“Think of it like Back to the Future.”
“Or possibly Titanic?”
In the “2:00 P.M.” episode of The Pitt, the usual chaos gets ramped up more than a few notches, when the hospital is forced to go completely analog with its computers at risk of a cyberattack. As Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) attempts to teach the team the old-school ways, Princess (Kristin Villanueva) steps in as charge nurse, as Dana (Katherine LaNasa) is still tending to her sexual assault patient, since her exam cannot be interrupted.
Luckily, Dr. Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) has a photographic memory, so she can recreate the patient board, but the team still has to figure how to work a fax machine and use ballpoint pens. This week’s patient load includes an exceedingly drunk college girl who’s bitten off her tongue, a woman dealing with sudden onset blindness, a man with “margarita burn” (aka a lime-crushing allergy) — and most notably, an overweight man with severe abdominal pain who needs a naseotracheal intubation, which triggers peak Dr. James Ogilvie insensitivity (Lucas Iverson).
Iverson, a Yale theater school graduate, joined the cast this season as the fourth-year medical student more concerned with showing off his medical knowledge than learning appropriate bedside manner. By the time Iverson booked the part, he had been circling The Pitt for well over a year — initially auditioning for the part of Dennis Whitaker (“I was told I just don’t look like a ‘Huckleberry,’” he recalls) before going back in “here and there” for patient and medic roles. “It just never quite clicked,” Iverson tells Gold Derby. “And then this one came along. How lucky to have this be the part?”
For Iverson, whose only TV credit was a minor guest role on Gilded Age, says landing The Pitt “changed [his] life — not only in ways of material and career, but it further defined me as an artist. It gave me the ability to view myself differently.” He had a vision for his future (and a timeline), but Iverson couldn’t have imagined it playing out like this, one and a half years after finishing grad school. “Did I think that I would ever work on something like this? And never did I think it would come so soon.” We spoke with Iverson — who shares exclusive behind-the-scenes photos below — about being one of the new kids on The Pitt, the biggest misconceptions people have of Ogilvie and what to expect from the second half of Season 2.
Gold Derby: You auditioned several times for The Pitt. Why was the character of Ogilvie the one that stuck? Do you have certain traits that helped with your interpretation of the character?
Lucas Iverson: We’re not all that alike. We’re more dissimilar than we are similar, but I have a soft spot for Ogilvie. There’s a process of negotiation for every actor when they begin the process of a new character, where you’re figuring out who belongs to what: which is me, which is him and where do we overlap? Part of that overlap is in ambition and a really big appetite for growth, knowledge and the desire to create a really beautiful life for ourselves. We’re similar there, but in the way that we go about it or the things that he represents in the story, I’m so much the opposite. You really have to work your empathy muscles to play somebody like Ogilvie.
Ogilvie has been established as “the gunner.” He’s overly ambitious and likes to show off his medical prowess, especially when he’s in the presence of doctors, nurses and other medical students. There’s been a lot of online discussion about your character and whether he’s likable or not.
I’m really relieved that it has sparked as much discourse as it has, and kind of shocked! What I can tell you is I hated him for a long time. I would get the scripts and I would understand in theory what it was. For the first few episodes, I remember feeling that I was missing some key component of him — that I understood how he was but not necessarily all of why he was. Eventually I got a better picture of why Ogilvie is in the story that he represents and I think that that’s a really current conversation politically and topical in our world. Then I had sympathy and that opened my heart to him.
Can you speak more specifically about when that turning point was for you?
It was just after the midpoint of the season. I emailed [R.] Scott [Gemill], the showrunner — who’s a genius and so generous with his time with us — a question about where all these lessons go. Ogilvie is a literal learner; he would have all these big events that he takes a lesson from and then he goes back to trying to impress. Initially, I was like, oh, he’s not learning. But I was like, that can’t be right. Otherwise, he’s not really a person if they go through this degree of experience and not be affected by it. It’s one day, right? He’s bound by the confines of how much a person can grow in the course of one day. He doesn’t want to show that this is affecting him. He’s actually quite a softie. He’s really, really sensitive. He experiences a lot of self-loathing. He’s a perfectionist. He holds himself to an impossible standard and everything that to somebody else would appear to be a lesson, to him is like a personal failure: “I should have known this thing already.”
What is the biggest misconception about Ogilvie?
I thought that he would be disliked. I’m surprised by how much he is disliked. I felt like the part was not quite big enough to stir up as much as he did, but I’m honored that it has. That’s a testament to the writers. My worry is this, that people are too on board the meme of hating Ogilvie to the point where should substantial change come, their heart would be closed to it for him. That’s my concern going on in the back of my head.
He has interesting dynamics with other characters on The Pitt. Firstly, can you break down his relationship with Whitaker?
Whitaker is Ogilvie’s saving grace. Here’s this person who’s one year above and I think Ogilvie’s like, oh, we basically know the same amount, I’m going to treat you as a peer. In many ways, it sometimes feels like as much as Whitaker could teach him, he could teach Whitaker. He thinks it’s an act of generosity. I don’t think he fully is able to register the impact that his oversharing can have on people. But it’s not always to put Whitaker under the bus or anything like that. It’s more like, look, I have this answer and I want to contribute.
Ogilvie certainly has trouble reading the cues in the room.
He has a hard time seeing that. He’s so concerned about getting all the puppy chow in the puppy bowl that he has a hard time reading when he’s stepping on somebody’s toes.
He and Javadi also have this interesting back and forth that’s been brewing.
Ogilvie sees Javadi as a proverbial moth to the flame. Javadi is so bright and shiny. She is well-known and beloved in this emergency department, and he recognizes her ferocious intelligence — both admires her for it and is afraid of it. They’re both competing for a residency spot at PTMC [Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center]. So as much admiration as he has, at the end of the day, if you are dipping into his future, he’s going to try and make his life into something beautiful for himself. Sometimes that comes up as competition.
Where is Ogilvie going in the second half of the season?
By now, people can maybe track what the arc of this day is looking like. I think Ogilvie is representative of a certain ideology in the world of you are responsible for the state of your own life. A need for control, both to protect himself and I think he unfairly puts that equally on the patients and sometimes judges them for that. But he’s somebody who is driven in that same way and [feels he] should succeed in the pit. And then the day starts to go not according to plan for him. If you’re watching that pattern, I’d say keep paying attention.
What has this experience been like stepping into a show that has been embraced so widely?
Day 1 was so scary! We weren’t supposed to do my first scene that day. I was going to be in the background on Day 1, but we move fast on The Pitt and so we’re at lunch, I get a call that [the scene] is actually in an hour. But that’s the nature of the beast. The Pitt is now a well-oiled machine and being able to join it as the new kid on the block with no real TV or on-camera experience was the biggest honor — and humbling, gratifying and so intimidating. It’s been rewarding to have been part of something that has meant so much to so many people. It’s a definition of purpose I hadn’t considered possible before.
Was there a storyline or a moment from the show that grabbed you before you were officially part of the cast?
The moment I knew I was a soul match for this show was when I was watching Season 1 and there was the moment where a brother and sister are trying to figure out how they could possibly say goodbye [to their father]. In the episode that Noah wrote, he introduces the Hawaiian, [Ho’oponopono-inspired] four things you can say to somebody to ease saying goodbye: “Thank you,” “I forgive you,” “Please forgive me” and “I love you.” As soon as I heard that, I thought, wow, that’s the level of poetic realness that surrounds us everyday and to see it manifest so keenly and astutely, this television show was like a breath of magic.
Is there a scene or episode in Season 2 that you’re proudest of?
There are so many. There’s so many on-camera and there are so many off-camera. My favorite scene isn’t out yet. I can’t talk about it! It was profound and moving, and I was grateful when it was written. I was like, wow, that’s a really stunning piece of writing and I’m happy I was able to be a part of it.
You’re just at the beginning of your career. Do you feel like The Pitt has opened doors for you in terms of what you feel you’re capable of doing on a personal and a professional level?
Here’s a secret: When I left grad school, I thought I would never work in film and TV. I had all these reasons that I would tell myself, like, oh, well, your face looks like this and people want something that looks like this. To have this happen has forced me to reevaluate. I have a hard time giving any good credit to myself and I give everything to luck — not to say that this isn’t luck because it is so lucky — but I’ve repeatedly gotten so lucky that at some point I think I have to look at myself and be like, when are you going to own that? That you have a part of this too? I’m not there yet, but the question’s being asked.
Do you have dream projects or shows you’d like to pop into?
Oh my god, so many! Pluribus is fantastic. I’d love to do that in the second season. I had long dreamed about The Bear. I have some stuff that I’m dreaming up too, but I have to keep that close to the chest. I’m settling on an idea that I love, but we’ll see when the time is right for that.
Behind-the-Scenes Photos
The poop laser
“When we were doing the scene where Ogilvie gets covered in sh-t [in Episode 5], there was a laser site and it said ‘poop laser.’ Somebody had labeled it ‘poop laser.’ They’re like, ‘OK, stand there.’ And I stood and then they were putting the laser dot like I’m about to get sniped on. [Laughs] They wanted sniper accuracy and they got it. It felt like waiting to get shot, you know?”
One of the first mornings as Ogilvie
“It was just the craziest feeling to get there and get dressed everyday and then go to hair and makeup and do the whole routine. And I made sure to come back and carve out some time for myself before we started the day because of how intense it was, because of how nervous I was. So those little private moments where everything — with the sun coming up over the Warner Bros. lot — was beautiful.”
Trailer buddies
“Irene [Choi, who plays fourth-year medical student Joy,] and Laëtitia [Hollard, who plays nurse Emma Nolan,] were frequently my neighbors. Laëtitia took that great photo. Irene was coming out [of her trailer] and I was going in, and we just happened to line up and the sun was beautiful. Laëtitia was like, ‘Boom!’ Right after that, I took a photo of her taking a photo of us. It felt important to try and remember how much fun we had.”
Private jet crew
“The morning after the Emmys, we were flying to Pittsburgh to do our week of exteriors there. Noah [Wyle], Patrick [Ball] and I were the actors who had to shoot on that first day and because we were going early, they were like, ‘Okay, we won’t make you guys fly commercial, some people are already taking a private jet.’ I’m sure Noah and Patrick were already invited. I was lucky! Somebody picked me up and brought me to the airport and I got to be on a private jet for the first and probably only time in my life. That was surreal.”
Booked on set
“There’s a ‘no phones’ rule, so I cleared through so many great books. Noah’s a really big bookworm and it turned out we have similar tastes and overlaps [with] authors that we really like. So as much as I was reading, I was also nerding out with the people who liked what I liked, and it was inspiring and creatively fulfilling. It’s good actor fuel.”