Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone wondering how to make each hour in their workday riveting for television viewers. Call me, HBO Max.
It’s the hottest TV show that isn’t about the steamy romance between hockey rivals. “The Pitt” returned earlier this month for its second season with a fresh gust of awards wind to propel its arrival — it racked up hardware at the recent Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. And if its debut season is any proof, the week-to-week chatter around new episodes is sure to keep the buzz around the HBO Max series energized. Season 2 is set during the day shift on the Fourth of July — 10 months after the events of the first season — and catches us up with the staff at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. And there’s a new doctor, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), joining the team. Moafi stopped by Guest Spot to discuss her experience of scrubbing in to a hit show.
Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our streaming recommendations are a series documenting an Oscar winner’s 26,000-mile journey from the South Pole to the North Pole and a 1950s film starring a former president and a monkey. Never say we don’t keep things interesting around here.
ICYMI
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Sandro Rosta and Holly Hunter — the pair who lead the latest “Star Trek” series, “Starfleet Academy” — photographed in New York this month.
(Bexx Francois/For The Times)
How an Oscar winner and a newcomer became the fresh faces of ‘Star Trek’ : While Sandro Rosta and Holly Hunter are on the opposite ends of their careers, they are both leading the franchise’s latest series, “Starfleet Academy.”
The 101 best Los Angeles movies, ranked: Our list of the 101 best Los Angeles movies is as sprawling as the city. From noirs to Hollywood rises (and falls) to neighborhood dreamers, Los Angeles is always ready for its close-up.
‘Fallout’ fans know New Vegas. How the show brought the video game location to life: The show’s executive producers and production designer discuss bringing the video game location to life.
Scott Dunn Orchestra proves that ‘background’ music deserves L.A.’s full attention: The orchestra’s upcoming concert features 1970s Hollywood composers including Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and Nino Rota, showcasing the decade’s rich film scoring legacy.
Turn on
Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
Will Smith, left, and polar ecologist Dr. Allison Fong during their expedition to the North Pole.
(Freddie Claire/National Geographic)
“Pole to Pole with Will Smith” (Hulu, Disney+)
The latest celebrity travel series, a genre that has included Ewan McGregor’s “Long Way Round,” Eugene Levy’s “The Reluctant Traveler,” “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” “Neil & Martin’s Bon Voyage” (recommended here recently) and a dozen series from Monty Python‘s Michael Palin, including “Pole to Pole with Michael Palin,” from which this series nicks its title but not its longitudinal structure. Here, the Fresh Prince fetches up in “extreme places” — the Amazon, the Kalahari Desert, the Himalayas, the Pacific Islands and, yes, at the North and South Poles — engaging with scientists and local cultures and searching for something within himself. (His Oscar meltdown is not avoided.) There’s a stunt element involved — a visibly nervous Smith climbing a 300-foot ice wall, encountering bugs and bats in an Amazon cave, out on the Pacific in the suggestion of a boat — but all with some resonance to the series’ themes of harmony with nature and cultural preservation. (The words “climate change” are spoken.) Beautifully photographed while creating the illusion that there’s no one present to do the photography. — Robert Lloyd
Ronald Reagan and Diana Lynn reading a bedtime story to Bonzo the chimp from the movie “Bedtime for Bonzo.”
(Universal Pictures)
“Bedtime for Bonzo” (TVOD via YouTube, Apple TV, Prime Video)
The 1951 comedy has been a punchline since Ronald Reagan successfully campaigned for California governor in 1966. But have you ever watched it? Spurred on by last week’s new chimpanzee horror flick “Primate,” I clicked on “Bedtime for Bonzo” to finally watch one of the odder footnotes in American political history. The president who controversially cut funding for mental health services plays a psychologist named Professor Boyd who adopts a monkey as his son to prove that personality traits are shaped by one’s environment, not one’s genetics. Naturally, the professor doesn’t do the parenting himself. He hires a beautiful blond babysitter (Diana Lynn) who dutifully cooks and cleans and calls him “Papa” — and causes his not-so-motherly college-educated fiancee (Lucille Barkley) to pitch a fit. As curios go, it’s watchable kitsch with moments worth rewinding. Facing a sulky ape wielding a surgical knife, Reagan‘s Professor Boyd sputters, “Maybe he’ll respond to the Gestalt theory.” And in all sincerity, the chimp itself is terrific. — Amy Nicholson
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
Sepideh Moafi as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi in Season 2 of “The Pitt.”
(Warrick Page/HBO Max)
Finding a new doctor can be an overwhelming process. But “The Pitt” is well-known for make compelling choices. The second season of the HBO Max series introduces viewers to Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi). She is an attending physician brought in to take over as chief when Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) takes a three-month sabbatical. And her presence causes a stir from the start. She reports early for duty — armed with bagels and ideas for how to improve the ER’s workflow, no less — as Dr. Robby, cynical from years of frustration dealing with hospital bureaucracy, counts down the hours of his last shift. Let’s just say the pair aren’t exactly taking the work besties crown from Princess and Perlah, at least not yet. With this week’s release of the drama’s second episode, Moafi stopped by Guest Spot to share her take on Dr. Al-Hashimi’s management style and the songs her character cues up at the start and end of each shift. — Yvonne Villarreal
Right away, we get a sense of Dr. Al-Hashimi’s management style — she likes structure and efficiency, she embraces AI, she wants to do away with the ER’s nickname. What did her work style and her approach to getting acquainted with her new role and colleagues reveal to you about who she is as a person?
On the surface, Dr. Al-Hashimi might come across as a Type-A disrupter — by the book, thrives on order and control, wants to elevate the culture of the Pitt — but if you scratch past the surface, you see a woman who has lived through a lot and has been shaped by chaos. As the season progresses, we come to understand a bit more about her personal and professional history, and one thing we learn is that she spent years working as a frontline medic with Doctors Without Borders. As a humanitarian doctor, she has served in countries that have been turned into conflict zones, which explains why she leans so heavily on structure — she knows exactly what can go wrong without it, especially within a system that is bursting at the seams. Her meticulousness comes from a deep sense of care, not ego.
Even before she appears on-screen, we hear that she’s brought staff a full bagel spread, which immediately indicates how she wants to lead — she isn’t interested in taking over, she’s interested in taking care of people, of the department. (She is Iranian/Iraqi and that instinct to feed everyone is very Persian/Arab of her, too!) How she relates to the students shows how much she values teaching and mentoring, and the detailed packet she sends to Robby and the staff reflects her commitment to transparency and communication. She has strong ideas about leadership, yet she still wants to shadow Robby and learn — she’s curious, adaptable, collaborative. All this goes to show that she’s someone who believes that the best idea wins. I’m not saying she isn’t flawed, or doesn’t think she has the best idea from time to time, but she’s ultimately driven to make things better for the patients first and foremost.
Dr. Al-Hashimi is a newcomer to this well-oiled machine. You are a newcomer to a show that’s settling into itself. How did your journey parallel your character’s?
We each bring a breadth of experience to our respective roles, and we’re both confident and clear about what we’re doing and why — though, if I’m being totally honest, we were both also a bit intimidated and eager to put our best foot forward. Where our paths diverge is that Baran shows up having studied the Pitt’s flaws and blind spots with a blueprint already in hand for how to improve efficiency and the patient experience. I showed up having relentlessly prepared in the short amount of time I had — immersing myself in medical texts and conversations with doctors — so that when I arrived on set, I could let go of the technical details and make space for the kind of magic that only happens through full collaboration and presence. In that way, our journeys mirrored each other beautifully. We’re both new, a little intimidated and deeply reliant on our preparation, expertise and commitment to growth. It was about bringing everything we’ve lived through into the work — and then, in my role as an actor, making all of that disappear the moment the cameras start rolling.
Moafi, far left, as Dr. Al-Hashimi, who assesses an incoming patient with her colleagues in a scene from “The Pitt.”
(Warrick Page/HBO Max)
What about incorporating the demands of the technical aspect to your performance? There’s the choreography when everyone is coming together to work on a patient, there’s the procedures itself and medical jargon. Any fun stories or mishaps that stand out?
The good news, which I learned early on, is that every trauma procedure is broken down with our on-set medical advisor much the way a stunt would be choreographed or a sex scene would be run with an intimacy coordinator. We usually start individually and then come together as a group, running everything at 25%, 50%, then eventually at full speed. We don’t roll cameras until everyone feels solid in what they’re doing. When it actually comes together, it’s thrilling. I’m addicted to the feeling of disappearing into the work. Once you understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, what could go wrong and what absolutely has to go right, you can really fly in those scenes. It’s like the fake-ER Olympics! Total adrenaline rush, with the best part being that no real lives are on the line.
There’s one especially high-stakes procedure for Baran later in the season that I learned is so rare most doctors hope they never have to perform it in their careers. Without giving anything away, it involves a child, and any healthcare worker will tell you that the emotional temperature skyrockets anytime kids are involved. I found this incredible visualization exercise on EM:RAP (an invaluable online resource for ER staff) that guides you through the procedure almost like a meditation. I did it multiple times a day leading up to when we shot that scene, and it made a huge difference.
Dr. Robby opened and ended last season listening to Robert Bradley’s “Baby” in his earbuds. What’s the song that’s Dr. Al-Hashimi listens to at the start or end of the day?
She starts her day with “Bsslama Hbibti” by Fadoul — a bright, groovy funk track from 1970s Morocco. It roots me in her in a visceral way, puts me in her body and gets me focused enough to face whatever madness the ER throws our way. The title means “Goodbye, (or literally ‘with peace’) my love,” so for Baran it’s about leaving behind whatever and whomever she doesn’t need before stepping through the hospital doors. At the end of the day, it would be something like Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me.” The song is about letting the walls come down and allowing yourself to fall apart, and after everything she’s carried through a brutal shift, she needs something that gives her permission to release it all. I also feel like Baran holds these grand, almost impossible ideas about love and romance, so the fantasy of having someone she could crumble with or someone she could cry to feels both deeply aspirational and painfully out of reach.
What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?
Oh, there are so many comfort films. The ones I’ve probably watched the most are “As Good as It Gets” [Netflix] by James L. Brooks and “Children of Heaven” [TVOD, Kanopy] by Majid Majidi. Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear (my buddy!) are all so brilliant in “As Good as It Gets,” and it’s just such a perfect film, even if it might feel a little dated or not entirely politically correct now. It’s sad to think about how hard it would be to get a movie like that made today. “Children of Heaven” is simply perfect. It captures the heart of Iranian cinema and of its people through patient storytelling and extraordinary performances, especially by the children.
For television, it has to be “The Sopranos” [HBO Max]. That’s the show that made me want to be an actor. Watching James Gandolfini and Edie Falco together is still a masterclass. Anytime I feel untethered in my work, I go back to the greats — and they’re two of the ones I often return to. I’ve been lucky enough to work with Edie twice (“Nurse Jackie” and the film “I’ll Be Right There”), and though I don’t usually get starstruck, I still do with her.
What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?
Jafar Panahi’s masterpiece “It Was Just an Accident.” I had to collect my jaw from the floor multiple times. It’s a work of art, edge-of-your-seat thriller that somehow also captures the lived experience of millions of Iranians, both inside Iran and in the diaspora, whose lives have been shaped and traumatized by the current regime. And the way Panahi explores vengeance and humanity — the moral complexity, the urge for justice and cost of losing one’s own humanity — is absolutely genius. For almost five decades, filmmakers in Iran have had to navigate telling their stories through metaphor to survive censorship and punishment. Panahi has consistently taken the risk and he’s been penalized and imprisoned many times for his work, spending years in prison; but this film is on another level (he was even sentenced in absentia for it). Also, the timing is hauntingly uncanny. We’re now witnessing Iranians pouring into the streets yet again, rising up in the largest anti-regime protests in decades and they’re being met with one of the most brutal crackdowns in Iran’s modern history. It feels as if the film foresaw this moment and Iranians are not letting up.