Filming of 'The Pitt' continues at Allegheny General Hospital

Noah Wyle wrapped filming in Pittsburgh after Wednesday’s first day of local production and was en route back to Los Angeles on Thursday. But filming continued around the exterior of Allegheny General Hospital for scenes in the upcoming second season of HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” which will stream in January.

“The Pitt” cast and crew arrived in Pittsburgh after winning multiple Emmy Awards Sunday night in Los Angeles, including trophies for best drama, best lead drama actor (Wyle) and best supporting drama actress (Katherine LaNasa).

“Whose bright idea was it to schedule this right after the Emmys?” said executive producer John Wells on Wednesday. “Oh, wait, I think it was mine.”

Coming to Pittsburgh after Sunday’s Emmy win offers fortuitous timing for a homecoming for Pittsburgh native and “Pitt” executive producer Michael Hissrich.

“We are very fortunate to work on this show,” Hissrich said. “It’s a great place to be with great people.”

Hissrich said any pressure for “The Pitt” team to top the show’s first season is self-imposed.

“Can we do that again?” he said. “We work really hard. … Some of us have been working together for decades, so we know that we have a high enough bar. But when you do something like we did in season one, it is daunting. We’re not one of the shows that’s trying to blow up bigger and to make it bigger and bigger and bigger. We just want to reach that same level again.”

During the three-day Pittsburgh shoot, which employs 150 local crew members and around 60 extras, “The Pitt” cast and crew will shoot scenes to insert in the first, seventh, 10th, 11th and 15th episodes of season two.

In a scene filmed Thursday afternoon at the East North Avenue entrance to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, played by AGH, Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) engaged in what appeared to be a heated conversation with a new character, James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson), before McKay jaywalks across East North Avenue with Ogilvie following quickly behind. A car almost hits him in the process. But it’s all movie magic: A stunt driver is at the wheel of the vehicle.

The scene gets filmed from multiple angles. At one point, two production personnel carry a 10-foot-by-10-foot white scrim just above the head of the camera operator, used to diffuse the sunlight so it’s not as harshly bright on the actors’ faces.

Each season, “The Pitt” follows the 15-hour workday of Dr. Robby Robinavitch (Wyle) and PTMC’s dedicated staff, which includes nurse Dana Evans (LaNasa), Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball), Dr. Samir Mohan (Supriya Ganesh), Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden), Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones), Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez), nurse Perla Alawi (Amielynn Abellera) and Nurse Jesse Van Horn (Ned Brower), who are all featured in scenes shot this week in Pittsburgh alongside season three newcomers, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), John Digby (Charles Baker) and Brenda Azurmedni (Cathryn Dylan Ortiz).

Between set-ups, executive producer Hissrich said Primanti Bros. “is always where I’m trying to sneak off to, except for my mom’s house, where I’m going for lunch tomorrow” in Forest Hills.

Hissrich said it’s been a good experience filming locally — “Everybody is so remarkably helpful, from the city to the state, everybody has been great” — and the biggest challenge is, literally, up in the air.

“I wish there were more direct flights from L.A. to Pittsburgh,” Hissrich said. “That is the honest to God truth. The biggest logistical issue we have is direct flights, getting people here without having to stop in Dallas or wherever.”

Hissrich said the Yinzer accent is something they try to work into the show as much as possible, but he points out the Pittsburgh accent is not universal, which may be part of why there wasn’t a lot of it in the first season.

“I don’t think that I have that particularly strong accent, and I grew up here,” he said. “It’s not everybody, and we certainly don’t want to portray it like everybody has it.”

When Wells spoke at CMU earlier this year, he was informed by an audience member that the annual furries convention, Anthrocon, happens over the July 4 weekend. Season two takes place July 4, 2026. Might a furry have a medical emergency in season two?

“I can neither confirm nor deny what’s coming,” teased Hissrich, who was born in Braddock and lived in Monroeville.

“The Pitt” scored generally high marks with real-life doctors in its first season, although some specialists complained their area of practice was not represented, including physician assistants.

“Yeah, I think there is (a PA in season two),” he said. “(I) defer to John (Wells) on the story points, but there are definitely some new titles.”

Dr. Bobby Kapur, chair of emergency medicine for Allegheny Health Network, called “The Pitt” “probably the most realistic medical drama in the last few decades, if ever.”

“Noah was here in February doing some interviews with us, and one of the things he remarked about was that there’s no soundtrack, which is, I think, remarkable,” Kapur said while he observed filming. “All you hear are the sounds of a real emergency department. Just the equipment, the monitors, the movement of the people, the concerns and the cries of the patients. It’s almost like you’re immersed in the department: You get that feel from the beginning.”

Pittsburgh mayoral candidate Corey O’Connor visited “The Pitt” set Thursday, and Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer welcomed the series back to Pittsburgh.

“It’s the hottest show on television, so we’re glad they’re here. We only wish they were here longer,” Keezer said. Aside from three days of filming in Pittsburgh, the other seven months of production occur in Burbank, Calif., primarily on stages at Warner Bros. Studios. “After this, we look forward to them returning for seasons three, four, five — however many they want to do.”

While many series have now been set and/or filmed in Pittsburgh, few have lasted beyond two seasons, as “The Pitt” is poised to do.

Paramount +’s “Mayor of Kingstown” has filmed three of its four seasons locally but seems likely to end with its fifth season, per star Jeremy Renner. ABC’s “Downward Dog,” CBS All Access’s “One Dollar,” Netflix’s “Archive 81,” AE’s “Those Who Kill” and Netflix’s “I Am Not Okay With This” each shot for a single season in Pittsburgh before they were canceled. “Outsiders” and “American Rust” eked out two seasons each.

Given the critical acclaim and audience interest, “The Pitt” will likely become the longest-running Pittsburgh-set series of the modern TV era, if not ever.

Back outside AGH, actress Johnna Leary is clad in brown scrubs for her role as a background actor. Her name badge, part of her costume, identifies her as D. Wesson, attending physician, and in larger letters, nurse. Of course, these details are too small to be seen on camera.

Leary, who plays the opera Viking queen in J. G. Wentworth TV commercials, lives in Wellsburg, W.Va., but is in rehearsal for “Off the Record XXV” (8 p.m. Oct. 16, Byham Theater) in Pittsburgh. She’s also acting in Apple TV+’s possibly titled “Parallax,” a Liev Schreiber-starring drama that’s also filming locally. And she’s acted in 200 Investigation Discovery series, filmed in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas, that recreate crimes.

“I’ve played everybody’s best friend who gets killed,” she said. “I never got to be the killer. I don’t have a killer face for that.”