‘It's just an overwhelming wall of terror': Amanda Marsalis on directing ‘The Pitt's' mass casualty episode

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4 days ago

Amanda Marsalis is the first to admit she wasn't sure if she was right for The Pitt when the project came the director's way.
"I was told, 'Oh, it's a medical drama from John Wells.' I was like, 'Oh, really, OK.' I didn't think of it as my thing. And I say that with humility," Marsalis tells Gold Derby. "It's not that I'm a snob. I just thought of it as a some type of thing that maybe wasn't my type of thing. And I was wrong. I read it and was like, 'Oh, this is good.'"
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Part of that was the show's real-time format, with each episode depicting one hour of a 15-hour shift, dropping viewers deep into the thick of the ER as cases and stress escalate. Marsalis, who's helmed episodes of Ozark and most recently Ransom Canyon, directed four episodes of the first season of The Pitt, including "6:00 P.M.," the 12th episode featuring the mass casualty incident. The episode is Marsalis' Emmy submission.
Marsalis spoke to Gold Derby about helming that harrowing hour, filming on a full hospital set, the "special sauce" of The Pitt, and more.
Gold Derby: What were you told about the show before the script came to you?
Amanda Marsalis: I was told, "Oh, it's a medical drama from John Wells." I was like, "Oh, really, OK." I didn't think of it as my thing. And I say that with humility. It's not that I'm a snob. I just thought of it as a some type of thing that maybe wasn't my type of thing. And I was wrong. I read it and was like, "Oh, this is good." Not that medical shows aren't good. It really captured me, and I immediately felt very lucky to be involved. I think I got [the scripts for Episodes] 1 and 2, or maybe just 1. I don't remember. I met with [Wells and creator R. Scott Gemmill] the next day or something like that. And I have a relationship with John because we had done some development. I'd do anything to work with John. I appreciate people who are good at their jobs.
Were you looking for another series after ?
Marsalis: I don't think I was looking. I had actually done Ransom Canyon already. I finished it a week before. I packed up my life in Albuquerque and came home. And one thing that about The Pitt that was amazing was it filmed in L.A. I got to sleep in my own bed and be with my boyfriend and be with my cats and my dog and have a life and go to dinner with my friends. The quality of our crew too in L.A. was just extraordinary, like every single person. So it was also just like, "It's a job in L.A., sweet."
The show is emotional anyway, but all four of your episodes are very emotional. Did you get a choice of which episodes to direct or you just assigned?
Marsalis: I really was told, and I originally was like, "Oh, can I do Episode 3 first?" Because I could use a little more breathing room. And John was like, "No." And I was like, "Got it." And then when I read them, I truly was like, "Oh, this is a gift. And I'm so lucky." [With Episode] 2, you're continuing to establish the visual language of the show and how we're going to work, which is something I really like being part of. It's really like this extension and support of your pilot director. And then the [other] episodes ... when I read Episode 8, where the little girl drowns, I was like, "Scott, like, really?" But I was so sad. It's my honor to direct it. But I truly, definitely got the gut-punch ones. [Episode 4] with Spencer (Madison Mason) dying. My father had passed away like a year earlier. My father had passed away in my life and we had multiple crew members who had recently lost lost fathers. And it was really, like, that was a lot. And Noah [Wyle] wrote that episode too, which was really special.
Warrick Page/Max
This set is an actual hospital set full stop. What was the prep like, especially with your first episode?
Marsalis: It's sort of a two-part answer. One is they designed the space before they wrote the show. Nina [Ruscio, production designer] did an amazing job at creating sight lines and creating our space. So the script is written for the way the hospital is. So you're two steps ahead, sort of, in a way. And unlike other shows, you could get scripts and be like, "OK, great. Well, this fight sequence is written for an imaginary place, and now I need to totally change it so it fits to like the location we found," or whatever. But The Pitt is always on set, like they're never any other place, right? There's a sort of the waiting room, which is a separate stage. So you we would basically be standing at the doors at lunch, and the second they go to lunch, you're like, "OK, let's pick up where we left off. Scene 8. We're gonna walk here and go this way. We're gonna need this person over there. We're gonna need this person over there. This is gonna come here. I'm going to see them in the background. I want to have them cross there. OK, that way."
And then we eventually built a model. Nina built a model of the set, which was really helpful. So that's when we went to go do [Episode] 12 and we're having this mass casualty event. There was no way I could fit it in at lunches. So we she made little beds, and we had, like, yellow zone beds, pink zone beds, red zone beds. We did everything basically via the model.
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Episode 12 is your big one and arguably the big one of the season too. It begins with you guys clearing out the hospital of patients and bringing in equipment to prep for the mass casualty, and you really get a sense of the preparation and procedure.
Marsalis: Yeah, and most of our background were with us from Day 1. Because the story of an ER is people can wait for 12 hours to get care or whatever. So we had this lady, this who had a fake pregnancy [belly]. And she just was in this corner every day, and she would hide books in her, her little fake belly, and then be reading her books in between takes, and then put her book away. We had to say goodbye to all those people in Episode 12, which, in a certain way, was like saying goodbye to a bunch of your crew.
And there's a lot of technical aspects of The Pitt, but you also you need to do all that very well, so then you can feel the feelings right. Because you want to understand how horrible this mass casualty is, how it is affecting our doctors, how it's affecting our patients, and feel the pain of it. But you do that by prepping incredibly well. I would do that at lunch, like, "This will go here. That'll go there." And our doctors are so helpful because the doctors sort of block the medical scenes because they know this person should be there, this person should be there. And then you can go in and go, "Oh, but I really want this eyeline. And they'll go, "Oh, OK, I can change that. I'll put that there."
That episode is only 40 minutes. It's the shortest episode of the whole season, but so much happens. You really showed every single person and every single case, and the viewer still feels like, "Oh, I know what's going on here." The camera's moving so quickly and we see every element of what goes on during a mass casualty. The vibe is so different from your first three episodes, when the pace is so much slower. What was that shift like?
Marsalis: Yeah, in a certain way, there's a lot more intimacy to those first three episodes, right? And I think something in doing this episode was me making sure that I retained as much of that as I could in that we just don't want it to become basically — I don't know how else to say it — but medical porn. You just didn't want it to be, like, about medically what was happening to everybody, because I think that's the real special sauce of The Pitt. It's very graphic in its medical knowledge and experiences. But what really matters is how we feel and how we care and how we're connected to everybody. And I do think there's something lovely, like we have these new doctors that show up in Episode 12 and I think people are like, "Well, I'm so invested in The Pitt at this point that if you work at The Pitt, I love you," right? Like those actors just showed up, and people were like, "Oh, cool with your Dunkin' Donuts."
The night shift is instantly iconic.
Marsalis: Yeah! And there's just something so wonderful about watching all these people who are just trying to do their best work. And I think I, as a director, made sure that I was getting performances that showed how we were feeling. It was hard in a certain way in that episode because it's just an overwhelming wall of terror basically.
I do love when Shen (Ken Kirby) is sipping the Dunkin' and Robby's (Wyle) eyeing him after he had just grilled him about the protocol.
Marsalis: And [Shen's] like, "I've got this." [Laughs] There's nice humor moments. We had a lot of talented actors who know how to play in all those spaces, luckily, and Noah sets a really amazing tone as somebody who doesn't take himself too seriously. But you can do that because you've prepped so well, and you're so prepared that you have the space to play.
John Johnson/Max
Noah gives a the big speech in the beginning when he goes through the protocol with the slap bands and everything. What went into that scene with many actors and him monologuing for so long?
Marsalis: They don't have sides on set on John Wells shows. So that means you need to show up knowing your lines. That speech is, like, I don't know, four pages long or something. And so we're like, "OK, I like to read the words before we even rehearse." So we're like, "OK, here we go." And then Noah was like, "OK." And he did it. And then it's just being making sure — so many of these people, it's their first day on the job. We have to remember we've been with them for, like, 11 hours now, but this is just their first day at work, so you have to show how scary it is.
Yeah, I love Mel (Taylor Dearden) being worried about manning the yellow zone, and then later on, she's like, "Let's donate blood." This episode also brings back Abbot (Shawn Hatosy). We see him donating blood via his leg just so he could keep seeing patients. I talked to Shawn and there was a discussion about that since we didn't know at that point that he is an amputee.
Marsalis: It was more about saving that reveal, right? And because it would be very hard to tell then too in that moment. I needed to make one point right, then not two. And then also just where the camera is going to be. It was much nicer, I think, to see that [reveal] in the finale.
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The show doesn't have a score. What was that like for you when you're putting together an edit when you normally might have score or temp music?
Marsalis: It was John's idea from the beginning and, and all of us were like, "Cool, man. Hope it works." And then it did. I mean, there's a tiny bit of score here and there, like the littlest heartbeat, and it's just all it needs. Something about the show really clicked for me, though. I was a photographer before I was a director. So, visually, getting the camera to move and getting the crosses and getting, like, this scene's gonna end and it's gonna fold into that one, which is gonna fold into this one. It was just an exciting challenge every episode. I think it's the episode when the girl who OD'd is leaving, and we start with Dana (Katherine LaNasa) and Robby in the break room. We don't cut. They come all the way down. Then the girl who ODs comes behind them with her parents. She comes in, she spots the parents of the kid who OD'd, and then jumps out. You're on such an emotional roller coaster. Some people are having a good time, some people are having a bad time. It's really fun. Then there's the whole "Robby has to pee" for however many episodes. [Laughs]
I hope he gets to pee more than once in Season 2. Are you returning for Season 2?
Marsalis: I am towards the end because I am on another project that is overlapping in a major way. They're gonna come up with some other good sh--. [Laughs] I'm more excited to see what they do with character development because it's such a crazy and strange constriction to have just a day to tell us about these people. But you feel like you know all those characters, right? It's sort of this magical special sauce that all the writers really managed to do, like, get enough information in there about everybody and the quality of people that they are, and what their hopes and dreams are. I'm just excited to learn more about everybody really.
Season 1 of The Pitt is streaming on Max.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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