Noah Wyle on his Emmy nomination for ‘The Pitt': ‘This time around, it's much more gratifying'

Los Angeles Times

15-07-2025

Twenty-six years after Noah Wyle was last nominated for an Emmy, for his role as Dr. John Carter on NBC's long-running medical drama 'ER,' the actor has scrubbed back in for a chance at a golden trophy.
The star and executive producer of 'The Pitt' received a nomination for lead actor in a drama series for his role as Dr. Michael 'Robby' Robinavitch, and overall, HBO Max's breakout hit received 13 nominations. Wyle will be competing alongside Sterling K. Brown ('Paradise'), Pedro Pascal ('The Last of Us'), Gary Oldman ('Slow Horses') and Adam Scott ('Severance') for the award.
The actor's skill around a fictional emergency room has yielded strong results. While it's his first Emmy nomination since 1999, it's the actor's sixth Emmy nomination for playing a doctor — the previous five were for his supporting role as the med student-turned-hospital veteran on 'ER.' Tuesday's nomination is his first ever in the lead actor in a drama category.
Wyle was in production on 'The Pitt's' sophomore season on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank when he got the celebratory news, and The Times caught up with him during a break. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Noah, congratulations! Production on Season 2 is underway. You were on set when you got the news?
Thank you. Yes, we're working today. I was on set. We shot the first scene. I asked to go to the bathroom. On a bathroom break, I checked my phone and saw a text from my wife that said, 'Baby!' I thought, 'Oh.' By the time I came back onto set, everybody was starting to get very excited. Then just now, Scott Gemmill [the show's creator] came down and made a formal announcement and read off all the 13 nominations, and that just exploded the crew and cast background into massive celebration.
How do you get back to work after this?
Oh, so easily. I'm going go in there and we're gonna get right back at it. I don't know. I guess with a little bit of a bounce in our stride. When I look at the sound department, who works so hard on our show, parsing out all that overlapping dialog — to see them get recognized, and see our makeup departments, both prosthetic and non-prosthetic, be recognized for their labor — everybody puts such pride into their work, and I am inspired by so many incredible artists who bring their expertise to this place every day. To see everybody be recognized makes it feel even more special, because it's truly a group effort.
Dr. John Carter on 'ER' was a newbie to the healthcare industry, bright-eyed and eager to learn. Dr. Robby in 'The Pitt' is a veteran of the industry, sort of jaded by the systemic challenges, but as committed as ever to the patients. How is it to track someone deep in their career at this stage in yours?
There was a lot of one-to-one identification with Carter back then, as I was new and eager to be good at my job and seen as being good at my job —both ambitious, both aspirational. This time around, it's much more gratifying because you have perspective. When you're 23, you don't necessarily know what the peaks and valleys of a life or career are going to be, but at 53, you have a better understanding of the road traveled and the road ahead, and it just makes this feel even sweeter.
The show is confronting issues changing in our world in real time, and you're inhabiting someone behind the headlines, in the trenches, dealing with the realities of those issues. What intrigues you about what Dr. Robby and the rest of the characters on this show say about this moment in time, especially as the healthcare industry is on the precipice of more drastic change?
Season 1 was trying to put a spotlight on the community of frontline workers and hospital personnel who've been doing sort of unending tours of duty since the pandemic. It was a thesis on tracking the emotional and physical toll that that it's taken on our workforce, in a way to try to inspire the next generation, but really to also highlight the heroism of people that are in the trenches now. Unfortunately, we've had to move on from that thesis because the world events since that [time] have taken such a turn, and healthcare in particular is in such cross hairs that it is both extremely incumbent upon us to stay current in our storytelling and reflective of what's happening. But it's really quite a challenge to try and peer into a crystal ball and see what the world will look like 13 months from now, when these episodes air, because the events are changing on the ground daily, so quickly that things that we didn't think would have come to pass by now have already come and gone and been normalized. So it's a challenge.
The last time we spoke, you talked about how you strolled into work every morning, sort of mimicking Dr. Robby routine — that entrance to the hospital, listening to 'It's Baby' by Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise. Is that still the case for Season 2?
No, we have a different opening this year. So, I have a different ritual and routine every morning. But I'm a creature of habit, and so I do my odd, little eccentric things every day to get ready.
How are you feeling about this new season? It was recently revealed that your co-star Tracy Ifeachor would not appear in Season 2; there has been speculation about that decision and whether it's linked to her allegedly being a member of a London evangelical mega church that performs 'gay exorcisms.' Can you comment on the reason for parting ways?
I can only comment and say that that was all revelatory to me. All these stories that have come out subsequently are news to us. It had nothing to do with anything like that.
How are you feeling about that kind of cast change early in the show's run, or what it means for Season 2?
We made it clear at the outset that part of being in a realistic teaching hospital is a revolving door of characters, whether you have somebody not come back, or you have somebody die, or whether you have somebody rotate to another department or go on another specialty. These are the things that we pull our hair out in the writers room trying to figure out how to keep this ensemble together for as long as time possible, but knowing that there has to be a revolution of characters coming through to keep the place realistic. And the character of Collins was a significant character in the first season, and Tracy was amazing. I loved working with her. I wish her all the best in her future. I heard she got another gig.
As far as how this impacts your character, there's concern about Dr. Robby's mental health. Fans want to see Dr. Robby smile. Are you smiling in Season 2?
[laughs] If it means that much to you, I'll trying to work one in.
I would imagine it'll be easy today. How do you plan to celebrate?
I looked at that list of nominees that I'm in the company of, and I send my congratulations to all of them. It's incredibly gratifying and humbling to be included in their company. I'm going to celebrate quietly with my family and come back to work tomorrow.
Have you heard from your 'ER' counterparts? George Clooney? Eriq La Salle?
They don't get up this early. [laughs]
What's a memory that stands out from your last Emmys experience?
Talk about perspective. It was such a beautiful, wonderful, heady time for me that the last time I was nominated, I was annoyingly blase about it, and if I had known that it was going to be 20-plus years before I was invited to the party again, I think I would have had a better time.
Before I let you get back to work, tell me: what's the medical procedure on the docket for you today?
Today I'm removing some taser barbs from the back of a thrashing patient's neck. We're shooting, actually, an episode that I wrote, so it's really kind of heavy week already.