Noah Wyle wants ‘The Pitt’ to be ‘the most accurate medical show that’s ever been on TV’
Max/Warrick Page
Noah Wyle is back in scrubs in the new medical drama series The Pitt.
He plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch in the Max series, which drops new episodes every Wednesday. Each episode of The Pitt covers one hour in a single 15-hour emergency department shift at a hospital in Pittsburgh.
Wyle, who also serves as a writer and executive producer on the series, told ABC Audio the entire team made it their mission to create “the most accurate medical show that’s ever been on TV” and to shine a spotlight on the medical community for two reasons.
“One, to underscore how fragile our system is and how vulnerable we are to another pandemic and a real strain on that system. And also to shine a spotlight on a population that’s been working tirelessly for the last five years without a break under extremely difficult circumstances,” Wyle said. “They really deserve our gratitude and respect.”
Wyle, who played Dr. John Carter on the series ER, said its important to tell the stories of the medical workers who have post-traumatic stress disorder after the many years of working during the COVID pandemic.
“Nobody can do this kind of work and not take on, in some form, the aggregate pain and suffering of everybody’s worst day that you are experiencing multiple times an hour over a 15-hour shift,” Wyle said.
The actor noted that “it’s been really gratifying and somewhat intense to sort of have this show serve as a lightning rod for people to begin those conversations that they haven’t been able to have for a while.” Now, Wyle said, with this show as a point of reference, they are able to articulate their feelings.
And now that The Pitt, which premiered on Jan. 9, has been out for a couple months, Wyle says fans who are doctors have shared “really profound” stories of their own experiences with him.
“It proves the thesis, and it makes us feel like the idea has been validated,” Wyle said. “That there was a thirst for this kind of show on TV, a real need to depict humanity in this way again. And I’m really happy that it’s resonating.”
Krysten Ritter is joining the cast of Dexter: Resurrection. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ritter joins the Showtime series as a guest star. She will play a woman named Mia, but no other details about her character have been revealed. The new series, which is now currently in production, finds Michael C. Hall returning to his role of Dexter Morgan, which he originated in the original series, Dexter …
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is bringing her narration talent to a new documentary special for Prime Video. Called Octopus!, the two-part special will be narrated and executive produced by the Fleabag star, Variety reports. According to its official description, the special will transport “viewers into the otherworldly depths of one of the most intelligent and mysterious life forms on Earth as it follows the Giant Pacific Octopus from birth to death” …
Hulu’s upcoming sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale has cast one of its leads. Variety reports that the new show, called The Testaments, will star Lucy Halliday as Daisy, a young teen whose life is turned upside down when she finds out she has a connection to the Republic of Gilead. The new show is based on Margaret Atwood‘s novel of the same name, and takes place 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale …
Justin Baldoni has filed a new civil lawsuit against Blake Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, the couple’s publicist Leslie Sloane and Sloane’s public relations company, Vision PR, for, among other things, extortion and defamation.
Baldoni, who directed and starred in the film It Ends With Us with Lively, is accusing Lively of having “robbed” Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios LLC of control of the film, as well as destroying Baldoni’s “personal and professional reputations and livelihood.”
The suit lists Baldoni, Wayfarer and Baldoni’s publicist Jennifer Abel as plaintiffs, as well as Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR specialist hired by Wayfarer Studios, and Jamey Heath, Baldoni’s friend and podcast co-host. They are currently seeking $400 million in damages.
“Lively stole Wayfarer’s movie, hijacked Wayfarer’s premiere, destroyed Plaintiffs’ personal and professional reputations and livelihood, and aimed to drive Plaintiffs out of business entirely,” the suit reads.
The suit claims Lively pushed a “false and damaging narrative” against Baldoni that was “rife with lies and doctored ‘evidence'” in accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends with Us.
Lively first raised allegations of sexual harassment against Baldoni and accused him and his publicity team of trying to destroy her reputation in a complaint she filed in December with the California Civil Rights Department, which included numerous text messages and communications she claimed were part of a campaign to attack her public image. The New York Times was the first to report Lively’s legal complaint.
Lively then formally filed a lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and other defendants, again alleging sexual harassment.
Bryan Freedman, the attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, denied all allegations.
Baldoni’s suit accuses Sloane of having gone “so far as to propagate malicious stories portraying Baldoni as a sexual predator” and Reynolds of using the term to describe Baldoni in a call with Baldoni’s agent. The suit claims Reynolds told Baldoni’s rep to “drop” him as a client.
Baldoni also accused Reynolds of launching into an “aggressive tirade, berating Baldoni in what Baldoni later described as a ‘traumatic’ encounter” at the couple’s home during the film’s production.
The suit claims Baldoni and the other plaintiffs were “the targets of a calculated and vitriolic smear campaign” lodged by the defendants and that Lively, leveraging her and her husband’s star power, took control of the film — including Lively having her own cut of it.
Freedman said in a statement, “This lawsuit is a legal action based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni, his team and their respective companies by disseminating grossly edited, unsubstantiated, new and doctored information to the media.”
“It is clear based on our own all out willingness to provide all complete text messages, emails, video footage and other documentary evidence that was shared between the parties in real time, that this is a battle she will not win and will certainly regret,” Freedman continued.
Freedman ended his statement by saying, “We know the truth, and now the public does too. Justin and his team have nothing to hide, documents do not lie.”
ABC News has reached out to Lively, Reynolds, Sloane and Vision PR for a comment in response to Baldoni’s suit against them, but has not yet received a response.
Baldoni’s latest action in his legal battle against Lively comes after he had filed a lawsuit against The New York Times on Dec. 31 for libel and false light invasion of privacy, after it published the story “We Can Bury Anyone” on Dec. 22, which included reporting on Lively’s complaint. That same day, Lively formally filed her lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and other defendants.
Baldoni was reportedly dropped from his talent agency after the story was published.
In his complaint against The New York Times, Baldoni accused the newspaper of relying on “cherry-picked” and altered communications, with details “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced” to “mislead.”
In a statement to ABC News, The New York Times denied Baldoni’s accusations and said their original story was “meticulously and responsibly reported,” and that their report was “based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
Lively’s attorney issued a statement amid the ongoing feud.
“Ms. Lively’s federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts. This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set,” the statement read in part.
In recent days, both Baldoni and Lively’s attorney have issued statements on the ongoing legal feud.
Amanda Seyfried is a theater director re-entering the opera world in the new film Seven Veils.
Directed by Seyfried’s frequent collaborator Atom Egoyan, the film comes to select theaters nationwide on Friday.
It was shot on location during the staging of Egoyan’s acclaimed 2023 production of the opera Salome, and the meta-nature of that fact was not lost on Seyfried. She told ABC Audio that Egoyan, who had staged the opera seven or eight times prior, wanted to do something different with this staging — so he wrote a movie script to produce alongside it.
“It was just a lot of parallels mixing together,” Seyfried said. “It does happen in movies often, where you’re playing characters that have crazy parallels to your own life. But to have crazy parallels to your own life and also to the director’s life, and having the director hold control over all of it, is really exciting.”
Still, the idea of being directed to play a director was daunting, Seyfried said.
“It’s a little intimidating portraying a director in front of one of your favorite directors,” she said. “When the day came where I was portraying ‘director’ and getting on set, on the stage, and trying to pull out these performances from these people that really weren’t meeting me halfway — it was really challenging.”
Seyfried said she found herself “a little lost at times,” but that Egoyan was “so amazing and supportive.”
“It was hard because sometimes I’m just not in my body as much as I want to be,” Seyfried said. “I think I’m learning that I am capable of that. I just have to work a little harder.”
