana Azeez. New Season 2 additions include Sepideh Moafi as a series regular, and Charles Baker, Irene Choi, Laëtitia Hollard, Lucas Iverson and Lawrence Robinson in recurring roles.
John Wells Productions produces the series in association with Warner Bros Television, where JWP is under an overall deal. Gemmill created The Pitt and executive produces alongside Wells, Wyle, Michael Hissrich, JWP’s Erin Jontow and Simran Baidwan.
