JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Dr. Robby, Langdon, Santos and Nurse Dana - they are just a few of the characters who, since last year, have made up the cast of medical professionals on the HBO Max drama "The Pitt." Now, in its second season, new characters have joined the cast, and one of them is Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. Actress Sepideh Moafi plays the newest ER attending, and she fleshed out her character by speaking with several doctors, including Dr. Seema Jilani. She's a pediatrician who's worked in conflict zones like Gaza and Beirut. Both women join me now. Welcome.
SEPIDEH MOAFI: Thank you for having me. Thank you for having us.
SUMMERS: Sepideh, I want to start with you. For people unlike me who have - maybe haven't seen "The Pitt" yet, give us a brief description of Dr. Al-Hashimi.
MOAFI: Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi is brilliant. She's poised. She's tenacious. She's the new attending physician at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. And she's a physician who has equal parts intellect and empathy and is propelled by this Promethean drive to innovate and help improve patient-centered medicine.
SUMMERS: Dr. Jilani, I'll just note that we have spoken to you before. You did an interview with us about your work in a hospital in Gaza during the height of the war there. I wonder personally, what is it like to see a character on TV that reflects even a fraction of your own real-life experiences of being both a doctor in a hospital, as well as someone who's worked in conflict zones?
SEEMA JILANI: It's an extraordinarily validating experience to watch specifically a woman of color that is representing our viewpoint there. The way that Sepideh manages this character in all of the ways that we see her having to maintain totally brilliant, thoughtful, nuanced and composed while the world is going upside down around her, that's exactly the type of calm and composure I seek in these war zones. And I was in the Beirut blast - I was living in Beirut when I had to treat my own daughter who was severely injured in that blast. And then a few years later treating children of the same age in Gaza, it did bring home to me that I hadn't really seen that on screen until this particular portrayal of this physician - the choices that women are forced to make and then the judgment that they sustain on those choices, whereas men are typically not held to those standards. And so there's an incident where Dr. Hashimi - or a scene that strikes me is in a private bathroom and she's distressed.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE PITT")
MOAFI: (As Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi) Hi. This is Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. I'm a patient of Dr. Fairgrave's. I need to speak to him if he's on call. If he's not, I'll take his next available appointment. And please call me if he has a cancellation. Thank you.
JILANI: There are many a supply room and many a call room that I have quickly jumped into, sobbed, and then come back out and marched into the next patient's room to do a procedure.
SUMMERS: I have to say that was one of the scenes that I found most striking in this season. It was so intimate and so relatable. Sepideh, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that scene.
MOAFI: Well, the bathroom scene is kind of a springboard scene for something that we'll see in Episode 15. We'll see that resolved or fleshed out more fully in Episode 15. But as Dr. Jilani said, it's - as women we're expected to keep our feelings, our emotions zipped up because if we show any of it in public, then we'll be judged. We'll be harshly criticized. We'll be called hysterical or unfit to run, as Dr. Robby says, the ED, despite showing utter competence and professionalism.
And that's something that actually surprised me about this process. I mean, there were many things, but the number of women in medicine who shared their stories of gender inequality and the way that they were treated, especially women who are mothers, and the inability to sort of accommodate and understand what - how many things that as women we are juggling and managing and handling and still showing up so much better than many of our male counterparts (laughter). And so I'm glad that we got to layer some more of her personal life and her own personal backstory and struggles into this. And it'll be explored more fully in Episode 15. You'll understand why she got on the phone with her neurologist in that moment.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
JILANI: And I remember seeing that scene and also contrasting it with Dr. Robby's and thinking, oh, what a luxury Dr. Robby has.
MOAFI: Yeah.
JILANI: He has the luxury of showing his emotions. It must be nice and having that feeling of it must be nice to be able to be upset and curse at your colleagues because certainly, we're not afforded that privilege.
SUMMERS: No.
MOAFI: Absolutely. And one more point that Dr. Jilani brought up about a woman of color being in this role, the fact that Dr. Al-Hashimi is half Iranian, half Iraqi, and also American...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
MOAFI: ...That she carries these loaded identities that have been historically in conflict shaped by war and displacement, and that her own family has in certain ways been implicated in that history - it means that this work hits her in a different way and that she lives in emotional proximity to the places that she served. So she understands in her bones how the past continues to live inside of people and how a history of war and bombs and displacement can leave a biological and emotional imprint across generations.
SUMMERS: Yeah. I spend a fair amount of time reading some of the online commentary about "The Pitt," and there's a lot out there about your character. Dr. Al-Hashimi has not exactly been welcomed with open arms.
MOAFI: Yeah.
SUMMERS: So I wonder, does it surprise you that that's been the reaction, or what do you make of it? Or how much do you even take it in?
MOAFI: You know, I was kind of prepared for going into it because I knew that I was going to be this foil or in ways an antagonist to Dr. Robby, America's golden boy. I don't usually engage in the online chatter, but sometimes castmates will send me things that are funny. And what I'll see - what I find fascinating, actually, is the fact that people will make things up. They'll amp up the whole AI thing and be like, she wants to take over everything. She's cruel. She's this and that.
Although I have seen, especially after Episode 10, there has been a shift. She's earned the respect of much of the audience at this point, but the fact that it took even 10 episodes when you see this woman who is rigorous, who is committed, who is warm and generous, and just utterly competent, that we have this - a much harsher lens in how we judge her and her character than we do with any of the men, you know, certainly Dr. Langdon, certainly Dr. Whitaker, certainly Dr. Robby.
But I think it's interesting, and I think this is the power of storytelling. This is the power of television in this day. It's being able to, with a show like this, have 15 hours to get to know these characters in a way that I think is really beautiful because it makes us question our own biases and interrogate our own judgments as we get to know the dimensionality of a human being.
SUMMERS: We've been speaking with actor Sepideh Moafi and Dr. Seema Jilani about Season 2 of "The Pitt." The season finale drops next Thursday. Thanks to both of you.
JILANI: Thank you.
MOAFI: Thank you so much.
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