Bring Me ‘The Pitt’ Stats — Stat!

By Chris Gardner , Caitlin Huston , Brande Victorian August 14, 2026 10:00am

Your storyline represents something we don’t often see — a doctor who struggled with addiction making amends to colleagues and patients. What has been the fan response?

This spring, while doing [the play Becky Shaw ], I’d come out of the stage door and be face-to-face with a lot of Pitt fans. They would tell me recovery stories and hand me beautiful letters about loved ones who struggled with addiction and how seeing the scenes of betrayal or the loss of the sense of self that was portrayed onscreen helped them understand their family members. In real life, I am four and a half years sober, and the fact that I’m able to be a part of telling a story that gives people some direction or a sense of feeling seen is what you dream of your whole life. Related Stories TV 'Task' Star Tom Pelphrey: The One Thing That Kept Me Up at Night TV Mariska Hargitay Reveals How She Decided to Host the Emmys: "Why Not?"

I spent 15 years trying to break into this industry. I would have done a pimple cream commercial in Korea if they called, but nobody did. My mom’s an ER nurse, and my dad’s a paramedic, so the fact that this became the job and I get to tell the story of my parents, and of a high-functioning addict, is pretty amazing.

We were at work, and we stopped shooting for about 20 minutes and had a full team huddle. We gathered around the central hub and [showrunner R. Scott Gemmill] stepped up to the mic and went down the full list of 25 nominations. We got to celebrate each other — not only the actors but everyone from the special effects and sound teams to [Nina Ruscio], our production designer, who is one of my favorite people in the world. It felt incredibly right.

Last year, we got the whole Pitt cast on a party bus the night before the Emmys. Noah Wyle rented it, and we got to ride from party to party in this whack-a-doodle bus with poles attached to the ceiling. Scott was doing backflips on the poles. It was amazing and truly felt like we were landing on the moon together. I’ve already begun the campaign for this year to get Noah to rent a double-decker party bus so we can go harder than last year.

The Pitt received so many nominations. Was there someone who got singled out that really touched your heart?

I was really happy for Tina Ivlev, who played a rape victim [in episode seven “1:00 p.m.”]. She’s honestly one of the finest actresses I’ve ever worked with. She made that whole show work, and it was super exciting to see a dark horse come out of nowhere. I’m thrilled for [Fiona Dourif], who is one of my favorite people. Seeing Taylor Dearden and Patrick Ball get up there on the board, God, it’s just great. I’m very grateful for my nomination, but that’s just icing on a cake.

The rape episode was really meaningful, so I wanted to do a lot of research on it ahead of time. I went to a rape treatment center to really understand the experience of nurses and caregivers. Nurses can’t always tell you about their emotional experience because they don’t think about it.