Will Any 'ER' Stars Appear in 'The Pitt' Season 2? Here's What Noah Wyle Says
So far, Noah Wyle is the only member of the ER main cast in The Pitt. Will we ever see George Clooney or Sherry Stringfield within the hospital's walls? Here's what Wyle himself thinks.
The Pitt looks like a continuation of the mid-1990s cult series ER. However, the setting is Pittsburgh instead of Chicago.
Instead of George Clooney and Julianna Margulies, patients are met by Noah Wyle, whose character is no longer the young, daring intern John Carter but an experienced emergency room doctor named Michael Robinavitch.
'The Pitt' Was Initially Conceived As an 'ER' Reboot
The similarity between these two projects is no coincidence – the creators of The Pitt initially wanted to reboot ER.
According to Wyle, he discussed the possibility of rebooting ER with producer John Wells and screenwriter R. Scott Gemmill during the pandemic.
Wyle expressed confidence that an ER reboot would satisfy fans. However, it would be difficult to assemble the original cast, and the team wanted to move forward into the 2020s, not return to 1993.
There's a Possibility 'ER' Stars Will Appear in 'The Pitt', But It Could Be Distracting, Wyle Says
It's no surprise that Noah Wyle, the star of both shows and executive producer of The Pitt, is now getting questions about whether any ER cast members will appear in his new project.
Much to the delight of fans of both shows, Wyle isn't ruling out the possibility. In an interview with Variety, he said:
“The success of this show has brought to our awareness that there's some really high-profile actors that would love to come on our show, and it's super tempting to want to go after them, but you run the risk of it being a little distracting.”
In addition to Noah Wyle, the ER main cast included George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, Eriq La Salle, Anthony Edwards, Laura Innes, and Sherry Stringfield. Fans would have been thrilled to see any of them within the walls of the Pittsburgh hospital.
Although Wyle said he didn't want to distract viewers with star cameos, he hinted that casting an actor with a "medical" background would be justified if a suitable role arose during the writing process:
“If there's a role that requires somebody that has some real gravitas, that requires bringing somebody that would have a frame of reference, that's really when it's fun to bring those people in.”
By the way, Noah Wyle isn't the only one who has appeared on both ER and The Pitt. For example, Katherine LaNasa, who played the fan-favorite charge nurse Dana in The Pitt, guest starred in ER in Season 9, Episode 4, "Walk Like a Man.”
