The Emmy-winning ensemble cast is one of EW’s 2025 Entertainers of the Year.

Checking into The Pitt: Stars and creator talk breakout medical drama’s success and what to expect in season 2

The Emmy-winning ensemble cast is one of EW's 2025 Entertainers of the Year.

By Ashley Boucher

Ashley Boucher is a senior TV editor at **. She has been working at EW for four years.

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December 9, 2025 12:00 p.m. ET

Underneath the bright fluorescent lights of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, doctors respond to a loud, electronic ping. But it's no heart monitor beeping, and we're not in a trauma room prepping for surgery.****The opening plinks of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" build over the speakers, prompting Isa Briones to give a "hell yeah" and proceed to dance around with her stethoscope.****"If you give me a prop, I'm gonna use it," Briones says.

Turns out, she provides the props, too — when her costar Patrick Ball steps in front of the camera, Briones winds up like a pitcher, tossing him a bright green apple.

That and other non-fruit related high jinks are afoot as the stars of *The Pitt* mingle on a backstage set for **’s season 2 cover shoot, which also celebrates the ensemble of actors as our 2025 Entertainers of the Year.

One of those rare new shows to bring back the old watercooler model, *The Pitt* earned early word-of-mouth praise when it premiered on HBO Max in January 2025, snowballing viewership to an average of 10 million views per episode, according to Warner Bros. Discovery. Now fresh off of five Emmy wins, including Outstanding Casting for a Drama series, the series is lauded by the medical community for its accurate portrayal of everything from births to gunshot wounds.

The cast has taken the success in stride. Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan, still isn't used to the double takes she gets at her favorite cafe.

"I do think what's really special about the way we're approaching the show is that we kind of leave all of that at the door," she tells EW.

'The Pitt' star Katherine LaNasa for .

“It's like the Emmy just got you on the wave. Now you have to ride the surfboard into the shore," adds Katherine LaNasa, who won one of those five Emmys (Outstanding Supporting Actress) for her portrayal of charge nurse Dana Evans.

The drama follows a group of doctors at a Pittsburgh teaching hospital as they experience the daily surprises of an emergency department, with Noah Wyle leading the cast as Dr. Michael Robinavitch (a.k.a. Dr. Robby), the beloved senior attending physician, whom showrunner R. Scott Gemmill calls "the linchpin of the show."

'The Pitt' star Noah Wyle for .

"We started from the beginning with this idea that we were going to just be on the shoulder of an emergency room physician, Robby, and the people that he works with, and see everything that they see," executive producer John Wells tells EW.

And we see it all in real time, as each episode takes place over one hour of a 15-hour shift. Gemmill (who admits that the unique real-time concept may have been "a leftover from *24* or something") says that the format lent a freshness to the medical drama genre that excited him, Wells, and Wyle: "That's what really sucked us all into the project."

Season 1 took place on Labor Day, the first shift for a handful of new medical students and interns. Patients were complaining about wait times, hospital management was complaining about patient satisfaction, and Robby — still reeling from the death of his mentor during the pandemic — was trying to hold it all together. Midway through the day, a shooting at a local musical festival brought dozens of patients into the ER, turning an already busy day into a frenzy.

Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby, Irene Choi as Joy, and Fiona Dourif as Dr. Cassie McKay on 'The Pitt'.

Warrick Page/HBO Max

As the cast and creative team gear up for season 2 to premiere on Jan. 8, EW scrubbed in to get the report on what we can expect from the darling procedural's sophomore run.

While Briones and Ball are playfully tossing fruit at the cover shoot, their characters — second-year resident Dr. Trinity Santos and senior resident Dr. Frank Langdon, respectively — were not on such jovial terms when we last saw them, given that Santos uncovered Langdon was stealing meds to fuel his addiction to benzos. Season 2 picks up 10 months later, on Langdon's first day back to the emergency room after completing rehab. Oh, and it's also the Fourth of July.

"He's been forced to grow up in a lot of ways over these last 10 months," says Ball. "He's stepping back into this workplace of much trauma and much baggage. He's having to look his mentor Robby in the eye after having said some pretty nasty things to him — out of desperation, I think — at the end of season 1."

The "very, very big conversation" that Ball says needs to happen between Langdon and Robby is one the more senior doctor would like to avoid — especially given that Langdon's return happens to be Robby's final day before he heads into a three-month sabbatical.

"Robby was kind of hoping that Langdon wasn't gonna be back before he left," Gemmill says.

'The Pitt' star Patrick Ball for .

"That sort of threw a monkey wrench into his plans for the day," Gemmill adds of Robby's reaction to seeing his former star pupil again. "It's only a matter of time before they have to work together and try and resolve this. And whether they do or not remains to be seen."

Wyle adds that while Langdon assumes Robby distances himself because the resident let him down, "a larger part is that Robby feels that he failed Langdon, as a mentor and as an attending.

"And there's a third component: Langdon represents somebody who's actually gone off and done the work and faced their demons and done the therapeutic process and come back clear-headed and clear-hearted," Wyle says. "And to somebody who has not begun that process, that feels a bit like kryptonite."

Laëtitia Hollard as Emma, Lucas Iverson as James, Gerran Howell as Dr. Dennis Whitaker, Isa Briones as Dr. Trinity Santos on 'The Pitt' season 2.

Warrick Page/HBO Max

Robby's not the only person with whom Langdon has a looming confrontation — and not the only person who wasn't expecting to see him. Even though Santos was the one to bring Langdon's transgressions to light, "I don't think she necessarily knew that he was gonna [ever] come back," Briones says of her character. "I think it always was on her mind, but I don't think she knew. And that kickstarts quite a journey of a day for her."

While Langdon's baggage with Robby and Santos might not get resolved right away, we can expect the characters to cross paths.

As Gemmill adds, "He can't work a 12-hour or 15-hour shift without, at some point, having to be on a case with both of them."

'The Pitt' star Isa Briones for .

Overseeing it all is charge nurse Dana Evans, whose return after getting punched by a disgruntled patient in season 1 was unclear. But the fan-favorite character is back after taking some time away from the ER to focus on herself.

LaNasa imagines Dana went to therapy and took self-defense in that interim, but "the effects of the punch will carry us through a major part of the season." Adds the actress: "She's not taking any s---, and she's a little bit rougher around the edges."

There will also be some fresh faces roaming the halls of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center in season 2. A newly graduated nurse named Emma (Laëtitia Hollard) will provide a new sense of purpose for Dana.

"Emma helps her see why she got into nursing in the first place," LaNasa says. "I think, in a way, protecting Emma and teaching Emma about the importance of protecting herself in the workplace is kind of like a projection. It's a way of protecting herself, and it's a way of giving meaning to what happened to her."

'The Pitt' star Sepideh Moafi for .

Meanwhile, Sepideh Moafi joins the cast as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, who is brought in by hospital management to not only cover Robby's attending position while he's on sabbatical but also "elevate" the hospital's efficiency. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she and Robby don't necessarily see eye-to-eye right away.

"I don't know that he would really be totally accepting of anybody that was moving into his role," Wyle says. "You know, he's very proprietary about the E.D., and he runs his shop in a very specific way."

Al-Hashimi attempts to bring in A.I. tools to the Pitt — and while new technology can reduce charting time, it doesn't come without ramifications.

"Robby's innately suspicious of anything that could potentially allow a hospital to reduce its workforce because of the streamlining," Wyle adds. "There are byproducts to employing this kind of technology. One of the unfortunate ones is layoffs, and we're already seeing staffing shortages. The practitioners and the doctors are being stretched pretty thin as it is. So the reward for working better sometimes is more work, not less work."

'The Pitt' star Supriya Ganesh for .

But a little resistance is nothing new to Al-Hashimi, Moafi says.

"Honestly, I think like any woman in any field, especially a successful woman in any field, you're used to coming up against resistance, especially from your male counterparts," the actress says. "She's ready, she's equipped, she's prepared. And like most women, and especially women of color, you are over prepared for whatever challenges you might face. And so I don't think it throws her off."

Al-Hashimi isn't a stranger to everyone in the Pitt, however. She's already worked with both Ganesh's Dr. Mohan and Dr. Melissa King (Taylor Dearden).

"As residents, as interns, you do different rotations, just to see where you might best fit," explains Ganesh, who was a pre-med student herself before going into acting. "And the VA was one such rotation for Samira, and 'Dr. Al' was an attending there."

'The Pitt' star Taylor Dearden for .

Dearden adds that Al-Hashimi is "very good at giving support" — which is particularly handy this season for Mel, who is facing a malpractice lawsuit and gets distracted with a deposition later in the day. "Another person in her corner is something, in between seasons, I was wishing for Mel to have — people who know her enough, that could be there for her. And Dr. Al is an attending, so having someone way higher up who is a mentor being able to give support is so, so important."

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'The Pitt' star Gerran Howell for .

Mentor-mentee relationships abound this season, and we'll see some doctors stepping up their responsibilities from season 1 — perhaps none more than Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell). Now a first-year resident, Whitaker has two medical students at his side, Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) and James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson).

"There's a lot of stuff where I'm now sort of imparting my wisdom that was given to me by Dr. Robby to these new medical students, which is great," Howell says. "And I think he does it with a lot of empathy because of where he was in season 1. He can really see how overwhelming this environment can be."

'The Pitt' star Shabana Azeez for .

Howell notes that "some of these med students can be more enthusiastic than others," which breeds a bit of competition, namely for 20-year-old wunderkind Dr. Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez).

"Ogilvie pushes her buttons," Azeez says of her character's dynamic with potential new rivals. "I think sometimes we have these perceptions of ourselves as like, *Oh, I'm nice*, or *I'm gentle*, or *I'm patient*. And then somebody comes and pushes those exact buttons that you didn't even know existed, and you're like, *Oh my God!* And I think it's really exciting to watch her be like Santos, be like Whitaker."

Fireworks on the set

About a month after EW’s cover shoot, the stages at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank are quiet. Several cast members – including LaNasa, Hollard, Howell, Moafi, Dearden, Dourif, Ball, and Briones, among others — are huddled around the nurses' station wearing long parkas as they rehearse a scene for episode 13, the 7 p.m. hour.**

No more '80s music fills the backstage halls, but Hollard and Brandon Mendez Homer, who plays nurse Donnie, dance around silently in between takes. Wyle, who is only in the background of the scene and won't appear in close-ups, stops by before filming begins, chatting animatedly with Moafi and Shawn Hatosy (who won an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Dr. Jack Abbot) before heading off. The hushed atmosphere changes when a crew member calls "Pile in!" and background actors noisily assemble.

Supriya Ganesh as Dr. Samira Mohan, Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby, and Kristin Villanueva as Princess on 'The Pitt' season 2.

Warrick Page/HBO Max

Suddenly, we're at the end of a particularly tumultuous holiday shift in the ER.

Gemmill says that there won't be another mass casualty event like the Pitt Fest tragedy in season 1, but teases, "There is something that happens that throws a monkey wrench into the whole hospital, and especially the ER, which causes things to be a little more chaotic than usual."

And given that season 2 takes place over the course of July 4th, there will be ample opportunities for intense patient cases to come through the Pitt's doors.

"When you have a bunch of people playing with explosives, I think there's bound to be an accident or two," Gemmill says. "It's just part of the day-to-day of the ER."

Kristin Villanueva as Princess, Alexandra Metz as Dr. Yolanda Garcia, Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby, Sepideh Moafi as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, Taylor Dearden as Dr. Melissa 'Mel' King, and Fiona Dourif as Dr. Cassie McKay on 'The Pitt' season 2.

Warrick Page/HBO Max

Wyle, while hesitant to reveal specifics, confirms that there will be plenty of holiday-induced cases throughout the season.

"Fireworks, alcohol-related accidents, bad judgments, celebrations gone awry," he says. "It's a whole host of cases. And like on any Fourth of July, they start being one type of case, and over the course of the day, you get a higher acuity of cases coming in as people get more inebriated or take bigger chances or start dealing with more pyrotechnics."

But these cases aren't included for shock value. *The Pitt* writing staff is meticulous in their dedication to portraying doctors' real-life experiences on screen.

"We bring things to light that perhaps aren't getting the attention they need," Gemmill says.

'The Pitt' star Fiona Dourif for .

That monkey wrench he mentioned earlier is one such example.**

"A cool thing about 'the big event' is it's something that hits American hospitals now," says Fiona Dourif, who plays Dr. Cassie McKay. "I don't think a lot of people know about it or want to think about it, but we're trying to tell a real story."

Brandon Mendez Homer as Donnie and Patrick Ball as Dr. Frank Langdon on 'The Pitt' season 2.

Warrick Page/HBO Max

The constantly changing healthcare landscape leaves plenty more stories to tell, and while audiences already just can't get enough, the team isn't thinking too far ahead.

"We're so in the nascent stages of the show, and the nature of it being [in real time means] by the time this season's over, we'll have only spent two shifts with these people," Gemmill says. "I don't have a long-term plan in place. That may develop over time, but for now, we're taking it one shift at a time."**

*Cake: Michael Carney/L.A. Custom Cakes*

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