Five minutes into a conversation with Shawn Hatosy, he can’t help but talk about how grateful he is: “This is a full circle moment. I started with John Wells as a guest star on ‘ER.’”
It’s been 19 years since then, and he’s since worked with Wells dozens of times. But this guest star role feels different. A decorated war veteran and night-shift attending physician, Dr. Jack Abbot on Max’s “The Pitt” wasn’t really on Hatosy’s radar. The day of our interview — his walk to the coffee shop we’re meeting on Larchmont in Los Angeles — is the first time he’s been stopped on the street for his role of Abbot.
“It was relayed to me that there was really only one role in my age group, and that was taken,” Hatosy says with a laugh. Of course, he’s referring to the role of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, played by Noah Wyle. “Then I read the first episode, and I saw the character.”
At first, the writers weren’t sure Dr. Abbot would develop into anything. Hatosy took on two other recurring roles — one on “Rescue: HI Surf,” also produced by Wells, where he was able to direct and film in Hawaii; the other as a villain on “Chicago P.D.” — even after he landed “The Pitt.” Luckily, the schedule worked out perfectly.
Technically, Hatosy is a guest star, appearing in five episodes — briefly in the first as Abbot’s leaving the hospital at the end of his shift, then more prominently in the final four, returning to help.
“We did one week in Pittsburgh for exterior, so that happened around Episode 7. I did the first roof scene, and the last roof scene — that was my day two,” he says. When filming it, he had no idea how heavy the story was. “I didn’t realize the weight and command that Abbot had over that emergency department.”
In that last roof scene, Abbot tells Robby, “Hell of a speech down there,” yet neither Hatosy nor Wyle knew the speech yet. But the scene was important to get right. “We spent a lot of time on that. I’ve worked with John [Wells] a lot, and John directed that. Over 20 times, I’ve worked with him as a director, and I’ve had some pretty hard scenes with him too. We spent at least four hours shooting that.”
Noah Wyle, Shawn Hatosy
When he signed on, Hatosy was given a detailed biography of the character and was told that the character is an amputee — something revealed in the final scenes of the finale.
“By design, the new members of the staff didn’t know, and it was revealed to them and the audience. It helps highlight that he’s not defined by that. He’s a very competent and talented guy that you want to lead,” he says. “Seeing him on the roof at the beginning, it’s very clear that he’s got some hidden trauma that, hopefully, in Seasons 7 or 8, we can dig into.”
Hatosy sees similarities between Abbot and himself.
“There’s something scary about it, because you’re putting yourself out there. For some reason, when you tackle a role, you think, ‘What does he wear? How does he walk? What are his physical attributes?’ For this, it’s me. It’s my voice,” Hatosy says. “His history in combat and the trauma that he’s gone through and his schooling, all that stuff is very different, but I think we’re a lot alike otherwise.”
The role — and the show overall — isn’t light and isn’t easy. “My responsibility, my job, is just to be in service to the writing. There’s no tricks; there’s just truth,” says Hatosy. His first scene after the quick pilot cameo was Abbot’s emotional speech. Then he was thrown into the E.R.
“We start dealing with the barrage of bodies, and that was my first time doing doctor stuff — trying to intubate, doing chest tube, a gurney goes and then another one comes in. There’s blood on the floor. Noah’s there; I’m like, ‘Help me!’ It just felt so real,” he says, noting that he remembers telling his wife he still felt the adrenaline at the end of that first day.
In the first episode Hatosy was in, there was also a scene between him and Supriya Ganesh’s Dr. Mohan. It didn’t make it in the final cut, but impacted how he felt about Mohan and Abbot’s relationship.
“There’s one line in the first episode that got cut, where somebody makes a comment that she’s slow, and I say, ‘She’s the smartest person here.’ And just from that, I feel like it was definitely, in my opinion, heading in a direction,” he says. Since the show’s debut, viewers have wondered if there was a romantic spark between the two doctors. “I think he likes her, if I’m being honest, only because of what I read. He has admiration for her brain, there’s something there. When you’re working closely with somebody that can evolve. So I think there’s a flirtation. I don’t want to sound creepy when I say it because he’s in the power position.”
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