Actors on ‘The Pitt’ describe their characters’ growth in Season 2

Four actors — Shabana Azeez, Gerran Howell, Isa Briones and Taylor Dearden — discussed the evolution of their young clinician characters on HBO Max’s hospital drama “The Pitt,” now in Season 2, which premiered earlier this month and is set 10 months after Season 1 on Independence Day.

Season 1 introduced the overwhelmed Pittsburgh trauma center over a single 15-hour shift and helped the series win the Emmy Award for best drama last year. The four trainees — Azeez’s Victoria Javadi, Howell’s Dennis Whitaker, Briones’s Trinity Santos and Dearden’s Melissa King — were described in the conversation as having become, in different ways, more at home in the Pitt.

The actors said the characters have aged and hardened: Whitaker has come into his own, Santos is less showy and more exhausted, Victoria alternates growth with regression, and Mel’s gains are complicated by a deposition that affects her confidence. The performers spoke about those changes during a recent video call while on a break from shooting the season finale.

They described the show’s heavy use of practical effects and complex choreography in trauma scenes. The cast said fake blood comes in several consistencies, organs are mainly silicone, and a prop heart can cost roughly "5-to-10 grand," according to Howell.

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