The doctor is in.
Noah Wyle and his “The Pitt” co-stars all went through a tough “boot camp” before production.
“This is a fairly young ensemble, and certainly none of us have ever been doctors before, and we all had to start at a pretty high level of proficiency,” Wyle, 54, said on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
“It was really important that we [come] in a few weeks before we started shooting, learn how to put on your gloves, learn how to say the words, learn how to hold the instruments, learn how to move and think like a doctor, talk to doctors, go to the hospital.”
Before “The Pitt,” Wyle was best known for playing John Carter on “ER” in over 250 episodes. The long-running medical drama also starred George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Eriq La Salle, Anthony Edwards, and Laura Innes. It ran on NBC from 1994 to 2009.
“I will say that, you know, if this had been the ‘ER’ cast, and we’d [been] asked to do three weeks of boot camp, you would have gotten six class clowns screwing around, not listening, playing with the gloves, [making] them into balloons, doing all sorts of crazy stuff,” he joked.
In addition to Wyle, who also just won a Critics Choice award for “The Pitt,” the HBO Max medical drama stars Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, and Taylor Dearden.
“The Pitt’s” young cast members “were not class clowns,” said Wyle.
“These were first students. They were top students [who] picked this stuff up so fast that, as the old veteran who thought, ‘I’ve got such an advantage,’ I was like, ‘Oh, wow. Hey, I’ve got to pick it up a little bit. These guys are really adept.’”
“The Pitt” and “ER” have more in common than medical themes and how the actors would do in “boot camp.”
The two shows have also been embroiled in a lawsuit, as “ER” creator Michael Crichton’s widow has alleged that “The Pitt” is a rebranded version of an unauthorized “ER” reboot.
In April, Wyle told Variety about the suit, “This taints the legacy, and it shouldn’t have.”
The Pitt Season 2 returns Jan 8.
