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This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “The Pitt.”
It almost feels like Noah Wyle’s life as a pretend doctor was destined when he casually mentions a detail from his childhood.
“Our butter knife was a brain retractor,” he says with a playful smile. Excuse me, what?
He’s not joking. His mom was an OR nurse for 10 years. And he lights up as he talks about the procedures she had a hand in — total hip replacements, all kinds of orthopedic surgeries. She would bring home surgical tubing, tubs, gauze and other stuff for him and his siblings to play with. And, yes, there was the unusual butter knife substitute. But it was her identity as a nurse that stuck most with him.
“What I look back on with my mother, it’s that my mom’s hardcore,” he says. “You can’t rub her shoulders too hard or she’ll bruise. If you tease her, she gets upset. But she carried a man’s leg to pathology and didn’t blink twice about it. I have a lot of respect for what my mom did and shouldered and carried all day long.”
“The Pitt” on Max, starring Noah Wyle, and “Doc” on Fox, starring Molly Parker, offer different takes on hospital-set drama.
We’re sitting in the dreary family waiting room on the set of “The Pitt,” Max’s medical drama that’s had critics and fans hooked and pulses racing since its January launch — boosted, in part, by its format. Each installment of the drama chronicles an hour in the 15-hour shift of the hospital’s morning staff. It had Wyle scrubbing back into a hospital environment 15 years after his breakout role in “ER,” NBC’s long-running medical drama in which he starred as Dr. John Carter. Here, he plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Rabinovich, the emotionally troubled but strong-willed chief attendant in the emergency room at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. He wears the stress of the job on his bearded face but, with the armor of his navy zip-up hoodie, musters the energy to inspire his team with words of encouragement — even if he inevitably gets interrupted with a new patient rolling through.
The series reunites Wyle, also an executive producer, with “ER” producers John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill. (The series made headlines in 2024 when the estate of Michael Crichton, creator of “ER,” sued Warner Bros., producer of “The Pitt,” saying it is a rebranded version of an unauthorized reboot of the medical drama. The case is pending.) The series has been renewed for a second season and Wyle is currently taking a break from the writers’ room across the way on the Warner Bros. lot.
“We’re throwing spaghetti on the wall, trying to see what sticks,” he says. “We started about eight days after we wrapped [in February]. I went to New York for four days — my wife sent me away for three days because I was a basket case after the end of the season, and I got back from doing the press tour after the wrap party. I was just no good.”
He’s better now. Mostly. The reaction from medical workers has been overwhelmingly positive. And it’s hard not to notice his pride in what the show has achieved as he ushers this visitor around the set like a proud dad: He points out the intentionally uneven placement of the posters in the waiting room we’re in, which served as a de facto break room for the cast between setups; he animatedly shows off a congealed splatter of blood on the floor, lifting it up and slapping it back on the floor; he motions to the nearby pediatric room — yes, the one with the cartoon fox — that is central to key moments in the show; and he asks whether I would like to take home a box of medical gloves. (I was tempted.)
The Times spoke with Wyle about the whirlwind first season, which concluded on Thursday. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
We’re in an era where flashy or cliffhanger-type finales are big. It was refreshing to get a somewhat understated conclusion to this intense, 15-hour ride. Things close with some of the morning crew sitting at a park, coming down from an exhausting shift, and they’re reflecting on the beauty and chaos of the job and what keeps them coming back. And Robby eventually takes his walk home. Talk about ending on that note.
That was an interesting scene to shoot because our entire show was shot in sequence, except for the scene on the roof between Dr. Abbott and I and the scene in the park. Those were shot in September when we went to Pittsburgh to make sure we could shoot all the appropriate weather. We shot me walking into the hospital, we shot the stuff on the helicopter coming down, and then we shot the end of the show. Those scripts hadn’t even been written yet. There were placeholders and they were nonspecific enough that we felt that they’d be appropriate — the scene was Abbott on the roof, I make reference to having made a speech, the speech was TBD. When I watch those scenes, I’m mostly pleased with the technical prowess that they cut in seamlessly, and they make it feel as if it was all in the flow.
But in regards to the content you’re talking about, it was always the intention to make this a practitioner-centric show. Ending it on the debrief that they’re having casually in the park, they reinforce each other’s resolve to come back and the importance of what they do and the need for them to be in these jobs. I think that’s how a lot of these people see themselves — as much as you and I might not want to be in that situation, they’re sort of like Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan in the fourth quarter, down by two; they want the ball. They’re the best at what they do. There’s a lot of professional pride underneath it all. The takeaway is you watch Robby walk away with one beer in his stomach and another in his pocket — this is the beginning of a healing journey that he now has to face.
Noah Wyle says “The Pitt” aims to highlight that our healthcare system “is as strong as the mental health of our practitioners and in the quality of support that we give them. We reap what we sow. Their health is our health.” (Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
Before we reach that point, Robby has a bit of a breakdown in the peds room —
When that room was first built, it hadn’t been painted yet, it was just raw walls, I stood in there and I spent, like, an hour in there, thinking: This is the room where it will all have happened. As that room came together, I had to spend more and more time in there. It’s loaded with emotion.
It’s fitting that Robby’s breakdown happens there. What do you remember about shooting that scene and the vulnerability you had to tap into in that moment?
I think if you ask anybody that was on this show, they would have said that I was that vulnerable from Day 1 and it was more an exercise and suppression of that emotion. When I finally got to shoot that scene, I was like a kid in a candy store. I know it sounds crazy, but we actors are kind of masochistic. You give us a day like that, that’s pure catharsis for both character and performer, we get giddy. I think the take that’s in the show is either Take 1 or Take 2.
It’s a moment that comes to haunt him. There’s a confrontation with Langdon (Patrick Ball) and he uses that as a reason to say Robby is just as unfit as him.
I don’t know that we have unpacked that all on camera yet. That moment comes in Episode 15, about 20 minutes shy to the end — these are all revelations happening in real time for the character. He’s going to go home and have a very short night if he can knock himself out, or a very long night if he can’t. We are in the process of writing Season 2 and it’s not lost on us how people are identifying with these characters and see themselves in them. So we’re asking all those really important questions. Where would they be now? How would they feel now, after going through this? As long as we stay honest to those answers, we’ll be in the right trajectory. But as far as what the character was processing toward the end, I think it was pure panic and trying to keep up this mask that just keeps falling down. It’s in pieces. You’re trying to not show every emotion that you’re having, but you no longer have a filter and you can no longer kid yourself that you’re OK. You have to go home and at least acknowledge that something’s not right.
We come to learn it’s a difficult day because it’s the day that he lost his mentor — he blames himself — and he ends the day with his quasi-stepson Jake (Taj Speights) angry at him over the loss of his girlfriend Leah. He’s carrying a lot into the day, and taking a lot on from the day — and we only see how it reveals itself across 15 hours of a day. Can you tell me about the process of pacing his journey?
There are signposts along the way. You’re watching the removal of all of his bearing walls and all of his anchoring chains. Then you get into the mass casualty and it coming close to home with Jake being shot and losing Leah, being blamed by Jake for her death, having to tell her parents that she’s dead. You’ve now escalated this to a degree that sent him straight back up to the roof. For all the actors, you have a tendency when you get an episode with a good little speech that you want to swing for a big fence with it. You’re going to have a big high, you’re going to have a big low. It’ll be scripted and it’ll be specific. Stay on the surfboard, let that wave carry you; when it’s ready to break, it’ll break. That was true for Robby, especially. It was a lot about letting that mask almost slip.
Did you take it on differently than your time on “ER,” what your character is processing as a first responder?
I feel that I’ve personally taken on a tremendous amount that I’ve not been able to process or unload. That started in 2020 and has been building steadily since. And this show was born out of a twin intentionality to both highlight the work being done by first responders and also to cathartically deal with this feeling that I’ve got that I really wanted to get out of my system.
Tell me more about that.
The aspects that I think bothered me the most was the seeming mistrust that people were developing for doctors, the calling into question what was an objective medical fact and what were reasonable protocols in the face of an unknown threat. All of that getting politicized. It‘s becoming a badge of honor to defy science, the loss of reason and logic in the argument to get to an objective fact; the unceasing magnitude of the people that were sick coming in, wave after wave and practitioners not only having to treat them but risk taking it home to their families. Suddenly this act of service, this very noble vocation that they’ve gone into, is like doing a tour of duty in a war zone. And it hasn’t stopped. It hasn’t let up. If anything, resources have been strained to a greater degree. Patients are coming in sicker and they’re coming in angrier and they have to wait longer to be seen in less time, so that more time can be spent on charts, avoiding being sued, while hospitals are experiencing this incredible clog. It’s an unsustainable system. And we tried to personify that unsustainability by saying our system is as strong as the mental health of our practitioners and in the quality of support that we give them. We reap what we sow. Their health is our health.
After two hours with the revved-up premiere of NBC’s new medical series “ER,” you’re ready for a Xanax.
My mom works at a hospital and she’s always talking about how the doctors, nurses and other medical personnel discuss the show. What stands out to you about how those in medicine are responding to this depiction you’re putting forward?
It’s one thing to be medically accurate, to do procedures properly and to say the words properly and to have the look and feel be realistic or to have novelty of no music so that you feel like it’s a bit more of an immersive experience. It’s another thing to depict accurately the emotional toll, stresses, the need to juggle, compartmentalize, to code switch and do everything else that is asked of these people over the course of the day. I feel like that is what has been resonating; people are like, “It’s me, that’s how it feels.” I’ve been told that it’s become an ability to contextualize what they do to loved ones.The flip side is practitioners who haven’t looked at the toll that it’s taken on them — but run the highest rates of alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce, suicide — something needs to be addressed.
Have you thought about who Robby was before experiencing the horrors of COVID or who he is outside of work?
I was reticent to make him so specific of a guy that he couldn’t be every guy. I remember when we were talking about how to open the show, it was like, do we open it with him waking up? Does he wake up next to a dog or a blond or alone? Does he still have a TV on? Is there an empty beer bottle next to him? Once you make those choices, you’re painting a picture of somebody I either empathize with or don’t empathize with. But you’re making the audience choose the neutrality of just walking into an environment not knowing who this man is and experiencing him in the professional way, getting to know the personal through these little chinks in his armor, or through interpersonal conversations with people that he has some rapport with, is a really kind of interesting and novel way to do character development. It metes it out at a much smaller pace. But when you get a nugget, you kind of devour that nugget.
What was the nugget you clung onto?
For me, it had a lot to do with his faith. It was important because it’s an aspect of myself that I haven’t really explored that much and I’ve been moving toward with greater interest and desire. It’s something that I think most people in medicine have a hard time reconciling with.
Noah Wyle as Dr. John Carter, far left, in a 1994 scene from “ER.” (Chris Haston / NBC )
Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby in “The Pitt.” (Warrick Page / Max)
The Ho’oponopono moment — “I love you, thank you, I forgive you, please forgive me” — broke me.
That was good. If nothing else, just getting that out in the universe and the lovely response I’ve received from people who recently lost a loved one or are taking care of an aging loved one or are disconnected from their family in some way and need to find closure in absentia, it’s just been really profound.
Can you tell me everything about medical boot camp?
First rule of medical boot camp ... [laughs] I’m good at, like, two things: being a dad and pretending to be a doctor. And if you’re not on a medical show, one of those things is pretty useless.
Oddly, this is my happy place. I was excited to get back to the medicine because it’s a kind of performance that is totally integrated — it’s physical, it’s intellectual, it’s emotional, it’s professional, underlaying humanity and reality to it. It just affords you so many wonderful challenges and tools that I love it. I love playing with the props. I love the stakes involved. With boot camp, when we came in, John [Wells] needed to establish relationships, hierarchy and roles really quickly because we only had two weeks. When we ate lunch, I ate with only the senior residents; I ate with Langdon [Ball] and Collins [Tracy Ifeachor], and the second years and third years ate together. When we went through our training, the students went through student training, the residents and senior residents went through theirs; I mostly walked around and made sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing.
If you needed to intubate me right now, you could do it?
Sure.
Can you do stitches? Sorry, this fascinates me.
I can do stitches. John bragged about my sutures to everybody in boot camp and then asked me to demonstrate. I got the suture kit out and started to put it all together and then I was like, “Ahhh.” [mimics freezing on the spot] Then I realized, “Oh, I needed my glasses.” This is something I didn’t need 25 years ago.
You wrote two episodes that tackle some timely themes — the fight over masks, we see the violence against healthcare workers. What do you enjoy about that side of your creative self?
Writing has become just an absolute godsend. It’s the one thing I can do at home, in my office, and still be around my family. I love the solitary nature of it because acting is so collaborative, filmmaking is so collaborative. Writing is not — well, it is in the writing room, but then it’s just sort of you. Writing for “The Pitt” was intimidating at first. You’re on a show and your job is to write in the voice of the showrunner. When Scott wrote those first three scripts, it was like gauntlet thrown down. Like, OK, these are hot!
The show has been topical. How are you and the writers thinking about the types of stories you want to explore in a Season 2?
We work with an organization called Hollywood, Health and Society. We spoke to people from every aspect of healthcare you can imagine and we asked them all sorts of questions in relation to stories we want to do or characters that we have. I’d rather talk to the person that’s the expert on cybersecurity to find out how many hospitals are having to go through ransomware updates. How often do hospitals get hit? What tune do they have to pay? Those are questions that we’re kind of are interested in. We have a character of Langdon who has to go on an alcohol and drug recovery program. What does that program look like? How many people would know? You ask those really in-depth questions of the experts, and then that informs the storytelling.
Weirdly, sometimes you get prophetic. We did a storyline on neurocysticercosis, which are brain worms, and RFK Jr. came out months after we’d written it, diagnosed with neurocysticercosis. In light of the really fast changes that we’re seeing occur, it was incumbent upon us to ask our experts to have a little bit of a crystal ball and say, Medicaid, Medicare, if you were to figure out what the lowest hanging fruit is that could potentially get cut, who’s going to get hurt the most? But I think we can make, unfortunately, some safe bets about some things. The experts that we’re talking to are talking about current healthcare issues. We’re trying to peek around the corner of what might be coming up.
“The Pitt” gives such an unflinching look at some of the procedures or cases that come in. What was the most challenging one for you?
Squirm factor? I guess in terms of my own sensitivity, we did that lateral canthotomy — there’s something about cutting inside the eye that is a little squeamish-provoking for me. We also built an incredible photorealistic prosthetic head for that, so it looked really gnarly when we did it in person. But I enjoy the blood, guts and prosthetics. I think these guys are such magicians and I really hope that their work gets recognized industry-wide, because the stuff that we did this year was really groundbreaking, in particular at the delivery scene in Episode 11. I don’t think anything like that has ever been done on TV.
“ER” went for 15 seasons — and you were there for most of it. Could you imagine doing “The Pitt” for 15 seasons?
I would be an old man. I joke that I’m 20 years older than Anthony [Edwards] was playing the attending in the pilot of “ER” 30 years ago. That makes me sound 110!
Scott Gemmill and John Wells and I and the writers today were all sitting ... and talking about how much we enjoyed each other’s company. We like being on the stage and we would be quite content to keep making the show until it gets boring or people stop watching it.
In “The Pitt,” Robby opened and ended the season listening to Robert Bradley’s “Baby” in his earbuds. What’s the song that’s in your earbuds at the start or end of the day?
For the last year, it’s been that song. I played it every day on my way into work. My dressing room is over there, so every day I’d come in and I’d make the same walks that Robby walked. I’d stop past Adamson’s portrait and I’d come in exactly the way he did. I’d listen to the song every day, just like he did. The song that I’m most obsessed with [now] is — did you hear the lyrics at the end of Episode 13? Our end credits always have an instrumental song but only once after Episode 13 did we play the lyrics. They were written by our music supervisor. He wrote this lovely piece of music and said he wrote lyrics to it. He felt that they were in keeping with where Robby was at mentally. We thought maybe we’d play it at the end of Episode 15, but I was like, no, because we wanted the Robert Bradley song at the end of 15. And then we thought, Oh, perfect — Episode 13.
[He pulls out his phone to play the song, which opens with a folksy coo of “A little bit f— up, a little bit f— up in my head ...”]
We talked about how people in the medical profession feel reflected. What do you want the general public to take away from a show like this?
Trust your doctors. Have a little empathy when you go to the hospital. Practice preventive medicine in your lives. It’s good to Google. I like Googling. Googling doesn’t make you a f— doctor. Googling is not medical school. People that do this for a living — it’s gonna sound silly to say; I did not go to college. I think I’m smart, but I’m nowhere near the intellectual class of the people who do this for a living. It is expertise and brilliance on a level that is intimidating and should be; therefore, I have a tremendous amount of respect for it. I don’t have disdain for it because I can’t attain it. I have awe for it because they worked so hard to achieve it. And the frustration I see on a female practitioner’s face when she has to say, for the 10th time, “I’m not a nurse, I’m your doctor.” When they are having to talk about the efficacy of a vaccine or a mask or washing your hands, it’s insane that this is what we’ve reduced these people to have to do, to basically be public service announcements for basic hygiene is crazy. So, I have a little bit of an ax to grind about it. I know that sounds a little polemical to say, “Oh, I hope the audience comes away with shame! With f— shame for the way they’ve been treating their doctors.” [laughs]
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