Neil Diamond / Noah Wyle On ‘The Pitt’

Summary

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Fresh Air (NPR)

Episode: Neil Diamond / Noah Wyle On ‘The Pitt’
Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Dave Davies (for this episode), with Terry Gross
Guests: Neil Diamond, Noah Wyle

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Overview

This episode of Fresh Air features two distinctly engaging interviews: first, a richly personal conversation with legendary singer-songwriter Neil Diamond, focusing on his songwriting origins, creative breakthroughs, and reflections on his songs’ cultural impact; and second, an in-depth discussion with actor Noah Wyle about his new HBO Max medical drama “The Pitt,” offering candid insights into the realities of portraying emergency medicine, the pressures on healthcare workers, and the craft of creating authentic drama.

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Section 1: Neil Diamond — The Craft and Legacy of a Pop Icon

Main Themes

• Neil Diamond’s evolution from staff songwriter to celebrated solo artist
• The creative genesis and staying power of his biggest hits
• Insights into songwriting for self versus others
• Reflections on his songs’ resonance in popular culture

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Songwriting Years and First Break

• Diamond recounts his trajectory from writing for publishers to forging a recording career.
  • “Solitary Man” was his first hit as a performer; written for himself rather than with another artist in mind.
  • Describes his demo session with songwriting icons Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry:
    Quote:

    “I went and made the demo and hired Ellie as a backup singer… She liked something about what I was doing… She brought me to her husband, Jeff…and so we started a working relationship.” (04:29)

On “Solitary Man” and Emotional Authenticity

• Diamond reflects on the emotion and “urgency” listeners perceive in his voice and songwriting—even if he wasn’t consciously cultivating it.
  • Quote:

    “I never felt that there was an urgency, a sense of drama, sense of yearning, lots of things, but not urgency. But you may be very right about this. I’m going to listen again now.” (07:36)

Writing for Others and the Anatomy of the Brill Building Era

• Diamond acknowledges he was never “good enough” to write convincingly in another singer’s distinct voice, often being asked to create sound-alikes for existing hits.
  • Quote:

    “That’s probably why I spent eight years down there in Tin Pan Alley and had very little success. Nothing more really, than selling a song and taking a small advance for it to get me through the week.” (09:17)

The Monkees, “I’m a Believer,” and the Beatles’ Influence

• On how the Monkees’ success (“I’m a Believer,” “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You”) and the Beatles’ era opened doors for singer-songwriters:
  • Quote:

    “The Beatles made an enormous change, as did Bob Dylan. They brought the songwriter up to the front of the line... It had a devastating effect on the music publishing business... but it opened up many doors for people like me.” (11:40)

“Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” — From Teen Pop to Pulp Fiction

• Diamond wrote the song for his original teen-girl fanbase, later surprised and initially hesitant about its use in a dramatic overdose scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
  • Quote:

    “[The script] was way out there. It was, you know, beyond what I would turn down normally. And I did turn it down…my publisher said…‘You shouldn’t turn this down…let them do it.’ Which I did. And of course, I’ve never regretted it…” (14:16)

  • On seeing the scene:

    “I loved the movie. I was amazed by the movie…I only got a few pages of the script in which the song would be used…and it just seemed too strong for my own taste.” (15:27)

Writing “Sweet Caroline” — Hitmaking in a Hurry

• The song was written in a Memphis motel room the night before a session; Diamond emphasizes its unusual speed and easy singalong quality.
  • Quote:

    “It was one of the fastest songs I’ve ever written…But songs usually don’t come like that. There’s usually a lot of work and teeth gnashing and agony…” (18:23)

The Power of Singalong

• On why “Sweet Caroline” endures at events and bars:
  • “It’s fun and easy to sing with…I think that’s the bottom line as far as that song is concerned. It’s easy to sing. It’s fun. People like to sing it.” (19:21)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On moving from staff songwriter to artist:

  “Once I had a chart record of my own…I was a vocalist. And it was a whole different thing. I was writing for myself, so I had to really dig in and write as well as I possibly could.” (08:18)

• On letting go and trusting others with his music:

  “…it was a lesson that I learned. You know, see who else is working on it. See how serious they are. Don’t take it at face value and don’t take your prejudices into this kind of discussion.” (16:31)

Key Timestamps

• 04:03 – Diamond’s big break, connection with Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry
• 06:05 – Plays “Solitary Man” and discusses its origin
• 10:23 – On writing “I’m a Believer” for the Monkees
• 13:36 – “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” and its path to Pulp Fiction
• 18:23 – Story behind “Sweet Caroline”
• 19:41 – On the joy and universality of “Sweet Caroline” singalongs

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Section 2: Noah Wyle — Grit and Grace in “The Pitt”

Main Themes

• The making and authenticity of a new ER drama
• Trauma, empathy, and realism in modern medical TV
• COVID-19’s impact on healthcare workers and storytelling
• Crafting characters, hierarchy, and the experience of ensemble acting

Key Discussion Points & Insights

"The Pitt": Show Concept and Structure

• Wyle plays Dr. Michael Rabinovich, a senior attending physician in a big-city ER, grappling with burnout, trauma, and teaching.
• The show’s distinct structure: 15 episodes representing 15 consecutive hours—one entire day—in the ER.
  • Quote:

    “One of the differences between the two shows is that The Pitt is…the entire 15 episodes are one day in the life of this ER. There's an hour, essentially in real time.” (32:12)

Authentic Casting & Bootcamp Training

• Wyle reflects on casting new, international talent and preparing them with rigorous medical boot camps:
  • Quote:

    “We started with two weeks of medical boot camp for everybody, myself included…to bring everybody up to speed…” (32:57)

  • Hierarchical rehearsal mirrored the hospital’s structure; cast lunches were split by “residency” status to build authentic on-set relationships.

Real-Time Drama and Technical Authenticity

• Wyle discusses their commitment to medical realism—eschewing a soundtrack for “competency porn” and heightened tension through natural hospital soundscapes:
  • Quote:

    “By lifting the music out…we’re letting the sort of symphony of the sound of the procedures in the room be our cadence. And a lot of that is the technical jargon…” (28:06)

Trauma, Debriefing, and The Effects of Loss

• The series delves deeply into the psychological toll of trauma on physicians.
  • Key scene: Wyle’s character helps trainees process the death of a young child, mirroring rituals in real hospitals.
  • Quote:

    “The kids you’ll lose will linger. So what do you do? …I just need a safe place where I can put these feelings.” (41:27)

The Personal Cost of Medical Work

• Wyle shares a moving story about his mother (an OR nurse) re-experiencing decades-old grief after watching the show.
  • Quote:

    “...she said, ‘Noah, I can’t stop thinking about last week’s episode…’ and she finishes, and I said, my goodness, Mom, I was on a medical show for 15 years. You never told me that. And she said, well, that wasn’t real. I said, well, this one wasn’t either. And she said, but it felt real and it brought all that up for me.” (38:40)

COVID-19 and Modern Healthcare’s Pressures

• The inception of “The Pitt” grew from real-world feedback by ER doctors during the pandemic:
  • Quote:

    “…I think something's happening here. And if you ever want to make a show about what's happening here…even though we said we'd never do it again, I might be ready to volunteer.” (30:09)

Tensions in Public Health & Modern Medical Distrust

• The show addresses new realities since “ER”—distrust of doctors, resistance to masks/vaccination, and a shifting political landscape.
  • A fight in the waiting room erupts over a mask, “Fauci zombie” insults fly—true-to-life confrontations since the pandemic.
  • Quote:

    “We wanted…accuracy and realism…about the efficacy of masks in cutting down the transmission of…germs, which shouldn't be a political statement…And it's a great metaphor for…all the distrust that's been seeded between us and our doctors.” (43:15)

Grounding Stories in Place

• The show is rooted in Pittsburgh; references to local culture and a keen sense of realism are peppered throughout.
  • Quote:

    “I meant it as sort of a compliment...you guys were tough. They were tough. So I just thought that's almost an homage to Philly to say it's the tougher of the…” (45:27)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On returning to hospital drama after “ER”:

  “I think I spent 15 years...actively avoiding...what I thought was either hallowed ground or traveled road. And then finally I had an opportunity...and slipped that stethoscope around my neck and just felt right at home.” (31:12)

• On the weight of healthcare work:

  “You can watch the gradation of acceptance...walk through those five stages of grief with these characters.” (36:50)

Key Timestamps

• 23:05 – Wyle introduces role and the ensemble cast
• 25:26 – Real-time medical scene emphasizing emergency room intensity
• 28:06 – Approach to sound and authenticity (“no soundtrack”)
• 32:12 – Differences from “ER,” format of “The Pitt”
• 41:27 – Debrief after a child patient’s death
• 43:15 – On mask-wearing, public health politics in the ER
• 45:27 – “This ain’t Philly. It’s a hospital.”—local flavor and city rivalries

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Conclusion

This episode deftly weaves together musical and medical storytelling, offering listeners a masterclass in both songwriting and drama. Neil Diamond’s spirit of self-discovery and musical intuition is matched by Noah Wyle’s portrayal of resilience and realism in medicine. Both interviews impart not only the “how” but more importantly, the “why” behind their creative and human-driven work, leaving listeners with a rich appreciation for the personal stakes involved in making art—whether in the studio, on stage, or in the ER.

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For those seeking to understand the evolution of both American popular music and television drama—as well as the personal costs and triumphs behind each—this episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[Terry Gross]

This message comes from Carvana, who makes car selling easy. Enter your license plate or vin, get a real offer in minutes and have.

[Noah Wylie]

Your car picked up from your door.

[Neil Diamond]

Sell your car the easy way with Carvana.

[Terry Gross]

Pickup fee may apply.

[Dave Davies]

This is FRESH air. I'm Dave Davies. In the new film Song Sung Blue, hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson play a couple who form a Neil diamond tribute band.

[Noah Wylie]

You know, Neil is special, and I.

[Neil Diamond]

Just want everyone to get that feeling.

[Dave Davies]

I get when I listen to America and Forever Blue Jeans.

[Noah Wylie]

We care about sweet, sweet Caroline.

[Dave Davies]

Yeah, but I'm never gonna be the real McCoy. I mean, I don't really look like Neil.

[Noah Wylie]

I don't even really sound like Neil.

[Neil Diamond]

I gotta be Neil, but I've just.

[Dave Davies]

Gotta be me, too.

[Noah Wylie]

Yeah, you don't want to be a Neil diamond impersonator.

[Dave Davies]

You want to be a Neil diamond interpreter.

[Neil Diamond]

I was looking for the right way.

[Noah Wylie]

To say it, and you just came.

[Neil Diamond]

Right out and said, a Neil diamond interpreter.

[Dave Davies]

Today we're going to listen to our interview with Neil diamond. In the 1960s, he started out writing songs for a music publishing company, hoping someone would record them. He wrote the Monkees hit I'm a Believer. But it was diamond himself who made most of his own songs famous. Here's a.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

Melinda was mine till the time that I found her holding Jim Lovin him When sue came along loved me strong that's what I thought Me and Sue if I die too don't know that I will but until I can find me the girls in the stadium Won't play games behind me But I'll be what I am A solid to remember she got the wet Movement Jerry. She got the wet improvement she got the wet she got the wet proven then I saw her face Now I'm a believer Not a dream got my mind I'm in love and I'm a believer I couldn't leave her if I Trapped hand touching hands Reaching out Touching me Touching you Sweet Caroline Good times never seem so good on the boats and on the planes they coming to America Never looking back again they coming to America More song sung blue Everybody knows one song sung blue.

[Dave Davies]

As a lot of Neil Diamond's contemporaries fell off the charts, he moved from teen pop to adult pop. He recorded a duet with Barbra Streisand, had hits from his remake of the Jazz Singer, and dressed in spangles for his sold out concerts. In 2022, his life in music became the subject of the hit Broadway musical A Beautiful Noise. Neil diamond is now 84 years old. Listen to Terry's interview with him, recorded in 2005.

[Terry Gross]

I think it's fair to say your first big break, correct me if I'm wrong, was when you had recorded a demo and the songwriters, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry heard the demo and they really liked you. And some of their songs are to do Run Run, Chapel of Love, Be.

[Neil Diamond]

My Baby, Be My Baby.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So how did they hear you?

[Neil Diamond]

I was making a demo. Usually when you sold a song to a publisher, they would allow you to go in and make your own demo, which was invaluable experience to me. But I went and made the demo and hired Ellie as a backup singer, which she did despite the fact that she was having huge hits. She liked to sing in the studios with the other girls. And so I hired her for this session, and she liked something about what I was doing, my writing or my singing. And she brought me to her husband, Jeff, and he liked something about what I was doing. I don't know if he liked the writing or the singing, but one liked one and the other one liked the other. So we started a working relationship. We were both working for the same music publisher, and I kind of got let go by that music publisher, and I asked Jeff and Ellie if they were interested in producing me.

[Terry Gross]

In the first session that you did with them, you recorded Solitary Man. Did you like the idea of horns on this?

[Neil Diamond]

I like the idea of anything on those records. I was just thrilled to be there.

[Terry Gross]

Well, let's hear Solitary man, which I have to say, I think it's really a terrific recording.

[Neil Diamond]

Thank you.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. So. Okay, let's hear it. This is your first hit. Yes.

[Neil Diamond]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

That you recorded yourself? Yeah. Okay.

[Neil Diamond]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Okay. So this is Neil Diamond. Solitary Man.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

Melinda was mine Till the time that I found her Holding Jim Loving him Then sue came along Loved me strong that's what I thought.

[Neil Diamond]

Me and sue.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

That too. Don't know that I will but until I can find me good girls this day won't play games behind me But I'll be what I am A solid to remember Solitary man.

[Terry Gross]

That's Neil Diamond. Now, did you write this song for yourself or for somebody else?

[Neil Diamond]

No, I wrote this for myself. I had a contract with Jeff and Ellie, and I started to focus in on just what I wanted to do. And so Solitary, Solitary man was written for me. And for the first time, sessions that I was to do with Jeff and.

[Terry Gross]

Ellie, there's this, like, urgency in the song and in the way you sing it. And I think of you in a way as kind of specializing in some of your work in that urgency, Is that something you've been conscious of, that you think really like works especially well for you as a songwriter and as a singer?

[Neil Diamond]

Well, I can tell you that I wasn't conscious of it until you just mentioned it. I've never thought of my songs having that sense of urgency, but I, you know, I'll listen again, and maybe as an objective observer, you can pick up on that stuff. But I never felt that there was an urgency, a sense of drama, sense of yearning, lots of things, but not urgency. But you may be very right about this. I'm going to listen again now.

[Terry Gross]

So how did Solitary Men change your idea of what you wanted from your musical life?

[Neil Diamond]

Once I had a chart record of my own, I was no longer a kid knocking around on the streets. I was now. Well, we didn't call them artists at that time. We called them vocalists. But I was a vocalist. And it was a whole different thing. I was writing for myself, so I had to really dig in and write as well as I possibly could. And I have to say, before that time, I don't know if I was doing that. I was just writing and writing and writing. Maybe just to get an advance from a publisher, but there was not a lot of me in those songs. And Solitary man was the first of a long line of me songs. My experience songs.

[Terry Gross]

When you were working as a songwriter for publishers, writing for other people, were you writing for specific people? Were you writing with specific singers in mind?

[Neil Diamond]

Well, that's usually how it went back then. Although I was never a good enough writer to kind of write for some other singer to understand what they did best, the keys, the kind of song. Usually we're told that so and so is coming up for a session in three weeks, and they need a song of this type. And it was usually as close as possible to the song that they had previously, which was a hit, if it was a hit and you had to write a kind of like a copy of that in a way, because that's the way it worked in those days. You have a hit record and your next record sounds should sound as much like the hit record as you can make it. But I wasn't very good at it. That's probably why I spent eight years down there in Tympan Alley and had very little success. Nothing more really, than selling a song and taking a small advance for it to get me through the week.

[Terry Gross]

Now, the Monkees did a couple of your songs. I'm a believer in a little bit Me a little Bit you did you write those with them in mind or for yourself? I'm trying to think of what the chronology was like. You start recording in what, like 67, 66. 66, okay. And what year are the Monkees like is that after that?

[Neil Diamond]

I think 67. Something like that. I had recorded a couple of songs including Solitary man and Cherry Cherry, which was a big hit. And because of that hit, the people who were producing the Monkees called and said, we like Cherry Cherry. Do you have any other songs? I said, well, I don't have anything like Cherry Cherry, but I have an album coming out soon and I'll send it over and take your pick.

[Terry Gross]

You know, it's funny, the common wisdom goes, when telling the story of, like, songwriters from the Brill Building and the Beatles, is that the Beatles changed everything. After the Beatles band started writing their own songs, it drove out the professional songwriters. But of course, the Monkees are a band that's, you know, a kind of fabricated band copying the Beatles. And you have this tremendous success writing for them. And in that sense, like the Beatles success inadvertently really helped you as a songwriter.

[Neil Diamond]

Oh, yeah, no question about it. But it was not only in the sense of the Monkees doing a couple of songs, it was in the sense that the doors began to open for songwriters who were able to sing. And I just happened to be one of them who'd been knocking around the streets for years and now suddenly was getting a new and fresh listening to my work. So the Beatles made an enormous change, as did Bob Dylan. They brought the songwriter up to up to the front of the line and said, you know, you guys do it. And it had a devastating effect on the music publishing business in Tin Pan Alley. But it opened up many doors for people like me.

[Terry Gross]

My guest is Neil Diamond. Here's his version of I'm a Believer.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

That thought love was only true and fairy tale meant for someone else but not for me Love was out to get me like the way it seems Disappointed I don't get all my dreams Then I saw her face Now I'm a believer Not a dream got my mind I'm in love and I'm a believer I couldn't leave her if I.

[Terry Gross]

Tried I want to ask you about another of your songs. And this is also an earlier song. It's Girl, you'll Be a Woman Soon. And the Urge Overkill version of this was used by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction. Can you tell us the story behind the song?

[Neil Diamond]

Behind the song was pretty basic. I was playing mostly to teenagers Teenage Girls when I first started. And so I. Going through that period, I just wrote a song for the. For the audience to do, for me to do in the show and for the audience, which was, as I say, Teenage Girls and Girl youl Be A Woman soon was something I wrote for them and recorded it myself.

[Terry Gross]

How did you find out that Quentin Tarantino was going to use a version of this song for Pulp Fiction?

[Neil Diamond]

Well, first they have to request the right to use it. But I got a request and part of a script to be used in this movie called Pulp Fiction. And I've always held to a very tenuous line as to what I wanted my songs to be used as. And I wouldn't let them be used in cigarette commercials or alcohol commercials. And this, the script that I read was way out there. It was, you know, beyond what I would turn down normally. And I did turn it down. I heard almost immediately from my publisher who said, you know, you shouldn't turn this down. This guy's a tremendous director and you should just do it and let them do it. Which I did. And of course, I've never regretted it because it was an entirely different way of seeing that song. But that's basically how it happened.

[Terry Gross]

So what did you think of the movie?

[Neil Diamond]

Oh, I loved the movie. I was amazed by the movie. I've seen it.

[Terry Gross]

How come you loved the movie but didn't love the script? What was different, actually seeing it?

[Neil Diamond]

Well, I didn't get the whole script. I only got a few pages of the script in which the song would be used. And I don't know if you remember the scene, but she was. Uma Thurman was very heavily into a coke binge and she went unconscious and had to be taken for some, quote, unquote, special treatment. And, you know, it just seemed too strong for. For my own taste. And I turned it down on that basis.

[Terry Gross]

Well, here's a song you wrote to please your teenage fans, and now it's going to be used in an overdose scene, in a drug overdose scene. Not what you had in mind?

[Neil Diamond]

Not at all. But I would have reacted the same to any of the other songs I had written.

[Terry Gross]

But it was very effective in the film.

[Neil Diamond]

It was very effective. And it was a lesson that I learned. You know, see who else is working on it. See how serious they are. Don't take it at face value and don't take your prejudices into this kind of discussion.

[Terry Gross]

Why don't we hear your version of the song here it is.

[Neil Diamond]

Great girl.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

You'll be a Woman soon Love so much can't count all the ways I died for your girl and all they can say is he's not your kind. I never get tired of putting it down. And I never know when I come around But I'm gonna find. Don't let them make up your mind. Don't you know, girl, you'll be a woman soon.

[Terry Gross]

Please.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

Come take my hand. You'll be a woman soon.

[Neil Diamond]

Soon.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

You'Ll need a man. I've been misunderstood for all of my life. But when the same girl just cuts like a knife, the boy's no good.

[Terry Gross]

I want to ask you about another song that you wrote and recorded. A big hit for you, Sweet Caroline, which is now played at Red Sox games at Fenway Park. And maybe you know the story of why. Of why that is. But let's start with the song itself. Is there a story behind the writing of the song?

[Neil Diamond]

Yeah, I think so. I was heading down to Memphis for my first recording session down there. And there were some producers I wanted to work with. And I only had two songs written. And in those days, a session was three hours. And you usually had three songs that you recorded. So the night before the session at some motel in Memphis, I knocked out this song, Sweet Caroline. It was one of the fastest songs I've ever written. And we recorded it the next day. And it became one of my biggest songs, if not the biggest song. But songs usually don't come like that. There's usually a lot of work and teeth gnashing and agony and torment over any of these songs. But that one just popped out, and there it was, and here it is now. Still, people can sing it.

[Terry Gross]

It's also sung a lot in bars.

[Neil Diamond]

Well, the fact is that it's fun and easy to sing with. And I think that that's the bottom line as far as that song is concerned. It's easy to sing. It's fun. People like to sing it. And that's why it's popular in bars, because anybody can sing it, no matter how many drinks you've had.

[Terry Gross]

Well, Neil diamond, thank you very much for talking with us.

[Neil Diamond]

My pleasure, Terry.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

Where it began I can't begin to know when but then I know it's growing strong. Wasn't the spring and spring became the summer who'd have believed you'd come along? Hand touching hands reaching out Touching me Touching you Sweet Caroline Good times never seem so good.

[Dave Davies]

One of Neil Diamond's biggest hits. Terry Gross spoke with Neil diamond in 2005. The new film's song sung blue stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as performers in a diamond tribute band. Coming up, Noah Wiley on his HBO Max series, the Pit. I'm Dave Davies and This is FRESH AIR.

[Noah Wylie]

This week on Up first, the Trump administration and Venezuela.

[Dave Davies]

Can the U.S. run a foreign government? As the president says, they simply may not adopt the policies that Trump would like to see.

[Neil Diamond]

It's a complex, fast moving story.

[Noah Wylie]

As always. We're working overnight and every night so.

[Dave Davies]

You can start each morning knowing what matters. Listen up first on the NPR app.

[Neil Diamond]

Or wherever you get podcasts.

[Dave Davies]

NPR's podcast, Trump's terms, is your source for same day updates on big news about the Trump administration, Short, focused episodes.

[Noah Wylie]

One topic at a time, about five minutes or so.

[Dave Davies]

We carry out reporting from across all of NPR's coverage. So you are always getting the biggest, most urgent stories. Listen to Trump's Terms on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next guest, Noah Wylie, is an executive producer, writer, star and director of the HBO Max series the Pit, which gives viewers an inside look at the chaos and drama of a big city hospital. Emergency room. Season two premiered last night. The Pit earned critical praise for its engaging storylines, intelligent dialogue and well drawn characters. And it's gained a following of real life emergency room doctors who praised the accuracy of the show's depiction of medical conditions and treatments. Noah Wylie is a veteran of stage, screen and television who's no stranger to lab coats and hospital scrubs. He played a medical student and later a physician on the hit NBC TV series ER for most of its 15 seasons, where he earned nominations for three Golden Globe and five Primetime Emmy Awards. He starred in the TNT series Falling Skies and the Librarians and appeared in many movies. He's also been active in the organization's Human Rights Watch and Doctors of the World. We're going to listen to some of my interview with him recorded last April when season one of the Pit was airing. Noah Wiley, welcome to FRESH air.

[Noah Wylie]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Dave Davies]

You know, I mentioned in the introduction that your character maybe I didn't. He's the senior attending physician in this emergency room. And you know, in addition to treating patients, you're really running this big organization and it's a teaching hospital. So while you're an experienced pro, there are all these others who are less experienced residents in training and medical students on their first day, I believe in their rotations as this thing begins. So there's a lot going on here. Tell us just a little bit more about your character, Dr. Robbie.

[Noah Wylie]

I play Dr. Michael Rabinovich, who is several decades into his medical career and probably should have retired a couple years ago. But like many practitioners post Covid, felt pressed into service and out of the increasing need. And because he's really good at what he does and he really cares about the people he works with, he's kept working and it's taken a toll on him. He's seen a lot and done a lot and he's been able to compartmentalize a lot of that. And today we are embedded with him for his entire shift. On the day that he's no longer able to do that right.

[Dave Davies]

And things he runs into some rough seas. You know, he's surrounded by these young medical students. And I don't think I recognize any of the actors in this, but they are just so terrific.

[Noah Wylie]

The casting process was laborious. We were looking for people with theater backgrounds, people who were really adept at memorizing lots and lots of dialogue, very good with props, who could do all sorts of things while doing a procedure and walking backwards. And we had to cast the show internationally. We found actors in Australia, we found them in England, we found them on the east coast, west coast. But we found tremendous performers. So while you haven't seen them before, I knew early on that I was going to be a Trojan horse that was going to introduce all this young talent to your living room.

[Dave Davies]

And they're great. Well, let's listen to a scene and get a little bit of a flavor of the show. This scene is typical of many where a new patient is being wheeled in by paramedics from an ambulance. And we hear them barking out critical facts as they're rolling them in. And then you hear this. 1, 2, 3. As the team coordinates lifting the patient from the ambulance stretcher to a hospital gurney. And then the team gets to work. Let's listen.

[Noah Wylie]

23 year old Ben Kemper.

[Dave Davies]

No helmet, got doors, riding an E scooter.

[Neil Diamond]

Neck versus handlebar.

[Noah Wylie]

Then face planted to the pavement.

[Dave Davies]

Obvious facial fractures, but alert and oriented with good vitals.

[Neil Diamond]

Here we go.

[Dave Davies]

One, two, three. How we doing, Ben? One. Back in my throat.

[Neil Diamond]

That's probably from the nosebleed.

[Terry Gross]

Short.

[Noah Wylie]

Rapid Rhino, please.

[Terry Gross]

Tacky at 120.

[Noah Wylie]

Pulse ox borderline at 90.

[Neil Diamond]

We'll buy it.

[Noah Wylie]

15 liters for now.

[Terry Gross]

Neck contusion, larynx shifted to the right.

[Dave Davies]

No crepitance.

[Neil Diamond]

More of morphine.

[Dave Davies]

I'm gonna stick something in your nose.

[Neil Diamond]

To stop the bleeding.

[Terry Gross]

No hemotympanum.

[Neil Diamond]

Inflate the balloon.

[Dave Davies]

How about now, Ben?

[Neil Diamond]

Better.

[Terry Gross]

What's up?

[Noah Wylie]

Good vitals.

[Neil Diamond]

A and O.

[Dave Davies]

Let's have a look. And that's a scene from the Pit where our guest, Noah Wylie is a star. Awfully intense.

[Noah Wylie]

Tough to get the impact of that clip on radio, but that was a LeFort 3 floating face fracture, which when you put your fingers on somebody's teeth and you pull their teeth forward, their entire face comes with it. It's rather dramatic. You don't see it very often in an emergency room.

[Dave Davies]

Right. And you don't see it on the radio, but it is dramatic there. But just the audio, I mean, you can hear the intensity of it. And there's all this medical jargon flying by. I mean, did you know all this stuff before you got into this series?

[Noah Wylie]

I knew quite a bit of it. You know, after 15 years on a medical show, you pick up certain things through osmosis. The specifics of what each patient needs when they come in is a total mystery to. Thankfully, we've got a great team of technical advisors on the writing staff and on the set. Our secret weapon is a man named Dr. Joe Sacks, who is a board certified emergency room physician. He was a technical advisor and a writer on er and he is with us again, and he is meticulous in his attention to detail and he basically does those trauma scenes. He will sort of present what the appropriate medicine and procedures are, what each person in the room's role is, given their hierarchy in the hospital, and even weighing in a little bit on emotionally how they may be feeling given the circumstances and stakes of the case.

[Dave Davies]

Yeah. You know, I watched this series with my wife, who spent 25 years as a primary care physician. She gets almost all of it. I get maybe a third of it, but I don't feel like I'm missing much. But I did wonder. You were a writer on the show. I know. I mean, do you think about maybe letting up on some of that or is getting all that in critical to the authenticity of it?

[Noah Wylie]

One of the decisions we made early on was to not employ any soundtrack in the show. And by lifting the music out, we've sort of removed the artifice that says you're watching a TV show and we need you to feel sad here because we're playing strings or exciting here because we're using percussion. We're letting the sort of symphony of the sound of the procedures in the room be our cadence. And a lot of that is the technical jargon that the doctors are employing. It becomes the soundtrack in the scene. And the intensity with which they're delivering those lines becomes the emotional equivalent of a score. And it's really less important the audience understands and more important that the audience sees that the doctors know what they're talking about. It's competency porn.

[Dave Davies]

Well, the other thing that's interesting about those scenes is everybody's moving and all of these different actors are barking these observations and commands, and they've got to be careful not to talk over each other so much that you can't hear it. So there's got to be crisply delivered and well mic'd. I imagine this took some pretty meticulous rehearsal.

[Noah Wylie]

The rehearsals are extensive, especially for the medical scenes. We often rehearse those 24 hours in advance of shooting them, so we can come in with it pretty well in our muscles already and then figure out how we want to photograph it on the day we shoot. In terms of how the dialogue is overlapped, that's intentional because that's real. You know, you've got four or five people in the room, all who are working simultaneously, trying to do their own thing and record their own thing in the medical record. So a lot of times the sound is really cacophonous.

[Dave Davies]

The effect is impressive. You know, the origins of this show are interesting. As I understand it, during the pandemic, you began hearing from medical providers and first responders who were dealing with all this high stakes, stressful demand on them. Is that right?

[Noah Wylie]

Yeah, yeah. I was, you know, watching the news, but I was also getting a lot of that was coming from first responders. And some of it was, you know, hey, Carter, we could use you out here.

[Dave Davies]

Carter was the character you played on ehr, right?

[Noah Wylie]

He was, yeah, right. And a lot of them were sort of thanking me for inspiring him to go into a career in medicine, but also telling me how hard it was at that moment. And I was sort of overwhelmed being a lightning rod for that at that time. And so I pivoted a lot of that mail to John Wells, who executive produced ER and said, outside of the birth of my kids, this is probably the best thing I ever do with my life, because we inspired a generation of practitioners to go into the work that is saving lives right now. And then I went on to say that I think something's happening here. And if you ever want to make a show about what's happening here, even though we said we'd never do it again, I might be ready to volunteer. And a couple years later, after we saw how this broke down over socioeconomic lines and racial lines and geographic lines, there was a show to be told Here.

[Dave Davies]

What was it like for you to put on scrubs and a lab coat and get back in a hospital setting again after all those years?

[Noah Wylie]

It was wonderful. I think I spent 15 years avoiding, actively avoiding, walking down what I thought was either hallowed ground or traveled road. And then finally I had an opportunity to come back and was excited about it and slipped that stethoscope around my neck and just felt right at home.

[Dave Davies]

But now you have a beard. I mean, you were a callow young kid when you started that show, and then you were eventually an attending physician. Now you're a guy with a lot of miles on you.

[Noah Wylie]

Yes, yes. Ironically, I'm 20 years older than Anthony Edwards was playing the attending 30 years ago, so that makes me sound ancient.

[Dave Davies]

Right, right. You know, I should just mention, it's been widely reported that there is some litigation around this. The estate of Michael Crichton, who was the creator of er, has sued, alleging that the Pit is an unauthorized reboot of the program. I mean, one of the differences between the two shows is that the pit is. The entire 15 episodes are one day in the life of this ER. There's an hour, essentially in real time. An hour per episode is one hour of the day. And so you get to see these things develop just over a day. So that's a real distinction.

[Noah Wylie]

Very much so. Different city, different character. We had started down a reboot road, and then it became an impossibility. And so we. We pivoted as far away from it as we could to come up with a new medical show. I stand by. We have.

[Dave Davies]

You're the lead attending in this emergency room, and in real life, you're also an executive producer and a writer and an experienced actor among a cast which includes a lot of, you know, much younger actors. Were you kind of a coach on the set in the same way you're a medical coach for these people, learning.

[Noah Wylie]

The craft in a way. You know, it's interesting. We started with two weeks of medical boot camp for everybody, myself included, to kick some rust off and to re. Familiarize myself with how much has changed in healthcare, but also to bring everybody up to speed with where they needed to be by the time we rolled the cameras. And John Wells, who directed the pilot episode and executive produced, said to me, don't be too nice to him. And then he sort of segregated us, where I was off by myself and I ate lunch by myself, and then the R4s ate together. The R2s and 3s ate together.

[Dave Davies]

That's fourth year residents, second year residents.

[Noah Wylie]

Yeah, second year residents, fourth year residents, and the med students all ate together by themselves and they all sat behind me. And then when we did our training rotations, the med students learned what med students know, and the R2s learned R2 stuff and so forth. And I kind of walked around and did a little bit of everything. But it set a kind of hierarchical tone and differentiated us enough as performers that when we started working, it carried over. So whether it was a byproduct of the rehearsal or the fact that I am considerably older than the rest of the cast or that I've played a doctor before, yes, there was a lot of meta energy where everybody was sort of playing the dynamics that were present and just sort of heightening them a little bit.

[Dave Davies]

Noah Wiley recorded last year talking about the HBO Max series the Pit. Its second season premiered last night. We'll hear more after this short break. This is Fresh air. You know, we listened to a clip earlier that was an intense moment in which a patient is being wheeled in and the staff is immediately getting to work on him. There are a lot of quieter moments in this series where you are dealing with a patient or a relative and have some tough issues to communicate. This is one I want to play now where a man and a woman who are a brother and sister, played here by Rebecca Tilney and Mackenzie Astin, are at the hospital with their elderly father who has pneumonia. The father has, you know, left instructions. He does not want to be intubated. And they're talking to you as Dr. Rabi about it. Dr. Rabi speaks first. Let's listen.

[Noah Wylie]

Either his pneumonia is getting worse or his heart couldn't handle the fluids that we gave him to treat the sepsis. His lungs are filling up with fluid.

[Terry Gross]

Can't you take the fluid away?

[Noah Wylie]

Not without his blood pressure crashing with very bad consequences. So let's just hope the BiPAP works. And if it doesn't, then I would need to know your decision about using a breathing machine. We're still talking about it. Well, we know he expressed his wishes in writing. Do not intubate.

[Terry Gross]

We're thinking try it for a week.

[Noah Wylie]

That would be a very painful week. He wouldn't get a lot of rest with all the monitors and all the blood tests. He might need to be sedated. He might need to be restrained because he'd be in an unfamiliar place with a very uncomfortable tube down his throat, and he wouldn't really know what was happening. Elderly patients can often develop psychosis.

[Dave Davies]

But he might get better or it might get Worse. What would you do?

[Noah Wylie]

I really can't answer that for you. This is your father. That's your decision to make. I can guarantee you that we will keep him as comfortable as possible if a natural death is what you choose.

[Terry Gross]

But he's not your father, and he.

[Dave Davies]

Can recover from this.

[Noah Wylie]

What my sister means is that we're still deciding the best thing to do. Well, the sooner you decide, the better. I'm really sorry. I wish there was more that I could do. I'm not sure that he has that much time left.

[Dave Davies]

And that is our guest, Noah Wylie, in a scene from the Pit, which is now streaming on Max. There are a lot of these scenes where you're dealing with loved ones who just can't accept what's happening. There's another one, two parents who just can't accept the fact that their son, who came in with a fentanyl overdose, is brain dead. You want to just say a little bit about preparing for these scenes.

[Noah Wylie]

Well, first of all, it's really gratifying to be able to play a storyline over several episodes so that you can watch the gradation of acceptance and watch the different methods and strategies that practitioners use to help families prepare. And sometimes, when you only have an hour to tell a story that has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, that feels like extremely hurried work and oftentimes feels disingenuous or inauthentic to the process. So when you can have these things kind of arc over several hours, it feels like you can kind of walk through those five stages of grief with these characters. When we prepare for them, there's a lot of conversation about tone and about specificity of point of view. In this particular instance, we have a brother and a sister who have very different reasons for wanting to keep their father alive that. That have an emotional core to them that gets revealed in subsequent episodes. So you want everybody in these scenes to have a real point of view that's legitimate to who they are. And then when those three truths come out and they are in conflict with each other, as they often are, that makes for good drama.

[Dave Davies]

The other thing that's happening in this story with your character is, you know, I mentioned before that this series, kind of the germ of it began during COVID when you were hearing from first responders and the crises they were facing. And. And in the show, your character, Dr. Robbie, during COVID lost a mentor, another doctor. And I believe this day that is the focus of the series is the anniversary of his death. Right. I think we learned that early on. And then you want to just talk a bit about how his flashbacks, his ptsd, if you will, is portrayed in the show.

[Noah Wylie]

This is the five year anniversary of him taking his mentor off life support, which during the height of COVID he had to be put on. And then ultimately in our backstory, he had to be taken off the life support to give it to another patient who had a better chance of survival. And then everybody died. And it was a traumatic memory that my character has just not really ever dealt with. He's moved on and today is a day he probably should have stayed home, but today he went to work. And as a result, he's just getting triggered by different things. And those memories begin to come up with greater and greater frequency and greater and greater poignancy to the point where he becomes totally debilitated by them. And the aggregate of all of that grief and all of that suppressed emotion just overwhelms him. And it was interesting. My mother was an orthopedic nurse and an operating room nurse. She worked for 20 years at a hospital in Hollywood. And she came over for breakfast last Sunday and. And she came into the kitchen and within five seconds of being there, she said, you know, Noah, I can't stop thinking about last week's episode in that scene where you were listing all the people who died. And I think I had my own PTSD reaction. I suddenly remembered everybody. I remembered the four year old, I remembered the pregnant woman with the baby. I remembered the gang member that I tried to keep alive by squeezing two units of blood. And she's just listing these names and she's getting teary eyed and. And she finishes. And I said, my goodness, Mom, I was on a medical show for 15 years. You never told me that. And she said, well, that wasn't real. I said, well, this one wasn't either. And she said, but it felt real and it brought all that up for me. Isn't that funny? And so here I am in my own kitchen having this lovely sort of cathartic and catalytic moment with my mother. And I asked her, I said, the four year old, when was that? And she said, oh, I think your brother was probably about four at the time. I think that's why it hit me. And then I thought to myself, so you came home and you made us dinner that night and you helped us with our homework.

[Neil Diamond]

Wow.

[Dave Davies]

And she's carried that painful memory for all these years.

[Noah Wylie]

That's 35 years that's been in there. Came out last Sunday.

[Dave Davies]

Noah Wylie recorded last year talking about the HBO Max series the Pit. Its second season premiered last night. We'll hear more after this short break. This is FRESH air. The next clip I wanted to play is a painful moment in the emergency room where a young child has died. And in this case, she. She drowned, I think, after jumping into a swimming pool to try and save her sister who survived, right?

[Noah Wylie]

Yes.

[Dave Davies]

Right. So after the child dies, you gather the medical students and residents into a room for a moment and let's listen to what you say.

[Noah Wylie]

That's as hard as it gets. We do these debriefs to try to give a sense of closure, meaning to difficult cases so that they won't linger. But trust me, the kids you'll lose will linger. So what do you do? I did my residency at Big Charity in New Orleans. And day one, I got a kid, five year old boy, accidentally shot by his brother playing with dad's gun, worried he was gonna get in trouble right up until he coded and died. Then I asked myself, like, what do I do with this kid? Where do I put this feeling? And I found myself walking all night. I was walking and walking, walking. And I found myself back at the gates of Big Charity Cemetery. And I'm looking at all those mausoleums and those crypts and I'm thinking to myself, okay, that's what I need. I just need a safe place where I can put these feelings in patients throwing punches in chairs. Okay, everybody, let's get to back. Just remember, the employee assistance program is available, as are Kiara and myself if anybody needs to talk.

[Dave Davies]

What an interruption. You wrote this scene, didn't you? This was your episode, right?

[Noah Wylie]

Yeah, that was one of the two episodes I wrote.

[Dave Davies]

Your speech about how to overcome a loss like this is interrupted. It's because they say patients are throwing chairs and fists and it turns out to be two women who are fighting because one has in the waiting room, I guess one woman has asked another woman to mask her coughing child and the other mom calls her a fauci zombie and slugs her. This is one of the many topical issues that you get into in this series which weren't even around in er. I mean, people listened to their doctors. They didn't, you know, resist vaccines and masks.

[Noah Wylie]

Then, you know, we had a bit of a mandate. Let's not be too biased. You know, the fastest way to get people to turn the channel is if they feel like we're preaching to them or we're being dogmatic. So what we wanted was accuracy and realism. We wanted to just be presentational with what emergency rooms look like. I wrote that episode and I couldn't resist just taking one stance, which I thought was fairly benign, which is to talk about the efficacy of masks in cutting down the transmission of disease and germs, which shouldn't be a political statement and shouldn't even be called into question. And yet it has been the last couple of years. And it's a great sort of metaphor for. For all the distrust that's been seeded between us and our doctors. And it's really, I think, incredibly unfortunate. And I don't know if by the time this airs how much worse the situation is going to get, but there were so 20% of the NIH was just laid off. We're going to be seeing the tail of that decision making for years and years and years to come.

[Dave Davies]

Yeah. And you do have an episode later about a measles outbreak.

[Noah Wylie]

Well, that was. What was so funny is we wrote these episodes almost a year ago. And so when we did a storyline about neurocystic circosis, we had no idea that RFK Jr. Was going to be diagnosed with neurocystic circosis. Nor did we think, when we did a measles storyline, that it was going to be as topical as it is right now. Nine months ago, it wasn't. But it wasn't hard to look into your crystal ball and see what was going to happen if vaccine rates continued to drop. And we live with an international community that travels all the time like we are as vulnerable as the next incoming flight.

[Dave Davies]

You know, one of the things that I like about the show is that it is set in a real place. It's in Pittsburgh and we're in Philadelphia. I've traveled around Pennsylvania a bit, and if you listen carefully, you can hear a lot of Pittsburgh stuff. I mean, Primonti sandwiches, which is a thing there. And when the charge nurse breaks up this fight between the two women, there's this moment where she says, what are you doing? What are you doing? Where do you think you are? This ain't Philly. It's a hospital. I really appreciated that.

[Noah Wylie]

Oh, I'm glad I've gotten some mail from Philly that didn't appreciate it. I meant it as sort of a compliment because when I grew up, I grew up, I'm from la and you know, when the Lakers would play the Sixers or when I would see Rocky or the Broad street bullies, like, you guys were tough. They were tough.

[Dave Davies]

Yes.

[Noah Wylie]

So I just thought that's almost an homage to Philly to say it's the tougher of the.

[Dave Davies]

Well. Noah Wiley, thank you so much for speaking with us. It's been fun.

[Noah Wylie]

Oh, this has been a pleasure. Thank you.

[Dave Davies]

Noah Wylie recorded last year. He's an executive producer, writer, director and star of the HBO Max series the Pit. Season two premiered last night. On Monday's show, we'll speak with best selling author Liz Moore. The settings of her novels range from a troubled Philadelphia neighborhood to the apartment of a 450 pound shut in to a remote children's camp where a child disappears. She'll talk about creating her characters and seeing where they take the story she's writing. I hope you can join us.

[Song Lyrics / Music]

To.

[Dave Davies]

Keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram prfreshair. You can subscribe to our YouTube [e-mail] this is FRESH AIR. We're rolling out new videos with in studio guests, behind the scenes shorts and iconic interviews from our archive. FRESH air's executive producers are Danny Miller and Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorok. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper for Terry Gross and Tonya Moseley. I'm Dave David.