Supriya Ganesh knew she was going to end up in scrubs somehow, but even she couldn’t have predicted what fate had in store. After coming to the United States to study neurology at Columbia University, they went on to take the MCATs, where their scores were so good that they became a tutor. But you can’t avoid passion, and acting continued to call her.
“I’d start off in a bio lab, and then in the evening, I’d be taping an audition for some indie movie,” Supriya told Cosmopolitan via Zoom.
All of a sudden, the script had landed on their desk. It was a new medical show for HBO taking place in the emergency room of a Pittsburgh hospital. And while they’ve auditioned for plenty of other ones before, this one felt more real. The series would end up becoming The Pitt, the critically acclaimed and publicly beloved drama that became an instant hit for the network thanks to constant word of mouth and a fan base that became absolutely obsessed as soon as it aired. And the center of it all is Supriya’s very own Dr. Samira Mohan.
Despite the very chaotic world of The Pitt, which follows a group of emergency room doctors throughout one 15-hour shift, there’s moments of stillness and heart as Dr. Mohan decides to do what everyone around her is telling her not to do: stop and listen. Her method allows her to discover more about her patients and give them the proper care they need, something that feels not only against the very nature of an emergency room but also the U.S. medical system and even life as a whole. But, just like Dr. Mohan, Supriya is now taking the time to let it all settle in.
Chatting with Cosmopolitan, Supriya reveals what it’s like to be stuck in the weird time bubble of the show, how Samira’s personality changes this season, and why she’s down to do a horror next.
For those who might still be surprised to hear, you studied neurology and even took the MCATs. It’s kind of wild.
It’s something I thought I was going to do. I came to the U.S., I went to college to study neuroscience, became pre-med, and, while I was there, I started auditioning. I always wanted to act and that started taking off. It was really exciting how fast things were happening. But then COVID and the strikes happened. I felt like I had made a mistake in not going down this path, so I still had a couple things I needed to wrap up to start the process of going to medical school, one of them being the MCATs. I took it over the strike, and I was looking into finishing this one course I had left and doing some internships when the script for The Pitt came on my desk. It’s been a wild, wild ride from there.
Life has a funny way of bringing you somewhere but in the most unexpected ways.
I remember how much anxiety I felt about even liking neuroscience and the pre-med stuff when I also liked acting. I felt so torn, and it was genuinely jarring how many things I would fit into a day. I’d start off in a bio lab, and then in the evening, I’d be taping an audition for some indie movie. Looking back, I just kind of go, Oh, things were working out exactly the way they’re supposed to. I started having that feeling the second I got the script for The Pitt. It’s almost like my life became so hazy, like I wasn’t in control anymore, and something bigger than me was happening.
It’s very interesting because we’re often told to pick one or the other: logic vs. creative. And logic is always seen as the safer choice.
Totally! I wish people would understand that it doesn’t need to be either/or. I remember a very defining experience I had while I was studying neuroscience actually was when I went to this exhibition of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s drawings of neurons that he first discovered. If you look at those scientific drawings, they look like art. He’s drawing this thing that looks so fibrous and beautiful and multifaceted. I remember just looking at that and thinking, Science is art, and art is science. All of these things are meshed into each other, and we’re just creating these artificial distinctions. I started carrying that thought forward when I would play doctors. Where can I bring in the knowledge that I have? How can I utilize this as an artist?
It’s one of those things where something bigger than you is happening and you have to also trust that people will see your artistry for what it is. I auditioned for so many doctors in my career. I’m a South Asian woman. There’s always a role for us in those types of shows, so I read every script over the past three to four years. It just never really clicked. It’s interesting, the first time they saw that I was making an artistic/scientific choice in my audition tape was the choices I made with Samira, when she’d pause, when she’d be slow. They have people on that team who have that background and they went, Oh, I see what she’s doing. As an artist, sometimes you really need to trust that people will see what is interesting and special about you.
Did you know what a big success The Pitt was going to be ahead of time? I mean, it is an HBO series, but it’s also different for them.
I think I was one of the people that had a gut feeling that it would be. A lot of people were concerned about the ways in which it could go wrong, which it absolutely could—it’s so medical. What if people were just like, I’m bored, I’m going to turn the TV off. It’s such a new cast. We have Noah Wyle, who’s leading the show and has his own built-in following, but most other people didn’t really have that. We were an underdog show in a lot of ways at HBO. I think people, myself included, really crave things that are real. I don’t want to turn the TV on and feel completely dissociated from what I’m watching. That’s what people really grabbed on to and it’s what I thought was special when I first read the script.
Dr. Mohan really feels like the heart of the show. Especially with how much time and consideration she takes with her patients.
My favorite thing about her is that she feels the most human. I get a lot of notes from people with some scientific or medical background being like, I was that person. And how could you not? It’s something every doctor struggles with and what's so human about her. Where she isn’t really perfect and she is struggling, and it’s something that really comes to the forefront at the end of the season for her. A lot of the choices she’s made and the ways in which she is awkward really come through right at the end where you’re like, That’s who this person is. I feel really grateful that I got to play her.
What are you excited for people to see this new season?
We use the July 4 backdrop as a great way to talk about America, what it means to be free in this country today, and the weird ironies of celebrating freedom at certain times. I’m really proud to be on a show that tackles these issues head on.
One thing about The Pitt that is super fascinating is that you’re playing this character for 15 episodes, but rather than following the characters for days or even months, you’re only with them for this one 15-hour shift.
We got a character bible from our showrunner, where it has this very well thought out character with a backstory. Every phase of their life was so detailed out. And then they were like, “Okay, now we only show, like, 5 percent of it.” That’s so scary as an actor, because I didn’t know if people would understand who she was. To our audience’s credit, they’re so tuned in and they really notice the most subtle things. So this process has also been a realization that you don’t need to make everything so explicit. People really got who Samira was when, at most, every episode there’s one line alluding to her personal life or lack thereof. I just think it’s so cool how much people are able to pick up despite the inherent challenge of only having these people for a day.
It’s similar to life where you meet your doctors for only a few hours at a time and you slowly pick things up about them throughout your visits.
That’s our show’s type of realism. I do hope one of the results of the show is that they humanize people in the medical community. Seeing a doctor go through their day and just the amount of stuff they have to deal with, I hope people realize there’s humans underneath those scrubs. I know how much work they’ve done to get there. These people are untouchable. They’re so smart and they’re so cool. You never know what they might be going through and how much they’ve had to push down in order to be here for you as a provider.
Then there’s a sort of shift this season as we see her interact with her mother who calls her throughout the season.
Samira is so nice with patients. She’s such an advocate. But that niceness is sort of reserved for her patients and fizzles out in her personal life. She’s friendly with her coworkers. She gets along with them. But the few people she’s personally close to, like her mom, she doesn’t really have a lot of patience for. Her mom has been single for many years and now she has a boyfriend and she wants companionship, but Samira’s empathy stops there. It’s been fun to play with and explore this version of her that’s almost like a little kid with her mom and how that comes up. It’s almost this teenage angst of hers that comes out.
What’s really special is also being able to speak Tamil on screen. Samira had a really close relationship with her dad, who passed when she was pretty young. I made the decision that she is South Indian like me and that she’s a bit more fluent in Tamil than I am. It was my mother tongue, but I’ve lost so much of it now. I think Tamil, for her, is a way that she feels connected with her dad, because that’s the language that they mainly all spoke to each other at home. It was really great to work with a coach and even just call my mom and be like, “Hey, how would you say this?” It’s been really great to rediscover that part of myself and and also just show that onscreen.
In other medical shows, you often see characters just speak English, when, in reality, there’s so many languages being spoken. We saw a bit of this with the first season and the Filipino nurses.
It really pushes against this archetype of who we think a doctor or a nurse is. Especially the Filipino nurses on our show. Kristin Villanueva and Amielynn Abellera do such a great job of playing them. For a really long time, up until somewhat recently, so many medical shows did not show Filipino nurses, even though they’re such a huge part of the medical community. It feels really great that we’re one of the many shows that are now showing what an integral part of the system they are.
Normally, there would only be one “token” character, but The Pitt is a lot more diverse.
I feel grateful, honestly. Listen, I love all my castmates. I get along with all of them. They’re so amazing. But it feels so special to have another South Asian woman on the show, just so I can have that support. It means everything. Even with Sepideh Moafi coming in this season, who plays Dr. Al-Hashimi, I’m so grateful that I get to have this community of amazing women of color around me. I can’t list three shows off the top of my head that have two South Asian women in them that aren’t related. It feels really special to be able to do that and explore the nuances of that. I don’t know how I could have gotten through all the life changes, all of everything without having Shabana Azeez on set to debrief with talk to. She’s so great!
I do need to ask: There’s a lot of conversations happening on how media tends to focus more on your white counterparts than the actors of color on the show. I was wondering what your thoughts and experiences were.
Look, the show is, like you said, really diverse. I think they spotlight a lot of the characters equally, but what people do outside of that is unfortunately outside of our control. It’s interesting having to put that on a back burner, almost because all that is—the acclaim, the awards—is so transient. It comes and it goes. And while it’s really nice to to see our show be recognized in so many ways, I think the standard we’re all holding ourselves to is just doing good work and and representing our communities and the medical community in the best way that we can. While we might be aware that these things are happening, especially as artists, you can’t really put too much stock in it because it’s just not what the work is about. And so, while this might be happening and it is a conversation, I think we’re all just really focused on delivering good work.
Now that the show has become so beloved in the medical community, do you feel an extra pressure to make sure everything feels right?
It’s gonna be strange to say, but no, because we always put that pressure on ourselves. The critical acclaim is nice, but we’ve always just held ourselves to that standard. It’s its own beast that we’ve sort of created ourselves.
As a person who was so close to doing this in your real life, do you feel like you are able to create this unique separation because it isn’t real? Or do you feel like you’re too close to it and it immerses you in more?
It’s just easier for me to pick up on things, which just goes to show how well researched the show is. But there’s a patient storyline that I was working on with Shabana and Lucas Iverson, who asked, “I didn’t really get this potassium and diabetes thing. Can you explain it to me?” And I went, “I don’t know, but give me one second.” I was able to research and was like, “Okay, here’s what’s going on.” Even just being able to do that, I’m like, This is so good that I can suspend my own disbelief and lean into the accuracy here.
When we had our medical boot camp, for a lot of people who didn’t have this background, it was just so mind blowing to hear everything that’s going on in the body. Luckily, I had almost a pre-game of 10 years. I was able to process things a lot easier and really focus on on the acting. Credit to my castmates—I have to give them their flowers. They really dived in in a way that is just so impressive and so great.
Slightly similar, but then, how do you balance also the high pressure stuff, especially knowing how real it can be.
I just went through this whole thing with Dr. Mohan this season, actually. I always really prided myself on being someone who could just leave the work on set and come home. I have my own routines and little things last season to help deal with that, like deep breathing or watching myself take my clothes and makeup off and kind of go like, Okay, I’m done now. But Dr. Mohan kind of doesn’t have a good day and that lasts for a few hours. I actually had a really hard time getting out of character this season. I don’t know if it was because of my background that made it feel so real. In my head, I think I’m playing out the version of doctor I would have been in real life. Or maybe it was because this is the first time I’ve just had to be this upset for so long. Over months and months. It was just hard to step out of the feeling.
I had a long conversation with Noah about it yesterday, because I have this moment where my character finally just lets everything go. And I was like, “Oh, I feel better. I think I’ve kind of been taking this character home.” We had a really long talk about that. And he was like, “Yeah, I really struggle with it, too.” This is now a process I’m dealing with myself, because honestly, most of the characters I’ve played haven’t had as terrible a time as she might have had this season.
It’s so interesting because, for this character, it’s just one day. For us in the audience, it’s 15 episodes. But for you, it’s months and months.
It’s so trippy to film in L.A. where seasons don’t really happen. There’s no sense of time changing at all. I’m way more concerned about what has happened already than I think I ever have been filming anything. If you have to play something in episode 13, you need to really think about everything that has happened that you’ve done over the past five months, which is a day for this character. I have this almost, like, conspiracy theory–looking board in my room, where it’s just a bunch of Post-it notes of everything that’s happened by the hour. You have to do that because otherwise, it’s just so easy to forget the little details that end up being really consequential later on.
In my head, right now, it’s July, but we’re talking in December. I don’t feel like that much time has passed. When you’re going to set every day, the sets are the exact same. Nothing’s moved, nothing’s changed. I’m trying to leave the city as soon as possible, just so I can experience weather and time changing. I’ve definitely lived a life between June and now.
Now that this show has made you a household name, is there something you haven’t done yet that’s on your bucket list?
The Pitt is so realistic that I would love to do something that’s just absurd and weird. Maybe a horror or an art house indie movie. There’s so much for South Asian women to explore and do in this industry, and I think things are changing now, but there’s so much further to go. I just really want to break new ground in film and play a character that’s just really weird and interesting and very different from Samira.
Wanting to do horror after talking about the stress of this series is kind of interesting!
Shabana and I actually talk about this all the time. She has this tendency to experience a bad feeling and then figure out how to fix it, because she doesn’t like feeling bad. I mean, who does? But I’m way more comfortable with feeling bad for a long period of time. And it’s just interesting seeing our different processes, because she’s able to figure out what her character needs to do to not feel a certain way. Because I’m able to sit with it a lot more, I think it’s just easier for me to fall into certain traps.
At least in a horror, you can always just scream it out!
I definitely think there’s more catharsis than what our show affords its characters over the time we’re filming, for sure!
The Pitt season 2 premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, January 7 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
Original photographs by John Russo.
