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SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the latest episode of The Pitt on Max.
Okay no one expected this kind of trauma in the ER.
On the latest episode of the medical drama from John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, some disturbing observations by Santos (Isa Briones) lead Robbie (Noah Wyle) to make a drastic change to his staff.
He sends Patrick Ball’s Langdon packing.
Here, Ball talks about when he learned that his character was carrying some, ahem, excess baggage, along with who helped to inspire his character and what will happen next.
DEADLINE How was the role initially described to you? Specifically, was there any hint about a potential issue with drugs?
PATRICK BALL So initially there was no mention of drugs. That did not come up until later down the line. Langdon was described to me as this doctor everybody loves. This guy is rootin’ tootin’. He comes in the lineage of cowboy medicine. And that’s where I started building … this is a blue collar job. I’m not a hero, I’m not a genius, I’m just doing my job. And then it was brought to my attention later in the process what Langdon might be carrying secretly, what he might be going through secretly. It was cool that I didn’t start with that information, I didn’t start off by trying to create a character who was trying to send up signals of addiction or trauma or anxiety or whatever. I started discovering Langdon through his sense of play and his sense of fun and his sense that he loves this job. The underbelly came in later.
DEADLINE It’s interesting you call him a bit of a cowboy, that he is not a hero or a genius. He strikes me as quite smart and confident.
BALL It is really interesting. Both of my parents are emergency workers. My dad is a lifelong paramedic. My mom is a lifelong ER nurse and they can’t watch medical dramas. They won’t watch because they’re like this doesn’t feel real. And also, whenever I think about my parents, I think, wow, how heroic these people are. They’re heroes. They’re literally saving lives every day. But that’s not how my parents think of themselves. They’re just doing their jobs. They’re clocking in every day and it is ditch digging work. I think that’s how Langdon sees it. Another important thing is the compartmentalization of everything. I think he’s somebody who can’t be aware of the emotional impact of what he’s doing. You can’t be aware of like, ‘oh, this is somebody’s son, or this is somebody’s wife, or this is somebody’s brother.’ You have to think, this is a body, this is a problem. That’s what I mean by cowboy medicine.
DEADLINE How do your parents feel about the show?
BALL They love it. I actually happened to be with my parents when the call for the screen test came in and I was down in North Carolina. I was there for a birthday and I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is my first TV show. I’ve never done anything like this. They’re going to put me on a plane and they’re going to fly me to Hollywood and this is so crazy. Can you all just read the script with me?’ And so we read the pilot and the first thing they said was, ‘this checks out. This medicine checks out. This is what I would do.’ Now they watch it and I get text messages all the time saying how accurate it is, both from my parents and I get nurses and doctors and everybody reaching out, thanking me for finally showing a hospital drama that they can see themselves reflected in, which is amazing.
DEADLINE How has it been learning the medical dialogue?
BALL Yeah, I mean, I’d like to say it’s nuts. It’s sort of like speaking Latin and writing a unicycle and falling in love all at the same time. [Co-EP] Joe Sachs is pretty brutal with some of the language he gives me, but I’m really glad he does because it’s all real. But yeah, there are lot of bloopers out there.
DEADLINE What feels different about this medical show from others that you may have watched?
BALL I say this to Scott Gemmill, the showrunner. I’m like, kudos to you, man. You made a hell of a bet. You gave it to him straight. No chaser. We’re not doing any of the things you’re supposed to do to be popular. Great romantic intrigue. There’s no sex. There are no big starry names other than Noah. Outside of Noah, most of us are new. Our characters don’t go home with people, we don’t get caught up in personal storylines. It is really medicine first. It is the job first. We stripped it all away. There is one set. We don’t have lighting setups, we don’t have dolly tracks. It’s like making a play. We just have a set that we show up to. We’ve got two cameras that are handheld and it’s just focused on people. It’s just focused on telling human stories about real people in a real way.
DEADLINE And how does that feel being in that one room? Do you ever feel claustrophobic?
BALL It’s crazy, but it’s really cool because I show up to work every day at the same place. It’s the same room, same lighting. And also the crazy thing about this show, because it’s all in one day, all the background artists are the same. So if you have a patient who is waiting to be seen sitting in a gurney in the hallway in episode one, they’re probably still waiting and sitting in that gurney in episode 10. And that might be 10 hours for the show, but that’s six months in shooting time. So we have hundreds of background artists who are there every day. And every series regular does background and every background artist is a series regular. It really becomes a family. It becomes a repertory company.
DEADLINE So what is Langdon’s deal with Santos? Is there a little professional jealousy going on here? Does he see that Santos has the goods to be a good doctor?
BALL Jealousy could be part of it. I think she comes in very confident, very sure of her own abilities, which is what you want in a doctor. You want somebody who wants the ball, you want somebody who wants the action. And I think to some degree, Santos probably comes into this workspace in a similar way that Langdon came into this workspace … really out over her skis a little bit. I think there’s a certain amount of reflection there that Langdon may not be aware of. I’ve had therapists tell me if there’s somebody who really just gets under your skin and you can’t really explain it, ask yourself, are any of those things that you don’t like about that person true about you? I think there’s certain amount of that. But if you ask Langdon, the problem comes down to a respect for experience and a respect for expertise. I think Langdon has a lot of respect for the experience and expertise for the people who are senior to him. I think that is a really important conversation to be had, especially in the world today with the attack on expertise that you see happening at the CDC in the White House. This distrust for institutional knowledge and experience is really dangerous. And I think that’s something that LinkedIn is really trying to convince Santos of. Like, look, I think you’re smart, you’re obviously smart, you’re obviously talented, but you’re also new. And there are things that I have learned over the course of my residency that you have, not because you’re less smart or you’re less talented, but because you have not had those experiences and you’re going to have those experiences. I think that is something that he’s trying to convince Santos of. She really doesn’t want to hear. And I think that if you ask Langdon, that’s the primary root of their tension.
DEADLINE So Robbie obviously discovered pills in your locker, but we only see Santos holding empty drug vials. Is that a key detail that we should pay attention to?
BALL I that’s for the audience to decide. It comes out that Langdon has been self-medicating through the hospital drug supply. He says you’ve got to take him at his word. He says, I’m never high. I’m not high treating my own withdrawal symptoms so that I can do the job that I need to do. But to what extent is that self-maintenance? How much is he taking to fend off withdrawal symptoms? I think that question is still out there and it’s something that I think is better to be wondered about than answered.
DEADLINE Will we get an answer to that question by the end of this first season?
BALL It is addressed again. But again, I think to Scott’s credit, he’s very spare with what answers he provides, and what insights he gives into the doctor’s personal lives. He doesn’t come out and present you with a tidy thesis or a tidy takeaway. He kind of leaves that for the audience to do. And I don’t want to get in the way of that.
DEADLINE Obviously we don’t want to see you fired from the ER.
BALL Me neither! I want to stay. I love it here.
