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<\/p>\nAmielynn Abellera \u201904 is just as cool as you thought she\u2019d be. Zooming from her sunlit dining table, a fridge full of children\u2019s artwork behind her, she\u2019s the epitome of L.A.-chic in a black tank top and fringy bob. She\u2019s breezy and friendly, commiserating over the buzz of an electric leaf blower outside and genuinely thanking me for nearly every question.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not until we\u2019re wrapping our conversation an hour later that she mentions she\u2019s due at the studio the next day to continue filming season 3 of the hit HBO Max show \u201cThe Pitt.\u201d It\u2019s a grueling schedule, each episode shot chronologically and following a single hour of a brutal day-long shift in the emergency department (ED) at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. But sure, she\u2019d be more than happy to look for old photos of her college days at Santa Clara University. And, no, she can\u2019t spill any spoilers for the new season but really wishes she could. Oh, and here are a few takes of belting, \u201cGo Broncos!\u201d into the camera for good measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If only all of Hollywood was this chill.<\/p>\n
Of course, it makes a certain kind of sense. Anyone cast to play the steadfast, impossibly calm ED nurse Perlah Alawi would have to tap into their own innate confidence and warmth. And it doesn\u2019t hurt that Abellera has some experience with medicine. She grew up in a medical family\u2014her dad was a family practice physician; her mom was a nurse practitioner; various aunts, uncles, and cousins are physical therapists and dentists\u2014and for a long time intended to go to medical school herself. Playing Perlah as her first big television role feels like a full-circle moment for Abellera.<\/p>\n
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Kristin Villanueva and Amielynn Abellera play besties\/nurses Princess and Perlah, respectively, alongside Noah Wyle\u2019s Dr. Robby on \u201cThe Pitt.\u201d Photo by Warrick Page\/HBO Max.<\/p>\n
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But that\u2019s not to say the character and the actress are one and the same. \u201cI think she is so confident in her job, in her vocation. I think she knew she wanted to be a nurse. She knew she wanted to be in the ER,\u201d Abellera says of Perlah. \u201cShe jumps in every time there\u2019s a trauma and knows what she\u2019s doing, and she doesn\u2019t ever question herself.\u201d Abellera hasn\u2019t always known herself so well. \u201cI had a lot of questions as to what path I was going to take,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Stockton, Calif., to parents who immigrated from the Philippines, Abellera felt like medical school was a bit of a foregone conclusion. \u201cI was surrounded by people in the medical field \u2026 that was just what was talked about as a successful, respected career,\u201d Abellera says. Meanwhile, \u201cI was so passionate about the arts and theater, like in an obsessive way, but it was just never an option in my mind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abellera watched a lot of television and movies as a kid and harbored dreams of \u201cgetting out of Dodge\u201d and going far away to college. But she remembers being disoriented and feeling \u201ca lot of anxiety\u201d around \u201cwhat this next step of college was supposed to be.\u201d Shouldn\u2019t she feel more certain? More resolute that medicine was really her calling, as it was for so many in her family?<\/p>\n
Santa Clara was one of the last campuses she toured. \u201cI remember walking around campus and [it\u2019s like] I didn\u2019t know what I needed until I got to Santa Clara,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was something that was just so calming and settled and quiet. It\u2019s like I could finally hear my own thoughts and the space wasn\u2019t trying to sell itself to me.\u201d
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Abellera (middle) appeared in a production of \u201cCity of Angels\u201d while studying abroad in London in 2002. Photo courtesy Abellera.<\/p>\n
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Abellera majored in psychology and minored in psychobiology with plans to go to medical school. And though she was very focused on the science track, she kept finding herself auditioning for plays at least once a year. \u201cI was always going up to San Francisco to watch theater,\u201d she says. \u201cI would always go watch all the plays at Santa Clara. I had a lot of friends in the theater department. I was trying to live both lives.\u201d She\u2019d often daydream about becoming a doctor who also acted on the side\u2014because, you know, doctors notoriously have so much free time.<\/p>\n
Following graduation, Abellera spent a year working in AmeriCorps then got a job at Stanford University Hospital doing cancer research. She figured she\u2019d eventually get around to applying to medical school. Looking back now, she thinks she intuitively knew she didn\u2019t really want to become a doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the best thing for me, working in that [Stanford] hospital with the cream-of-the-crop research doctors of the world and seeing their passion for it, seeing their drive and their motivation,\u201d she says. Meanwhile, Abellera was living in San Francisco, taking Caltrain back and forth to Stanford, working all day alongside researchers \u201cgoing nuts\u201d for looking in microscopes and reading dense journal articles and all the things doctors go nuts for, then spending her nights and weekends auditioning and rehearsing for plays.
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Abellera graduated from Santa Clara in 2004 with plans to attend medical school. Photo courtesy Abellera.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd I thought, I\u2019m never going to go nuts for that [research] stuff. \u2026 I\u2019m going nuts for doing this play for absolutely no money in some podunk black box theater in the Tenderloin,\u201d she remembers. Ultimately she realized, acting \u201cis what I need to be doing\u2013this is where I\u2019m going to thrive, and this is what I\u2019m going to be good at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Passion was the missing link. \u201cI would\u2019ve been a fine doctor,\u201d Abellera says. \u201cBut when I want to do something right, I want to be so sure of it and so passionate about it.\u201d So instead of med school, she got her master of fine arts in acting at University of Southern California.<\/p>\n
Today, she\u2019s enjoying getting a taste of what might\u2019ve been by putting on scrubs every day, memorizing dialogue full of complex medical jargon, and acting as a nurse in medically accurate ER procedures and surgeries\u2014\u201cThe Pitt\u201d has board-certified emergency physicians and former healthcare workers on its writing and advisory staffs. The show is resonating so much with viewers, she thinks, because it highlights people who are passionate about their jobs. And who are just really, really good at them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can relate to that, watching the show or anything where someone is an expert at what they do and they\u2019re passionate about it,\u201d Abellera says. \u201cI love the competency aspect of it, but I also love how it shows that these experts are humans with flaws and also need care.\u201d<\/p>\n
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