VIDEO: Shawn Hatosy, The Pitt’s Dr. Abbot, Talks Playing a Doctor for the First Time in His Career

Shawn Hatosy reveals to The Contending what it’s like going from being the young ’90s actor in movies like The Faculty to the gruff “old man” on The Pitt.

Playing a doctor is a hallmark of many actors’ careers, so it’s hard to believe for Shawn Hatosy, The Pitt marks his first time playing one, especially considering his long list of TV credits and filmography.

“When this part came along, I remember thinking I had my doubts,” says Hatosy in a video interview with The Contending. “My perception of what a doctor is is shaped by what I’ve seen on TV. But I should have known, because it’s John [Wells], it’s going to be the most hyperrealistic thing you can photograph.”

To prepare for the role of Dr. Abbot, Hatosy watched Ryan McGarry’s documentary Code Black, which follows an emergency room in Los Angeles County Hospital’s trauma bay.

“The attending physician was this very get-your-hands-dirty working-class guy. That’s when it clicked for me. I thought, oh, wait, I can do that. This is my way in. Once I started wrapping my head around what they were and started forgetting about what I was, that’s when it landed. But having someone like Jon behind me, I don’t have to convince him. We had this understanding.”

Shawn Hatosy: The Pitt‘s Old Man?

“Looks like two old white guys poached our patient?” says Dr. Shen (Ken Kirby) to Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby and Hatosy’s Abbot in a scene from The Pitt Season 1.

For Millennial fans who’ve followed him as playing a teenager in Anywhere But Here and The Faculty, this feels like a personal attack! Is Shawn Hatosy The Pitt‘s old man character? He takes it in stride.

“I’ve never had it before. I’m definitely being called a senior citizen on social media. I’ve seen it out there. I”m cool with it. I don’t know why, but with this character, there’s accepting who I was and what my age was and not trying to compete with the younger cast. Just accepting the realness of it all was very rewarding and freeing. It helped create the character.”

Watch my full interview with Shawn Hatosy below where we talk about how he digests and projects the medical terminology and what it was like to reveal his character’s prosthetic leg in the season finale.