Noah Wyle famously starred in 'ER' for much of the series' 15-season run before stepping into his role as Dr. Michael Robinavitch, or Dr. Robby, on the new Max drama. Photo: TNS
Noah Wyle, star of the hit medical drama The Pitt, is no stranger to sporting a stethoscope around his neck and neither is his mother.
Wyle famously starred in ER for much of the series' 15-season run before stepping into his role as Dr. Michael Robinavitch, or Dr. Robby, on the new Max drama.
Although she had seen him in the emergency room in hundreds of episodes of the former series, Wyle's mother, a former orthopedic and operating room nurse, said watching him on The Pitt hit her harder.
Speaking on the recent episode of NPR's Fresh Air, Wyle recounted a recent conversation with his mother in which she told him The Pitt feels more "real" than ER did.
That sense of realism comes from the show's structure – 15 episodes that each depict an hour of an emergency room shift in real time.
Wyle's mother, Marjorie, told her son that she was watching an episode in which his character begins listing off the people who died in his care, ultimately reaching an emotional breaking point, Wyle said.
He recounted her saying to him, "I think I had my own PTSD reaction. I suddenly remembered everybody. I remembered the four-year-old. I remembered the pregnant woman with the baby. I remembered the gang member that I tried to keep alive by squeezing two units of blood."
He said she was teary-eyed as she spoke to him.
He described their conversation as "this lovely, sort of cathartic and catalytic moment" that allowed him to reflect on the pain his mother has endured during her career as a nurse that's spanned more than 35 years.
Speaking to The LA Times on the set of the series in March, Wyle also spoke about his mother's work and how her identity as a nurse has stuck with him through the years.
"What I look back on with my mother, it's that my mum's hardcore," he said. "You can't rub her shoulders too hard or she'll bruise. If you tease her, she gets upset. But she carried a man's leg to pathology and didn't blink twice about it. I have a lot of respect for what my mum did and shouldered and carried all day long."
The Pitt has been renewed for a second season, thanks to a warm reception from critics and audiences and despite an ongoing lawsuit over the series.
The estate of Michael Crichton, the creator of ER, sued Warner Bros. Television, Wyle, executive producer John Wells and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill in 2024, claiming The Pitt is a rebranded version of an unauthorised ER reboot. The case is still pending. – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
