When the doors to the emergency room in “The Pitt” swing open and a new patient arrives, we, like the doctors, are on high alert, wondering what the acclaimed medical drama is about to throw at us.
We know two things: The actors will be superb. And it’s best not to become too attached to the characters they’re playing.
Even better: Two of the five “Pitt” nominees self-submitted their performances after HBO Max, looking to streamline its submissions in the guest categories, did not put them forward.
If you watched the second season of the show, you could probably name the actors who made the Emmys’ guest list: Tina Ivlev, heartbreaking as the sexual assault survivor; Brittany Allen, poignant as the dying mom; Tal Anderson, combative and funny as Dr. King’s neurodivergent sister, who craves independence from her protective sibling; Ernest Harden Jr., devastating as the doomed Louie; and Jeff Kober, who, playing Dr. Robby’s motorcycle mechanic, has some of the most affecting scenes in the season.
HBO Max entered Ivlev, Harden and Anderson, leaving Allen and Kober to pony up the $225 to submit themselves, joining the ranks of 84 entrants for guest actor and 51 for guest actress. (To be eligible to compete in guest, actors must appear in less than 50% of a show’s eligible episodes.) Eight other actors appearing on “The Pitt” also self-submitted.
“The three actors that HBO put forward delivered beautiful, human work that resonated deeply with audiences, and they were in a tough position having so many actors who had all delivered great performances,” Allen told me over a call from her Pasadena home.
“Though at first there was a moment of disappointment, I quickly moved on from that,” Allen continues. “I didn’t take it personally because as an actor, you get good at not taking things personally.”
Kober, calling from the Valley, signs off on that sentiment. He won a daytime Emmy in 2022 for “General Hospital” after he submitted himself.
“I guess that’s how the Emmys work for me,” he says, laughing. “I don’t know any other way.”
There is precedent for self-submission success at the Emmys. Three “Game of Thrones” cast members — Gwendoline Christie, Alfie Allen and Carice van Houten — entered themselves in 2019 and were nominated. Kelly Jenrette did the same in 2018 for “The Handmaid’s Tale” and earned a nod.
For Allen, it came down to believing in herself and the work she did on “The Pitt.” As her seven-episode arc aired, strangers often stopped her at her local Trader Joe’s and at the park with her 3-year-old son to tell her how moved they were by her performance and her character Roxie’s decision to accept that her life was coming to an end and say goodbye.
But, good as it was and seen as it was, that work didn’t translate into landing an agent. Having recently turned 40, Allen figured she had nothing to lose, having reached an age where she wasn’t “as worried about being perceived as the quiet little girl who doesn’t ruffle any feathers.”
In a challenging industry, that approach has resonated deeply with her peers.
“I’ve had similar moments in the past where I’ve had a memorable role on a high-profile show and I’ve thought, ‘Maybe this will make it a little easier moving forward’ and it hasn’t,” Allen says. “So if ever there was a time to go, ‘I’m going to try to put my name out there in a way that might make me a little more bankable,’ this is it.”
Kober, 72, has had ups and downs over the course of his 40-year acting career and like Duke, the grounded mentor he played on “The Pitt,” he possesses a calm acuity when talking about the profession.
“Acting is the most profoundly spiritual career a person could have because you don’t get into it unless you need approval, and then when you get that approval, you find it doesn’t do a thing for you,” Kober says. “Then you’ve got to find a way to do something with this thing you love that isn’t about getting approval. It’s only when you’re not working for that when you know the work matters.”
With his shoulder-length hair, goatee and go-with-the-flow manner, Kober gives off distinct vibes of another Jeff — Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski.
“I have heard that comparison made,” Kober says, smiling.
Both Kober and Allen express deep appreciation for “The Pitt” as a workplace where actors can come in and do the kind of work that they aspire to do, work that resonates with audiences and reminds them why they entered the profession in the first place.
“I love being on set,” Allen says, “so going to Warner Bros. every morning as the sun rose and watching that miniature city come to life and having the privilege of working in an environment that is so ripe for accessing truth and play and shared humanity was a gift. When Roxie came along, I saw it as the epitome of what I want to offer as an actor and as a person in this life.”
Because of her character’s fate, Allen will not be returning to “The Pitt.” The fate of Duke, diagnosed with a life-threatening ascending aortic aneurysm, is ambiguous. Dr. Robby encourages him to follow up with further tests, which Duke agrees to do if Robby promises to return from his sabbatical and let him take his Triumph Bonneville for a ride.
So … Duke’s coming back, right?
“One would think,” Kober says, hopeful. But then, he jokes that maybe there will be a line next season where someone in the ER says, “Did you hear about Duke? What a shame.”
“Or he could come back in Season 4, who knows,” Kober adds, noting he has heard nothing from the show’s producers. “One thing I’ve learned over the years as an actor is the importance of letting go. That’s the life of an actor.”
“Bachelorette” alum Joe Amabile is home following brain surgery.
“They got it all!” wrote Amabile, who uploaded an Instagram carousel with pictures of himself post-surgery on Aug. 6.
His wife Serena Pitt — whom he met in 2021 while filming Season 7 of “Bachelor in Paradise” — also updated fans on his recovery, uploading an Instagram carousel with pictures from NYU Langone Health, where the surgery took place.
“A few peaceful moments from the hospital,” Pitt wrote in the caption. “Joe is home recovering and we’re so grateful to have been in such good hands.”
In July, Amabile revealed on Instagram that MRI testing found a “blueberry-sized” brain tumor, which would need to be removed for further examination.
The couple would elaborate further on the health issue on their July 16 podcast “Not Married to This With Serena & Joe,” saying that they both underwent a preventative whole-body MRI scan with Prenuvo (the same private diagnostic company that showed “Extra” and “E!” host Maria Menounos had a full mass on her pancreas, which was later confirmed to be a cancerous Stage 2 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor).
Pitt’s scan revealed two small, innocuous nodules. Amabile’s results indicated that he had a lesion in his brain the size of a marble, prompting him to get an additional MRI with and without contrast.
“We got the good news that it wasn’t enhancing and we got the concerning news that it still was something. It wasn’t nothing,” Pitt said on the podcast.
“There’s no other way around it. There’s something there and you don’t want anything in your brain,” added Amabile.
Before surgery, Amabile shared that he would undergo a craniotomy, a surgery in which a neurosurgeon temporarily removes a piece of the skull to reach the brain and remove the tumor. According to the medical professionals he consulted, the likelihood that the low-grade glioma would turn into something aggressive was high and he was encouraged to treat the lesion while in its early stages.
“We will actually have so much more information once the tumor is removed and they test it and then we can actually create a plan of next steps,” Pitt said on the podcast.
Amabile first came into the spotlight in 2018 after appearing on Season 14 of “The Bachelorette,” featuring Becca Kufrin. While he was eliminated on the first night, he was a beloved participant for his charming, down-to-earth personality as a grocery store owner from Chicago, earning him the nickname “Grocery Store Joe.”
Later that same year, Amabile would participate in Season 5 of “Bachelor in Paradise” and compete in Season 27 of “Dancing With the Stars,” making it to the semifinal round. In 2021, he returned for Season 7 of “Bachelor in Paradise,” proposing to Pitt in the finale.
Now it seems that Amabile is bringing people along on his healing journey, having documented his anxieties before surgery.
“This is my journey, I’m telling it. This is what it is. You can take what you want away from it,” Amabile said on the podcast.
Brad Pitt has revealed that he’s back on the sauce.
During a vulnerable interview published in Esquire on Monday, Pitt said he’d started drinking again, in moderation. “I was sober for seven years,” he said. “And then I got back off the wagon.”
Now, maybe after a seven-year itch, Pitt is trying to rework his relationship with alcohol, this time “in a more restrained manner.”
“I got overconfident a couple times, went, ‘Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities,’” he told Esquire.
When it comes to wine, Pitt says, “Well . . . I can have a few. But I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it.”
The “Heart of the Beast” star has been candid about his sober-curious journey in recent years and publicly thanked actor (and sponsor to the stars) Bradley Cooper for helping him get sober. “I got sober because of this guy,” he said during a 2020 acceptance speech at the National Board of Review’s annual awards gala. “And every day has been happier since.”
And last June, the Oscar winner sat down with Dax Shepard for an episode of “Armchair Expert” and opened up about the positive experience he’d had in the 12-step program. “I am a stubborn f—, but when I’ve stepped in s—, I’m pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it,” he told Shepard. “And now it’s a quest to … make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
In the Esquire story, Pitt admitted that, during the darkest period of grappling with what he referred to as “family stuff,” he could see how suicide might feel like relief — but that his survival instinct kicked in. He discussed feeling immense grief and how that grief can leave a gaping hole. Rather than climbing out of it, Pitt said he thought of it as “going through it.”
“And trying and trying and trying and trying to the point of exhaustion and then trying again,” he told the magazine. “I don’t want to ignore the place where you run up against the wall. But I just one day woke up, and it just felt a little sunnier and the air felt a little sweeter. Just microdoses of it.”
In this week’s episode of The Envelope podcast, “The Pitt’s” Noah Wyle reflects on 25 Emmy nominations for the series, responds to criticism of casting decisions, and previews Season 3 of the HBO Max medical drama, now in production.
Kelvin Washington: Hello, and welcome back to The Envelope. It’s been a little while. Kelvin Washington alongside Yvonne Villarreal. We also have Mark Olsen. Good to see you. This is one of my favorite things, because I learn so much from you two. And by the way, I got a big shout-out from somebody at the other job that I do —
Yvonne Villarreal: You have another job?
Washington: Which one do you want to talk about? I have 17 of them. But she was saying how she was listening to something and then she said, “I want to hear more about it.” So she Googled, we came up and she was blown away to see it, and we did such great jobs. So she’s a big fan of you two. Shout out to Larissa if she watches again. But let’s get into, of course, Emmy nominations. You have surprises, you have ones you kind of expected, snubs, the whole nine. Let’s start with you, Yvonne. Anything jump out?
Villarreal: Leading the pack was “The Pitt,” which I think everyone expected, and coming in close second was “Hacks.” But I think the third most-nominated show that was thrilling to see have a big showing was “Widow’s Bay.” It was this latecomer to the race, and it’s just this show that has taken people by storm. The word of mouth has really grown. And I know, Mark, you got Matthew [Rhys] in an upcoming episode here. It’s just nice to see how that show’s performed.
I was a little bummed that we didn’t get a [big] showing of “The Comeback,” the third season. That was maybe my snub mark.
Mark Olsen: Not that it’s a causal thing, but I was excited to see a guest from the [podcast], Riz Ahmed, was nominated for the show “Bait,” [which is] kind of like a meta-psycho-emotional biography of an actor caught in conflict between his community and his career. And then also, I have to say, Meg Stalter from “Hacks,” I thought was exciting. For no other reason than to have her on that red carpet, to maybe get a little time on the telecast and the chaos that that just promises.
Villarreal: I want to know who she’s going to come dressed as. She always stuns on the red carpet with who she is sort of making fun of.
Washington: You need a little bit of that, a little chaos. That’s what makes those things interesting. For me, I was just thinking about, again, how we’ve had so many folks who were known for films now all of a sudden becoming television stars. Seems a little weird to say it, but Jason Bateman being one of them, nominated for a couple of shows. So it’s just been incredible to see some people’s transition into that, where 15, 20 years ago, it‘d almost be the downfall of your career to do so much TV. Now it’s a cool addition to your career. Let’s get into it. You mentioned “The Pitt,” Yvonne. And Noah Wyle, you had a chance to have a chat with him. Tell me a little bit more about it.
Villarreal: They got the big news about their 25 nominations while on set. They’re in production on Season 3. And when we caught up with Noah, he had just wrapped filming the episode that he wrote and directed this season, Episode 3. And it was really fun to catch up with him, especially considering how much he’s shouldered in portraying Dr. Michael Rabinovitch, a.k.a. Dr. Robby. You know, this is a character that’s had a really deep mental health journey the past two seasons. Season 2 picked up with him on the eve of a three-month sabbatical, and we think he’s finally going to get this break that he needs to deal with some of the things he’s been going through. But as the season progresses, we see him really confronting just how much of a mental breakdown he’s at right now. And we talked about that. He shared a lot about what’s coming up in Season 3. And we also get into some of the advocacy efforts he’s been involved with.
Washington: You know what I find interesting about that is, when you look at the folks from “Law & Order: SVU” and some other shows, [they’re] just a character, but all of a sudden folks really look at you as this advocate and they’ve turned around and become very passionate about those things, and I can see how that would be the case [here] as well. All right, let’s get into it. Yvonne and Noah, here’s their conversation.
Wyle on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank in June.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Yvonne Villarreal: Noah, thanks so much for taking the time. We’re on the Warner Bros. lot inside an office space because you are deep in the throes of production on Season 3 while navigating the awards circuit. Tell me what that’s like. What is your headspace right now? Have you learned anything from last year?
Noah Wyle: It feels like we’ve just come back, even though today we started shooting Episode 4 already, which is amazing that we’re almost a third of the way through the season. It feels really good to be back. It’s odd that this is Season 3. It still feels like a new show. Everybody’s still energetic and excited to be there. The awards stuff hasn’t really kicked into overdrive yet, so it hasn’t been too much of a distraction. It’s just been really exciting, especially for our cast and crew who are so well represented in the nominations.
Villarreal: It was really staggering. Is there a moment from the last award season that stands out? An interaction or an experience going through that?
Wyle: The first one that comes to mind was an impromptu meeting I had with Stephen Graham after the Emmys where we bumped into each other on the street and he said some lovely things to me, and I said some lovely things to him. It was the first time I’d ever met him, then Keith David walked by, who was an old friend. It was a very collegiate moment. That was the time I actually took a breath that night and was like, “Hey, look at this — oh, my God, look at all of this.”
Villarreal: Where are the trophies?
Wyle: They’re on the mantle at the moment, at home.
Villarreal: Next to the Golden Globe made by your daughter?
Wyle: Yep, it’s right there in the center.
Villarreal: I want to review the show’s chart. “The Pitt” leads this year’s Emmy nominees with 25 nominations overall. You are nominated in the lead actor category, as well as directing. Do you feel like you’re better equipped or prepared to deal with the spotlight and attention that the show’s receiving now versus when you were doing “ER” at the height of its moment?
Wyle: Oh, I thought you were going to compare it to last year. Comparing it to 30 years ago, yes, I’m way better equipped.
Villarreal: Tell me.
Wyle: Just older, wiser. You’ve been to the dance before, know it for what it is. There’s nothing that’s going to be shocking about the process. Also, I have enough life perspective to just be extremely grateful and present for it and just be really excited about it.
Villarreal: How aware are you that the spotlight is on you? What does that feel like?
Wyle: I’m not that aware of it because I feel mostly cloistered once we start production on Soundstages 21 and 22. Occasionally the tours go by and I see [people] get all excited. But for the most part, I live a pretty hermetic life when we’re working. So except for when I Instagram scroll or one of my kids brings me news from out there, I don’t really get out much.
Villarreal: Your mom is a nurse. What does she think of this moment? Does it feel any different than during your “ER” days?
Wyle: Yes. I think back then it was just a novelty that she was working in a hospital and her son was on this extraordinarily popular medical drama at the same time. Now we’ve had an opportunity, especially the last couple years, through the [medical apparel] company Figs, to go to Washington and do some lobbying together, which allows her career, my career, to sort of work hand in hand. And for me to have a different perspective on who she was as a woman while she was a nurse working, because I only really saw her as Mom through those years. To answer your question, how was her perspective different? I think she’s, dare I say it, maybe a little more proud of me than she used to be. She’s said as much. I think in the old days she was proud of me being successful in having my dream of becoming an actor come true. Now she’s proud of me because she feels that I’ve used that platform to do some humanitarian good works outside of personal aggrandizement.
Villarreal: How many times is she visiting the set?
Wyle: Oh, I don’t let anybody visit this. By design, we keep a very closed set. In fact, if you come as a visitor, you have to put on scrubs so you fit in — and you feel really uncomfortable and you can’t wait to leave. That’s how we roll.
Villarreal: I want to dig into Season 2. When we pick up with Robby, it’s the eve of his three-month sabbatical, and we think maybe it’s this much-needed break. But as hour by hour goes by, it becomes clear that he’s maybe viewing this as a death sentence. What intrigued you, what worried you, about what he was facing in Season 2?
Wyle: Once we decided that we wanted to put, at the center of this medical drama that was an exposé and sharp look at the medical world, in 2026, a mental health journey of one particular person and have as part of that mental health journey be suicidal ideation, which speaks to a lot of the prevalence of that in this profession, once we committed to that idea, it was really exciting to walk it through. And to play the first half of the season as a guy going on vacation to get his head clear and play the second half of a season as a man buttoning up every aspect of his life in the event that this was a one-way trip. And leaving that almost to the Fates to decide as the day unfolded, looking for signs and signals to determine which way that should go. And increasingly as the day goes on, to be met with both the increasing desire to make it a one-way trip and the community that desperately don’t want him to, and ultimately keep him on this side of that edge.
Villarreal: You wrote two episodes in Season 2, and in “8 p.m.” we really see Robby’s mental health journey come to a head. What was that like, to put dialogue to what he was feeling internally, for you as the actor playing him?
Wyle: That particular dialogue was gifted to me by a doctor who shared with me that that was exactly what he said to his wife one morning when he was going through something very similar. And the way that it resonated with me when he said it, the way it went straight to my heart, I knew if I spoke it as simply, it would speak to other people. And rather profoundly, I got a letter by a young man who said that exact dialogue was so reminiscent of what was going inside his own head that it kept him from harming himself and was the catalyst for having him reach out to get help. Because it was so truthful, because it came from such a truthful place, it had a multiplier effect when we put it on TV. So to get to voice it to the world, that was extremely significant to me. It was the masks just really starting to fall to the point where you can no longer keep it in. And the Duke character [played by guest actor nominee Jeff Kober] is the only person who he felt he could share it with, because it’s enough objectivity, away from the hospital, without any kind of preconceived history. And it’s obviously somebody who’s been down a very bumpy road himself and won’t judge the decision one way or the other. He’ll just sit there, almost Buddha-like, and absorb it.
Villarreal: I know during the pandemic — this was sort of what was the impetus for the show — you were getting a lot of messages during that time, people messaging you about “ER” and what that did for them. How do you shoulder those types of interactions?
Wyle: That one made me cry. My hands started shaking. … You always want your work to have impact, you want it to have meaning, you want people to glean something from it that’s relevant to their own lives. And I’ve been very fortunate in my career. I remember back in the “ER” days, when Carter got sober, people would write me and say, “You helped me deal with my drug addiction.” When I was on “Falling Skies” and played the grievous loss of a spouse, people reached out to me. I’ve been a lightning rod for pain a couple of times in my career. And you asked me, how do I shoulder it? I think I sort of see it as a gift. When you have that connection to somebody, when they respond that way, it’s the ultimate compliment. And you’ve built a bridge where there didn’t exist one before. It’s even better if you build them between two strangers that don’t know each other, that now have commonality that has nothing to do with you.
Villarreal: Not to compare the two professions, but does it make you see the work you do as an actor a form of public service? We see how, when people are at their lowest moments in the hospital, they’re watching TV, they’re connecting with characters, with their family members, in these rooms. And then also what you just described, the interactions that you’ve had with these people [who were] inspired to become healthcare workers, shows you how they connect with the characters.
Wyle: As you’re saying that, that’s what birthed “The Pitt.” I was getting letters from people telling me that my work had meaning to them at the very moment when I didn’t feel like my work had meaning at all, because it had no relevance, because we were in the middle of a pandemic. Who wants to see a guy jump around in a costume while people are out there really being sick? And suddenly, I felt like I didn’t have a skill that actually could hurt or help anybody. It was only sort of a frivolous skill. Then those letters turned into the DNA that the show became.
Villarreal: Seeing what Robby is facing, how do you establish boundaries for yourself in terms of taking it in — dealing with the burnout, and overwhelming emotion of it?
Wyle: It’s a process. I am engaged in several modes of therapy to offload this and be able to surf it from both an artistic curiosity perspective and a need for balance. It’s interesting work, this work, and I do it with the full support of a loving wife and family who understand that this is different than what most people do for a living.
Villarreal: You seem to be giving yourself a lot of work these days in addition to acting in this hit show. As the No. 1, you’re writing and your directing. Do you like stress, Noah?
Wyle: I know it sounds odd, but my brain works really fast and it works nonstop. I don’t know what to do with myself most of the time. But when I’m engaged in [creative work], especially directing, it is a full-course meal for me. I feel totally alive and in my happy place. This last week, getting to direct a piece that I wrote, was even more fun because I’d pictured it already in my mind when I was writing it, which is a form of prep. But then you get to give it to everybody else to see what they want to do with it and what you’re creating communally suddenly becomes the third version of it, which I think is really great.
Villarreal: We like a tease here. Is there a note from this recent episode that you wrote and directed that was interesting to give that won’t make sense to us until we watch it?
Wyle: A directorial note? More glitter!
Villarreal: The episode you directed in Season 2, you had the interesting job of dealing with vomit.
Wyle: Yes. Vomit is hard. We’ve been making movies for a long time and we still haven’t come up with a decent vomit rig. I’m not selling Rob Nary, our special effects supervisor, down the drain here with this comment, but it is really hard to come up with a piece that doesn’t look like it’s on the side of a guy’s mouth when he’s throwing up. And you can put stuff in a guy’s mouth and have him spit it out, but to really get a good projectile vomit, you need to have some sort of cannon apparatus. And it has to come from a place that looks localized to the mouth, and it has to be the same diameter of the actor’s mouth. We went through, I don’t know, five designs on that thing and still ended up with something I thought was passable but not impressive — not “Pitt”- level impressive.
Villarreal: Interesting. Do you feel like you’ve upped the ante —
Wyle: I feel like I’ve put a challenge out there to somebody to come up with a decent vomit [effect]. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Villarreal: It was also the episode where we get the passing of Louie [guest actor nominee Ernest Harden Jr.], and it was such a heartfelt moment and a reminder of the people that are there day-to-day or frequently, and the humanity that you still want to show them.
Wyle: Valerie Chu wrote a hell of a script. Valerie is a wonderful writer, and that episode just dramaturgically was a little different than the other ones because it did put more of an emphasis on the nursing staff than it did the doctors. Usually, we walk into a room and walk out of a room with a doctor. This time, we walked into rooms and out of rooms with the nurses, and we really tried to highlight the whole range of services that nurses give — pushing medications, double-checking doctor’s orders, holding hands, bringing blankets, wiping asses; all of the dirty work that goes into palliative care and treatment. That was the thesis. How do we exemplify those actions? Then, of course, at the center of it was Louie’s passing and the conferring of dignity to somebody after they’ve died was the theme I wanted to focus on. In the beginning, he’s a bloody mess, almost unrecognizable, and certainly not dignified. Then, through the cleaning and the preparation and then eventually the service — that’s on a clock because we’ve got other Louies to treat — we confer him his dignity. We fill in the backstory of his narrative. We give context to his life and honor the man. That was the lens progression we were going for and heart progression we were looking for.
Villarreal: What did it say to you that Robby committed those life details to memory from those interactions?
Wyle: To me, that is what you carry with you. It’s odd, the things you remember about somebody. It’s odd, the things that land with you. Usually, they resonate with something that you’re vulnerable to or have experienced. But with Robby, who never had a family and always seemingly wanted one but never allowed himself, the idea of somebody who had one and lost one is particularly profound. And as we get into subsequent episodes that we’re dealing with now, we see that Robby’s sense of loss predates Louie and his mentor, Adamson, and it goes back to almost an original sin.
Villarreal: A lot of people wanted you to take home Baby Jane Doe to heal and deal with some of your stuff.
Wyle: I don’t think you should throw a drowning man a baby. It doesn’t seem like a good, logical thing to do for either one of them. I think Robby went home and wished that he had the capacity to be someone who could have taken that baby home for a little while. And that was probably one of the things that nagged at him along that trip. If you wish you were better, then why wouldn’t you come back and try? And as we watch him begin to try to evolve and work through some of the things that have been stumbling blocks for him in becoming a fully evolved human, that’ll be one of them, hopefully.
Villarreal: I want to return to an earlier point, which is, you’ve done a lot of advocacy work. Even before “The Pitt,” you were arrested in 2012 in Washington, D.C., alongside 100 activists from the disability rights group ADAPT during a demonstration urging Congress not to cut Medicaid. Recently, you joined healthcare workers along with your mom at a rally on Capitol Hill. You also spoke at a congressional hearing focused on declining entertainment jobs in L.A. and the push for federal production tax incentives. How has using this spotlight and your voice for causes that are important to you deepened your experience with “The Pitt”?
Wyle: Well, that’s a very apropos question because I wrote into Episode 3 [of Season 3] a character based on a guy I was with when I was arrested with back then. A really wonderful guy, sort of a self-advocate and kind of a grump, total badass activist who has muscular dystrophy and has a tracheotomy. And so I thought, why don’t we put that character on the show and put him as a patient? And then I thought, “Well, who the hell is going to play that guy?” I called this guy and said, “Hey, I got a part for you, man. I need you to do it for me.” And we flew him out with his aide. And he came in, shot two days last week. He was phenomenal. The representation that we are going to give people in that community is going to be unprecedented, but it comes from a 30-year friendship I’ve had with this guy from some of the wars we fought together through the years, so it all dovetails together. I’m using one to feed the other at the moment and seeing where it’s applicable and where I think it could do the most good.
It’s just an amazing confluence of events. I’m an Angeleno who thinks there should be work here. I have an opportunity to bring a show here and employ 300 people nine months a year and be an advocate for other shows to follow a similar economic model to try and take full advantage of the generational talent that’s here. That’s just an alignment of my values and opportunities that seems almost blessed at the moment, but it’s not effortful. When you read it like that, it makes it sound like Mr. Smith.
Villarreal: Well, so many choose not to put their voice out there in those ways, but you’ve decided to do it
Wyle: I’ll speak up for my city.
Villarreal: What’s so great about a show like “The Pitt” is we get to watch regular, decent people doing competent work. Some call it competency porn. What do you think is our attraction to that?
Wyle: I think it’s twofold. I think on one hand, it’s wish fulfillment. You want to believe that there’s really competent, smart people in those jobs, so that, God forbid, if anything happens to you, that’s what you’re gonna encounter. And then I just read an article, I forget who wrote it, I wish I could cite it, that talked about this other aspect of watching people do work that has meaning, that actually makes a difference, touches a vacuum that we feel we don’t have in our lives and it’s a different kind of wish fulfillment. It’s almost like, “I want to be doing something more with my life that has absolute physical and tangible connection to another human being that makes a difference, that has a net positive.” And I think that’s interesting.
Villarreal: Sort of what you were feeling during the pandemic.
Wyle: It’s exactly what I was feeling during the pandemic: “How can I make more of this time on Earth and serve more than myself?”
Villarreal: I want to talk about “The Pitt” fandom because they are passionate and vocal. Has anything surprised you about their response to the show?
Wyle: Only everything. The embracement, the passion, the creativity, the advocacy, the identification, the continued support. It’s really been incredibly gratifying. It’s exactly what you hope, you know, that your work will do, spark a conversation and maybe a bit of change. But you certainly, you never anticipate reaching the levels that this one has where people are just gaga for it.
Villarreal: Recent cast departures have obviously drawn some criticism. As the No. 1 on the show and an executive producer, how do you navigate fan response when it’s negative? What are you learning about how to take that in?
Wyle: It’s nuanced. It’s new for me, new for all of us in a way. You try to put it in perspective, and it’s relatively small in relation to the overall [response], in terms of the more vocal critics. But at the same time, this is who’s watching. This is why you’re telling a story. If it’s touching a nerve that’s unintended, address it. Figure out a way to do it more sensitively, to come at it from a different point of view. We’re certainly doing the best that we can in there, but it’s impossible to anticipate what’s going to resonate and why. And I can’t tell you how many times I was surprised at what people thought was funny or what people thought was horrific or offensive. And it’s an interesting barometer of where we are as a country. It’s an interesting cross section of where the population’s at. But in terms of how it affects the creative work, it becomes a slippery slope if that’s the tail that wags the dog. So every year, we come in and we sort of have to gut-check ourselves and do a postmortem on the season. What worked well, what didn’t work well. And what is going to be part of this narrative as we go forward? Cast changes are gonna be part of that. That’s inevitable.
Villarreal: How about in relation to your character? Some of the discussion about what’s playing out onscreen, it’s been interesting to see how people look at Robby and maybe some of his flaws that come out. What do you see as his blind spot?
Wyle: Well, can we start with [we’re] watching a guy who’s going to kill himself? The guy is going to kill himself today, most likely. He’s going to leave and not come back. And as that reality gets increasingly clear to him, he acts continually beneath his grace. He doesn’t necessarily want people to miss him. He doesn’t necessarily want [them] to overidealize him because he doesn’t want them to mythologize him. So some people he was really tender with, and some people he was really harsh with, and some he will carry regret with, and some he probably wishes he had gone further. But all of that pathology was on display as a cry for help for anybody that was really looking to see it, more than I felt it was indicative of how he felt in a normal frame of mind in those relationships. I think he pushed Abbot [Shawn Hatosy] so far away. He pushed Dana [Katherine LaNasa] so far away. He was overly harsh with Mohan [Supriya Ganesh]. He was almost paternal with Javadi [Shabana Azeez]. He had a different vibe and energy with everybody. But ultimately, it was to sort of say goodbye in a way that he felt would be most appropriate. And I’m glad people felt that it wasn’t appropriate, because it was a man setting fire.
I did say in casting, I was like, “Can we cast some guys that are like my size that I could yell at that so people feel like it’s a good, fair fight?”
Villarreal: And you were vetoed?
Wyle: No, no, we’re going to sort of figure that out because it’s nice to show volatility in character, but if it’s a character that’s surrounded by women, it’s very difficult thing to depict without it seeming disproportionate in power. So it’s something I was conscious of when I came back this year. I was like, “It‘s difficult to show this character’s rage when it would be super inappropriate to express it with every single person in this room.” So, bring somebody in that can handle it and match it a little bit. And for my money, that’s what Al-Hashimi [Sepideh Moafi] was. She gave as good as she got, and those scenes between us were terrific.
Villarreal: Season 3 will be taking place on Nov.r 12, 2026, right? A lot of that had to do with the anticipation of and preparation for the ramifications of the Big Beautiful Bill on people’s lives. Tell me about that.
Wyle: It’s Thursday, November 12th, which means that tomorrow is Friday the 13th. And there was something fun about playing with the eve of a day that is usually fraught with peril. But this day is fraught with peril for all sorts of reasons. And it isn’t Friday the 13th. It also is coming into the holidays and it’s getting colder. A lot of the social issues that Pittsburgh and a lot [of places] with colder climates deal with are going to come up. People are turning on their heaters for the first time, if they can afford to turn on their heaters; people that don’t have access to housing are gonna be feeling the pinch even more than that. All of that goes into our narrative. And then, as I think you were alluding to, this is in preparation for what’s gonna take place in January [2027] with [provisions of] the Big Beautiful Bill [going into effect], which is gonna throw a lot of people off the rolls in a lot of states and cause a whole ripple effect through the healthcare industry. In anticipation of that happening, people are gonna have to make some very hard choices. They’re going to probably want to hoard medication if they can. They’re gonna try and load up on as many treatments as possible, put as many things into place as they can for that eventuality. And we wanted to highlight what some of those struggles are gonna be because I don’t know that they’re gonna be reported in January.
Villarreal: How fast, when that decision came through, were you getting outreach from healthcare professionals wanting to meet with you, with the writers room, about how can they can help you think about what’s going to happen?
Wyle: We have a great organization that’s an adjunct to the Norman Lear Foundation called Hollywood Health. And they broker all sorts of meetings for us in the writers room with experts from every aspect of the healthcare spectrum you can imagine. And so we really were curious to find out from those experts what the statistics were going to be. And they run models on best-case scenario to worst-case scenario and tell us pretty much with a high degree of certainty what the bandwidth is gonna be. And then we take that data and try to figure out the storyline that would be most effective to tell it. But it starts with trying to get it as accurate as possible in our crystal ball, looking forward to where we’re gonna be.
Villarreal: If you could give one word to Dr. Robby’s mental state in Season 3, what would that word be? Or what would the song he’d be listening to at that moment, walking back into work?
Wyle: I don’t want to tip the bit on a song that we might use and the ones that are in my head are so corny and cheesy that I don’t want anybody to suddenly start cutting memes to it. [Looks at camera.] Because you know you will.
Villarreal: Come on, Noah. Give us a ’90s throwback.
Wyle: “Scar Tissue” [by the Red Hot Chili Peppers].
Villarreal: Oh, that’s a good one. OK, before I let you go, is there any PSA you want to give folks right now about whether they should be consuming lettuce? Is Dr. Robby consuming lettuce?
Wyle: Oh, my God, don’t ask me. My wife and I have huge fights about produce every night. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.
Villarreal: I’m always like: What would Dr. Robby do?
Wyle: I don’t know that Dr. Robby eats a lot of vegetables. I think all of your canned vegetables are safe, says Dr. Robby.
