The Pitt’s Shawn Hatosy Loved Abbot at First Sight (of the Blood Bag)

Spoilers follow for the first season of The Pitt through finale episode “9:00 P.M.,” which debuted on Max on April 10. 

Shawn Hatosy has been playing sensitive, aggrieved, morally complicated badasses for a long time: a conflicted football player in the ’90s cult classic The Faculty, the dangerous eldest son of a powerful crime family in TNT’s Animal Kingdom, a no-nonsense street cop grappling with his new partner’s naïveté in Southland. Max medical drama The Pitt gives Hatosy a different kind of outlet for all that established intensity. As ER attending physician Dr. Jack Abbot, Hatosy is as focused and mischievous as ever. But it’s a little bit of a relief, Hatosy says, finally playing a character who is not as hard-nosed and hair-triggered as the guys he’s accustomed to embodying.

“I’m not as eloquent or as intelligent as Jack Abbot,” laughs Hatosy. “But his attributes and his personality are more like mine than anyone I’ve ever played, and there’s something really comforting and freeing about that discovery. He’s stripped down, there’s no façade. He’s just got the scruff and his go bag, and a quiet confidence that comes from knowing exactly what he’s doing.”

Abbot came to Hatosy through his relationship with The Pitt’s executive producer John Wells; the two previously worked together on ER, Southland, Animal Kingdom, and Rescue HI-Surf. In premiere episode “7:00 A.M.,” Abbot is introduced peering over the edge of the PTMC’s roof, wondering if today’s the day he’s going to jump. By finale episode “9:00 P.M.,” the combat veteran has taken charge in the ER as a roguish, outside-the-box thinker who guides residents and medical students through tricky procedures to treat dozens of gunshot-wound patients and calms down the increasingly unmoored Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle). By the time the two are back on the roof, it’s Abbot comforting Robby and reassuring him that their work on this shift, and every other, is worthwhile. Their friendship is a stabilizing force amid all the tumult of The Pitt, and it’s made Abbot a fan favorite.

“I’ve played a lot of characters, and none have been universally liked. I read the comments, and you can see that people will find things not to like,” Hatosy says. “I’m not saying Abbot isn’t flawed. But I think his flaws are human and relatable, and despite them — or maybe because of them — people respect him. They trust him. They want him in the room when everything is failing.”

I’ve seen a lot of social-media posts praising the fact that during “6:00 P.M.,” the first mass-casualty-event episode, Abbot is giving blood with a blood bag taped to his leg. How much did you know about Abbot’s military history?
I’m pretty sure [episode writer] Joe Sachs said that was based on a real combat experience he read about. It’s really important to find something to love about every character you play. Even when you play the bad guy, you have to figure out some way in. With Abbot, it was pretty easy — the blood bag, when I read it, I just knew I loved him and I understood him. He knows his purpose. That was it. I was all in. When we were first talking about me joining, Scott Gemmill sent me a little bit of Abbot’s history. I really appreciated that. I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to medics yet, but I’ve been watching documentaries. Code Black was one. I was nervous at first, because my perception of what an ER doctor or attending physician is is shaped by what I’ve seen on television. What I saw Code Black, these guys are working-class. They’re get-their-hands-dirty kind of guys, and I thought, Well, I can do that. We start the show with Abbot on the roof. He’s clearly got something buried that he’s dealing with. Compared to what Dr. Robby is going through, it is a perfect dynamic and balance. When things go wrong for Robby, he has somebody there who is also capable of leading, but is also somebody that Dr. Robby can lean on.

That roof scene is really a reversal of how we opened the season, and you’re now the person comforting and reassuring Robby. What went into filming that scene? 
I have so much to say. [Laughs.] We shoot the show in chronological order, except for the exteriors, because they were done in Pittsburgh. I had only worked on the first day of shooting, which was sometime in July 2024. Then we went to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh in September to shoot the whole season’s exteriors, meaning my first roof scene was done there, and then literally one of the last scenes in the show is done there, the scene between Noah and I. I had only read the first episode, and now I’m getting a scene that is dealing with the very last episode, which I don’t have much context for. You’re trying to do the mental math. They gave us as much information as they knew about what happened at the mass-casualty event, but we’re sort of flying blind. That’s not something that we haven’t experienced before working in television. It happens.

The scene was directed by John, and there was just something very powerful about it, at least for me. Both Noah and I came up in the world of John Wells, who has been a mentor for many years, so to be sharing that experience with Noah and John on the roof — Noah’s performance was just so raw and beautiful. We spent a lot of time on it, which is not something we normally do when working with John. But we really, really took the time to shoot it in a lot of different ways.

Within two days, you do the premiere scene and the finale scene. Did you think about the ways to distinguish Abbot in that length of time? 
There’s a question that Abbot presents in that first scene, where he’s not sure why he keeps coming back to this job. That moment is crystallized for him in episode 15, based on the events from episode 12 on, the mass-casualty event. Because it is comforting knowing what your purpose is, and for Abbot, that’s it.

What I like so much about that roof sequence is you have this line: “All you can do is focus on the medicine. The medicine is the only thing that can save the patient and your sanity.” That really felt like the thesis of the show. I’m wondering if it felt like an extra responsibility, having that little chunk of dialogue. 
Now it does! [Laughs.] Scott, who wrote the episode, is really good at taking us to the heavy-handed moments, getting us there, and then finding a way to lighten it up really quickly with some sort of quip, which that scene also does. I just love him for that. Every time I think, We’re going to get too dark or deep, he’ll smack you in the face with some one-liner or a piece of character that makes you feel light.

This is the same episode with the fork through the patient’s nose, which is such a great sight gag. 
All the doctors and the writers would come in with these things that happened that they wanted; they put them on the board. The fork stayed up there until the very end, and somebody was like, “We need to put that in now; otherwise, we’re gonna run out of time.” I just love that.

Your character is revealed in the final minutes of this episode to have an amputated leg. Did you adjust your physicality for Abbot once you learned about that? 
That is a big surprise to some of the new characters joining us, and more importantly, it’s a surprise to the audience. That’s the point, right? It reminds us that the injury doesn’t define him. What defines him is his strength, his presence, his quiet command that he brings to every moment. They did let me know that that was going to be a thing, and so I asked, “Should there be a limp?” I studied what would go into that, and we felt that ultimately, that might not be the right choice. It was in my mind, though, like when he’s having to move quickly. But it’s amazing with prosthetics nowadays, how well people move around with them.

Part of the reason I asked is because I saw a post about the scene when Abbot comes to the hospital because he heard about the shooting. The scene is blocked in a way that suggests Robby recognizes your footsteps before he sees you, because he turns around and hugs you before you announce that you’re there … Are you laughing because this is such a random thing for people to be obsessed with? 
I actually love how deep people are going into the analysis. Certain things about character, without a ton of exposition, are so welcoming. You learn so much about Abbot from (a) “I was just listening to a police scanner,” and then (b) he shows up with a go bag. Those are two little minor sentences in a script, but they bridge so much exposition.

People really want a spinoff, The Pitt: Night Shift, and they really want Dr. Abbot to be the star. Would you do this? 
Oh, for sure. I’ve never experienced a better group creatively. I hated it when it ended. The camaraderie, it’s like an acting troupe or theater camp. We’re doing something that I’m very proud of. Would I love that? Yes, let’s do it! I don’t know what’s going to happen in season two; I have no idea. But, sure, let’s create The Pitt: Night Shift.

In the finale, Abbot says to Robby that there’s a DoorDash delivery person who will trek up to the roof. What do you think Abbot’s go-to delivery order is? 
Doesn’t he say the driver will bring beer if you add another $10? He’s definitely eating pizza up there. Pizza and beer.