![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Cathy-Sandrich-Gelfond_Berkeley_2560-1024x586.jpg\")
Cathy Sandrich Gelfond (center) with two of her good friends at UC Berkeley. She graduated with a degree in English in 1983.<\/p>\nAsk people what they love most about The Pitt, the HBO Max medical drama that debuted in 2025 and went on to sweep the Emmys, and the answer is almost always the same: It feels so real.<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s pace appears just like an emergency room \u2014 lively and chaotic, always in motion. Its characters seem like real doctors and nurses you\u2019d meet in an overcrowded urban ER: They\u2019re highly competent and compassionate, sometimes curt and distracted, while bearing a mountain of responsibility and layers of trauma they absorb during their grueling 15-hour shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what exactly goes into making the show, a massive hit with over 10 million viewers per episode, feel so real? How do you create an immersive, full-bodied world that pulls you in so far you forget that this place and these people don\u2019t actually exist?<\/p>\n
Turns out, two UC Berkeley alumni know all about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nina Ruscio and Cathy Sandrich Gelfond both work on The Pitt \u2014 Ruscio as the production designer and Sandrich Gelfond as a casting director. They also both graduated from Berkeley in 1983 with degrees in English, widely regarded as one of the country\u2019s leading programs. But the self-described \u201csoul sisters\u201d didn\u2019t actually meet until they began pre-production and development for The Pitt in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell people who say that English is an impractical degree, \u2018Are you kidding me?\u2019\u201d says Sandrich Gelfond. \u201cIt\u2019s about storytelling. It\u2019s about character and tone and human behavior. If you know how to write, if you know how to communicate your thoughts and ideas, you have the foundation to do just about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this UC Berkeley News interview, Ruscio and Sandrich Gelfond talk about designing \u201ctriggering\u201d hospital sets, casting for raw authenticity over Hollywood gloss and how their time at Berkeley taught them to watch life closely, turning every quirk and detail into material for an immersive narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UC Berkeley News: Can you talk a little bit about your time at Berkeley? What defined your experience on campus, and how did it help prepare you for your careers?<\/p>\n
Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: I was all about getting a Renaissance education, and I thought the best way to do that was to be an English major. I also took acting classes and managed to have a lot of fun in the theater department. I remember when I first got to Berkeley this amazing feeling of possibility. It was as if a new door in my brain had been opened, and it felt incredibly liberating.<\/p>\n
Cathy Sandrich Gelfond (center) with two of her good friends at UC Berkeley. She graduated with a degree in English in 1983.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Cathy Sandrich Gelfond<\/p>\n
In our profession, it\u2019s all about storytelling. I\u2019m always looking for the meaning in and under the words, and I think English is an incredibly useful, overarching degree that teaches you how to do that. It also helps you learn to deconstruct a script and understand character development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up, reading was my refuge and joy, so to see all these brilliant actors breathe life into the story \u2014 that\u2019s it for me. My desire to act was very fulfilled by reading with actors. I never needed to be in the spotlight; it was finding that true human connection and interplay that mattered to me.<\/p>\n
Nina Ruscio: Berkeley for me was a scrappy experience, and not in a bad way. I was self-motivated to cherry-pick from the innumerable choices and follow my own path of discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A liberal arts education teaches you how to think and feel, how to understand character. Studying English, where you examine texts from the inside out and see how the written word expresses character and story, feels incredibly applicable to my work life now.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Nina-Ruscio_in-the-play-Hearsay_2560-1024x662.jpg\")
At Berkeley, Ruscio majored in English and worked on several student theater productions. Here she performs in the play HEARSAY, produced by the UC Berkeley-born group The Yam Complex.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Nina Ruscio<\/p>\n
I spent much of my non-academic time embedded in the theater department, designing student projects in Room 7<\/a> in the lower levels of Zellerbach Hall, Zellerbach Playhouse<\/a> and Durham Studio Theater<\/a> in Dwinelle Hall. I was already a painter, so moving into three-dimensional spaces came naturally. I wanted to tell stories, and channeling other people\u2019s stories visually worked out really well for me. I also had the privilege of taking a class with the late and legendary set designer Henry May. I loved that time in my Berkeley life \u2014 it was invigorating, inspiring and, ultimately, a direct line to my career.<\/p>\n Nina, when you\u2019re beginning to build a new world for film or TV \u2014 in this case, an emergency room for The Pitt \u2014 where do you begin?<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: As a production designer, I\u2019m visually responsible for anything related to the physical environment that people are in \u2014 big or small. So I begin by researching everything. You are delving into worlds that are unfamiliar, no matter what it might be, and I like coming at it as an amateur sleuth.\u00a0<\/p>\n The producers John Wells, Noah Wyle and Michael Hissrich, and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, approached me with the unconventional idea of designing the emergency department before any episodes had been written. After I got over being incredibly flattered, I realized the horror of the responsibility of defining one space where 99% of a show would shoot 15 episodes a season. Then I took it upon myself to make sure I covered any possibility I could imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n What did you do?\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: I went to every emergency department I could get myself into. I went places invited, and I went places uninvited. I had a bee sting that got infected, and I realized that if I drove even farther away, I could get into different emergency departments and see how they run. I read volumes on emergency room and hospital design. I just soaked myself in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n How did you create a space that accommodates the perpetual motion of a trauma center while maintaining a sense of clinical realism?<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: I wanted to offer them a space that looks endless and came up with a layout that has these curves that cup into each other. It\u2019s like a tornado; the characters are always in motion and there are no dead ends in the physical space.\u00a0<\/p>\n I also embedded lighting directly into the design. We don\u2019t light from the ground or use bounce boards to fill out a person\u2019s face; instead, it\u2019s all top-lit and every horizontal surface is made of materials carefully selected to reflect that light upward. Because the actors don\u2019t have any static positions, we couldn\u2019t capture this level of vigorous movement on film if we had the physical impediment of traditional grip and lighting equipment.<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio<\/p>\n The colors of the walls, counters and curtains in the exam bays also look just like they do in a real hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: Yeah, there\u2019s a very blanched palette with a lot of whites, and that was part of the intention \u2014 to make the space sterile and triggering, like it often is when you go to a hospital. Movies and television shows that design hospital spaces can fall into this trap of making them overly attractive. For our purposes, that approach would not prompt viewers to feel the anxiety we hoped to make them feel.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cathy, how do you think this kind of realistic design impacts the actors you\u2019ve cast in the show?<\/p>\n Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: There is such a visceral sense when you walk onto that set. The actors, as human beings, you know they feel it \u2014 we\u2019re all responsive creatures. I\u2019m convinced it makes them better. The set informs their performance, and their performance informs the set. It\u2019s a unique thing that I\u2019ve never witnessed in quite this way before.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: It\u2019s intentionally naked and intentionally raw. There are no places to hide. I remember early on Katherine LaNasa, who plays charge nurse Dana Evans, wrote me this little love letter expressing that actors usually need to suspend their disbelief when they go onto a stage, but that they didn\u2019t need to use any of that energy on The Pitt\u2019s set. It\u2019s really a full-on immersive emergency department.<\/p>\n Warrick Page\/HBO Max<\/p>\n The Pitt is a teaching hospital, where young residents learn under seasoned doctors amid nonstop ER chaos. What do you look for in actors, Cathy, so that the ensemble represents real medical clinicians, rather than TV stereotypes?\u00a0<\/p>\n Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: I\u2019m constantly watching people, watching behavior, watching groups of people. I looked at pictures of people from Pittsburgh and asked: What qualities make people from Pittsburgh unique?\u00a0<\/p>\n My co-casting director, Erica Berger, and I really wanted people who embodied these characters. Our job was to discover the right actors; we were not constrained by requirements to have \u201cnames\u201d in these parts. Although this entails an enormous amount of work, it is also a casting director\u2019s dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n I do think the secret sauce of casting on the show is finding people who audiences don\u2019t necessarily know (aside from star Noah Wyle, who was already in the show), because they don\u2019t carry baggage for audiences and can more seamlessly fit into this gritty, real world we are creating.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s so freeing and exciting when you find the actor that fleshes the whole character out and helps tell the most interesting story.\u00a0<\/p>\n Where did you find the actors who make up the original ensemble?<\/p>\n Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: We looked at a lot of people out of the theater, including student showcases, because working on The Pitt is such a high-pressure experience \u2014 you\u2019ve got to be able to move, react and respond in highly technical, stressful situations at a moment\u2019s notice. It\u2019s an incredibly rigorous and demanding job.\u00a0<\/p>\n Warrick Page\/HBO Max<\/p>\n One of my favorite tests came from our producers: After we auditioned actors to play orderlies, we called back the people we liked and had them push a rolling desk chair down the hall, because it is very hard to say those kinds of lines while you\u2019re pushing a gurney in the middle of chaos. You knew the ones that got it.\u00a0<\/p>\n And like in plays, the entire ensemble is sometimes on stage not speaking; well-trained actors know how to do that. We tell agents, \u201cThey have to be prepared for days where all they\u2019re going to do is walk down a hall without speaking, and that is just as important as anything else because it creates the fabric of the hospital.\u201d Everyone is part of that, including Noah.\u00a0<\/p>\n So we look for people who are not just perfect for the part, but who mesh with the ensemble so that they form a unit and a family, because that\u2019s what this really is \u2014 a cohesive team of professionals doing the best they can every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n It sounds like both of you are describing a kind of non-hierarchical realm in terms of both space and characters, where there\u2019s no space or person that\u2019s more important than any other.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: There\u2019s no room for an egocentric position because there\u2019s no value in it when everyone is equally essential.<\/p>\n In Cathy\u2019s casting, there\u2019s the core ensemble of the principals, but then there\u2019s also this other layer of the background artists that\u2019s equally important because they are the fibrous texture that populates the set, informing the entire experience. The whole crew wears scrubs in case they are unintentionally seen in a reflection.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like a choreographed ballet with the cinematographer and the camera operators moving through it. The experience is thorough and lush. To find people who want to play like that, it\u2019s rare. It\u2019s very without hubris. It\u2019s maybe a once-in-a-lifetime situation.<\/p>\n What is your biggest piece of advice for Berkeley students who are interested in pursuing careers in film and TV in similar roles as your own?\u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of Nina Ruscio<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: There are a lot of practical disciplines that would be handy to explore early on, like architecture and graphic design. There are so many different jobs even within the art department; every single X-ray that appears in The Pitt is a week of graphic work on its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the biggest skill of all is really being able to understand what would apply to a story \u2014 what spaces apply to a story, what evokes a character\u2019s mood. To do this, it\u2019s imperative to notice the details in every moment that you are anywhere. From the glorious, magnum landscapes of Montana to some diminutive gas station bathroom full of pathos. Remember it, look at what\u2019s authentic about it. Ask yourself how it makes you feel.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m a constant student every minute of the day. The visual experience of a space is a manifestation of what a character is feeling and how they are experiencing the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cathy Sandrich Gelfond: To do what I do, you have to love performance, understand acting and actors, and love movies, television and the theater. After graduation, I thought I wanted to act, so I moved to L.A., met a casting director, fell in love with it and never looked back. There are a lot of us who were actors and then found a better path for ourselves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n There are so many interesting jobs that the vast majority of people don\u2019t know about \u2014 the two of ours are perfect examples. So make sure you know what jobs are out there in this business, and think about your strengths: Is communication your strength? Are you good with people?\u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of Nina Ruscio<\/p>\n It\u2019s all about being present and paying attention. Look around, read, learn, be curious and live as full a life as you possibly can. I always tell actors the more you know about the world, the better actor you will be. The amazing thing for actors now is they don\u2019t have to wait for someone like me to bring them in; they can create their own work and put it out there and people like me will often see it.<\/p>\n How does it feel to be part of such a breakout hit? Are you surprised by its success?\u00a0<\/p>\n Nina Ruscio: Everyone working on The Pitt, we all called it a grand experiment. None of us knew if our brave choices were going to work. In that first season, we were in our own private bubble. We\u2019d come to work every day at the \u201chospital,\u201d doing our different jobs; we all just wanted to do the best job we could do together in this unique community. We had no idea The Pitt would be so well-embraced. And now some people don\u2019t even call it a television show anymore; they call it a phenomenon. It\u2019s an amazing thing to be a part of.\u00a0<\/p>\n This interview has been condensed and edited.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ruscio and Sandrich Gelfond will be visiting campus this semester on April 16 to speak on an Alumni in Entertainment panel during the Division of Arts & Humanities Creative Careers week, aimed towards preparing undergraduate students with career connections. Check the campus events calendar<\/a> as the date nears for the time and location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask people what they love most about The Pitt, the HBO Max medical drama that debuted in 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3265,99573,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-217098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alumni","tag-arts-and-humanities","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Pitt-ER-design_by-Nina-Ruscio_1678-1024x584.png\")
A perspective design of the emergency department and ambulance entrance for The Pitt by Ruscio. \u201cI wanted to offer them a space that looks endless,\u201d says Ruscio. \u201cIt\u2019s like a tornado; the characters are always in motion and there are no dead ends in the physical space.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/katherine-lanasa-laetitia-hollard_The-Pitt_Warner-Bros_1920-1024x585.jpg\")
Charge nurse Dana Evans (left), played by Katherine LaNasa, advises recent nursing school graduate Emma Nolan (right), played by La\u00ebtitia Hollard in her first professional role. \u201cIt is incredibly gratifying to give an actor their first big opportunity and one of the best parts of my job,\u201d says Sandrich Gelfond.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/The-Pitt_sepideh-moafi-kristin-villanueva-irene-choi-adam-shaukat_980.jpg\")
Several characters in The Pitt \u2014 including (from left) Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, nurse Princess Dela Cruz, medical student Joy Kwon and radiologist Dr. Nick Barker \u2014 discuss medical equipment amid the chaos of the trauma center. In addition to the show\u2019s core ensemble, The Pitt fills over 250 roles in one season. \u201cBackground artists are equally as important because they are the fibrous texture that populates the set, informing the entire experience,\u201d says Ruscio.<\/p>\n![\"Production](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Nina-Ruscio_2000-768x1024.jpg\")
While technical skills like architecture are useful for a career in production design, Ruscio credits her success to an relentless curiosity about the world around her. \u201cI\u2019m a constant student every minute of the day,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n![\"Casting](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sandrich-Gelfond_Emmys_The-Pitt_2560-1024x585.jpg\")
From left: The Pitt casting assistant Emma Johnson, casting directors Cathy Sandrich Gelfond and Erica Berger, and associate casting director Seth Caskey. Sandrich Gelfond and Berger won an Emmy for Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series during the 77th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. <\/p>\n