The Pitt cast shares 8 behind-the-scenes details from poker nights, Patrick Ball's 'sad story', and fan art

"There's a wonderful thing that happens with fanfiction now, which is that people are writing their own show which is fantastic, and I’m glad they’re doing it, but it’s not how we approach writing the shows," said John Wells – to which Noah Wyle, unprompted, revealed that he is "sent a lot of art of Gerran [Howell as Dr Whittaker] and me".

When asked, he added: "Sometimes we’re cowboys, and sometimes we’re in a hammock, and sometimes we’re taking a nap or having a sandwich". He then joked: "But it doesn’t make us want to write a lot more scenes for Gerran and me!"

Gerran added that the fan art has become "a signifier of how much [the show is] resonating with people" and that he is shown it "sometimes against my will".

When asked about the support on set for the emotional and physical stories they are telling, Patrick joked that Katherine had become his personal therapist and that the cast had a weekly poker game, sharing: "This show has clarified for me the importance of community."

"I feel like we do a really good job of lifting each other up and I know this has been a lot of life all at once for me – for many of us – and I think having people around like Shawn, and Katherine, and Noah holding my hand has been a real gift," he said.

Season two will "drop you straight back into it as if nothing had happened and you’re really working out as an audience what’s going on between [everyone]," says Gerran, admitting "nobody’s holding your hand in season two and going, 'This is where the characters are, let’s give an expositional monologue to remind everyone.'"

"Especially for the Whitaker and Santos stuff: we know they’ve been [living] together for 10 months but you don’t necessarily see them interact straight away so that was really fun to play between me and Isa," he said.

Dr Langdon was a cocksure fourth-year resident doctor and the heir apparent to attending Dr Robby. But by the end of season one, his drug addiction had been discovered by intern Dr Santos, it emerged that he had been stealing benzodiazepines from patients, and his friendship with Dr Robby was destroyed when the pair threw their personal trauma at each other in the ambulance bay. 

It will therefore be a very different Langdon we meet in season two, one who is returning to the Pitt after 10 months of recovery. 

Langdon has "come to realize that needing to be the best and be the fastest may be a mask for a wound that he wasn’t necessarily ready to deal with," said Patrick. 

"He’s had to sit with that wound for the last 10 months and Langdon walking through the ER doors without the charm and confidence he had before is a very scary feeling for him," adding: "It's also a very scary feeling as an actor. And so that’s the journey that I think he’s on, and I’m on, and I hope it’s enough."

When asked where they found joy during filming, Fiona (Dr Cassie McKay) praised the "gallows humor" in the scripts that made them laugh, before Taylor (Dr Mel King) simply said: "Sad story."

As Fiona, Supriya, and Shabana (Victoria Javadi) laughed at the inside joke, Isa revealed the backstory.

"We had a scene recently where Langdon had to say, 'Oh, that’s a sad story,' and then explain the case. But for some reason, it sounded really funny to be like 'Sad story, so this girl…' and it became a thing where we couldn’t get through the take because Patrick just kept starting with 'sad story,' as he’s about to say the most traumatic thing you’ve ever heard," she shared.

She continued: "Medical professionals who we’ve talked to all say that you've got to have fun in the midst of it because you're seeing the most traumatic things so you have to have little joys and little laughs, and I think we find that as actors, too."

Supriya Ganesh won the role of Dr Samira Mohan, a third-year resident in season one, but revealed that the writers "made a lot of changes" to the character after they saw her audition tape.

"I think in the script she was originally 36, but when they saw my tape, the character made more sense, and so they aged her down to 29 for season one, and she's 30 in season two," she said.

The cast shoots over several months, but the season is only set on one day. That means that each morning, the crew checks in with the actors to remind them where their character is that day.

"We begin the day by asking, 'Where are we? When’s the last time [your character] ate? How long have you been up? How many times have you gotten to sit in the last 14 hours?' That’s an important part of the directorial and the performance, of just remembering where we are in that cycle," said John.

In season one, Dr Mel King (Taylor Dearden) shared with her colleagues that her sister Becca was autistic and they had moved to Pittsburgh because Mel found a facility that would support Becca's needs. But it was clear Mel herself was also on the spectrum, and Taylor, who is AuADHD, revealed how it is common for siblings to often go undiagnosed: "It's still not something that Mel’s been diagnosed with. That’s something I’ve seen with friends, or if you have a sibling who’s more severely on a spectrum, the parents often don't even notice that their other child is also there, and so that’s how I see Mel."

She said of season two: "With a lot of Mel, it’s unmasking and seeing what that looks like."

Autism masking is the term used for when autistic people hide or suppress their natural traits to fit in with neurotypical society, using strategies like mimicking, forced eye contact, or trying to hide stimming.