Add “The Pitt” lead actor Noah Wyle to the growing ranks of Pittsburgh appreciators — his own local connections even played a role in setting the series in the ‘Burgh.
The HBO Max medical drama takes place at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency department. Now in its second season, it has met wide critical acclaim and won a number of awards, including two at Sunday night’s Golden Globes. The season two shooting schedule included three days in Pittsburgh, especially around Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side.
After winning the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a TV Series-Drama on Sunday night, Wyle was asked by Axios what he’d learned about Pittsburgh since filming the show, and he had nothing but kind words.
Wyle noted that the location for the show “was chosen not randomly.” Executive producer John Wells asked Wyle “where we should set it, and I picked Pittsburgh because I know he went to college there, so he might like it. Also, my parents met there, my mother was born there.”
Wells, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama in 1979, also produced the series “ER,” in which Wyle had a starring role.
“Great city, tremendous city. They’ve opened their arms to us and have now been extremely generous about letting us film anywhere we want. Hospitals in Pittsburgh are some of the gold standard in the nation in terms of care, especially Children’s Hospital. It’s one of the most incredible facilities I’ve ever been to.”
During several days of filming exterior shots at Allegheny General Hospital last September, Wyle and his co-star, Patrick Ball, paid a visit to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in Lawrenceville.
Heaping on more praise, Wyle said, “It’s a great city in terms of a variety of socioeconomic class and ethnic breakdown. Because it’s surrounded by farmland, you get a combination of rural and urban cases. In the last few years, it’s really remade itself over into a medical hub, so it seemed appropriate.
“It’s just a great American city. It hasn’t been overshot, it’s not LA, Chicago, New York, Miami, but representative of the country as a whole,” he added.
