mystified

Last year, Hatosy took home the award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, putting him on track to potentially make history with back-to-back wins in the same category for the same role. But after a last-minute switch in submissions, he’s now competing in the best supporting drama actor category at this year’s Emmy Awards.

The recognition is more than anything Hatosy could’ve ever imagined for a character with such limited screen time in “The Pitt.” When he first joined the show, he had no idea how much of a presence Dr. Abbot would ultimately have in the ER. But the opportunity to work with longtime collaborator John Wells again, who executive produces “The Pitt” alongside Wyle and creator R. Scott Gemmill, was simply too good to pass up.

“Whatever John wants to do, I’m in,” Hatosy said of Wells, whom he’s worked with on shows like “Southland,” “Animal Kingdom” and even an episode of “ER.”

But even then, he never could have predicted just how successful their latest TV reunion would be.

“That Jack Abbot, he always manages to find ways to surprise me,” Hatosy told me, reflecting on his move up in the Emmys race. “Even looking back to what this project looked like when I first joined, Abbot’s presence, at least in the first episode, you don’t get a lot of him. Then towards the end of that [first] season, you see what he means to this world and the effect he has on not just the staff, but his relationship and the dynamic with Dr. Robby.”

He added, “To go from guest to supporting in two years, it’s an amazing achievement for this character in the way that he was written.”

It’s been one week since the 2026 Emmy nominees were announced, and Hatosy is still thinking about the moment when “The Pitt” creator Gemmill gathered the cast and crew on set that Wednesday morning and read each of the show’s 25 nominations (including 13 acting nods) aloud.

“It was a pretty remarkable day,” the actor recalled of sharing the moment with his castmates. “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

The same can be said of Hatosy’s time with “The Pitt” thus far, too.

Since the mid-1990s, Hatosy has consistently racked up onscreen credits, appearing in films such as “Anywhere But Here,” “The Faculty,” “In & Out,” “Alpha Dog,” and more. He’s also taken on leading roles in gritty crime dramas like NBC’s “Southland” and TNT’s “Animal Kingdom.” But it’s his breakthrough role in “The Pitt” that has brought the Hollywood vet a whole new level of acclaim, finally, more than 30 years into his career.

“I’ve been doing this a while, and it is such an honor because I know that the people who are making the decisions to click on your name do this for a living,” Hatosy said of his latest nomination. “It doesn’t reaffirm anything per se, but it is just nice to know that people are watching.”

“I’ve been a part of a lot of shows that I thought were pretty cool and they never really found an audience. So with ‘The Pitt,’ sure, it’s wonderful to be a part of something that is critically successful, that everybody’s watching. But what makes it even more significant to me is it’s a show that says something and has a lot of important things to show the world,” he continued. “I think that a television show that can change people’s perspective on a fragile healthcare system and the people that are doing it daily — that’s like the trifecta.”

In just two seasons (with a third on the way), “The Pitt” has already become one of modern television’s most groundbreaking medical dramas. Beyond its stellar ensemble — which includes Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, Patrick Ball, Isa Briones, Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif, Supriya Ganesh, Shabana Azeez, Gerran Howell and Sepideh Moafi — much of the show’s success with audiences and critics can be attributed to its unflinching, hour-by-hour portrayal of what it’s like to practice emergency medicine in a broken American healthcare system.

“I think that a television show that can change people's perspective on a fragile healthcare system and the people that are doing it daily — that's like the trifecta.”

For many real-life doctors who watch “The Pitt,” certain moments in the series have felt all too familiar to their own experiences in the hospital. That’s a high compliment in a genre where medical procedurals are a dime a dozen. And while cast members like Hatosy never expected that playing a TV doctor would have such a meaningful impact, he’s honored to play a small part in highlighting the sacrifices medical professionals make every day.

“I didn’t expect it. I didn’t plan for it,” the actor said, reflecting on the unexpected success of his role. “I wasn’t the most academic kid in school. So to be on a show that is inspiring young nurses to follow their passion, or a doctor trying to determine whether or not they want to finish school. I get messages all the time, and I meet people on the street who say, ‘Thank you. Your portrayal has really shown me what I wanna do.’”

“It’s intense,” he admitted, “but I’m very happy to be a part of something like this.”

Hatosy struck out on dozens of auditions after the 2023 Hollywood strikes before he finally landed his acclaimed role in “The Pitt.” Hatosy struck out on dozens of auditions after the 2023 Hollywood strikes before he finally landed his acclaimed role in “The Pitt.”HBO Max life looked a lot different for Hatosy before his star-making turn in “The Pitt” came along. After his long-running series “Animal Kingdom” wrapped its six-season run in the summer of 2022, the actor remembers how “things slowed down a little bit for me, work-wise.” While he certainly hoped his next big role was just around the corner, the road ahead turned out to be more uncertain than he anticipated.

“It didn’t come that easily for me,” Hatosy said of navigating his dry spell between projects. “I was fighting for a lot of roles and just not getting anywhere.”

Things got even tougher the following year when the back-to-back Hollywood strikes left actors like Hatosy out of work and searching for their next opportunity. Even after the strikes ended, he faced one setback after another, with dozens of self-tapes for potential roles ultimately leading nowhere.

“It seems [so easy to be] like, ‘Oh, hey, just put this on tape.’ But for an actor, it’s like a production,” Hatosy explained. “We have to cast it, light it, do the sound, do the hair and makeup, put the wardrobe on, find somebody to do it with us.”

He added: “It’s a big deal, and you’re putting yourself out there. And often you send it, and you don’t hear anything, so it can really chip away at your soul.”

With fewer and fewer opportunities coming his way, Hatosy reached a point where he was unsure of where to turn next. “It was definitely a low point for me,” he admitted. “I was pretty depressed.”

But all that changed when, one day, his wife, Kelly Albanese (a fellow actor who appeared in the Season 2 premiere of “The Pitt”), encouraged him to get back to the basics and give acting school another try.

“I remember, at one point, my wife looked at me and said, ‘You know, you should go back to acting class.’” Hatosy recalled. “There’s this great class, and she gave me the name, and it was helpful for me to kind of re-fall in love with what I like about acting — getting up onstage, collaborating with a group, building a character, figuring out what the stakes are in a scene, and then being terrified because you got to get up in front of people and do it.”

“My wife helped me find that again, so I give her a lot of credit,” he added. “Going back to an acting class, it’s like going to the gym. You’re getting feedback. You’re getting a collaborative feel to something that you have been doing for a long time. You’re getting a note from a teacher. These things are very good and positive and helpful.”

Things finally started looking up for Hatosy after the strikes, as word spread about a flurry of new television projects in the works — including a hotly anticipated medical drama filming right in Los Angeles. He was well aware that “The Pitt” was looking for actors to fill out its cast, but when the role of Dr. Abbot came up, it was his friend Wells who personally put it on his radar.

“I was working on another John Wells show called ‘Rescue: HI-Surf,’” Hatosy recalled, “and then he just sent me a note saying that there’s this character that works for what [‘The Pitt’] is going to be and would I take a look.”

Initially, the actor’s team wasn’t convinced the role had much to offer, especially since Abbot only appeared in one scene at the time. Still, Hatosy was willing to take a chance on whatever Wells had in store. And lucky for him, that one scene from the show’s debut episode turned into something far bigger.

“I blindly accept that it could have just been two episodes,” Hatosy said of his character’s arc. “I had no idea, really, but I was happy to be a part of it. I think the character, even in that first episode [of Season 1], the scene up on the roof was really when you could see that there were many dimensions to him and a lot of layers and things to discover.”

Hatosy’s Dr. Abbot and Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby have developed a brotherly bond that extends beyond the ER in “The Pitt.” Hatosy’s Dr. Abbot and Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby (R) have developed a brotherly bond that extends beyond the ER in “The Pitt.”HBO Max Hatosy has taken on plenty of meaty, complex characters throughout his career. But playing Dr. Abbot in “The Pitt” has presented a new kind of challenge he’s enjoyed exploring.

As a widowed former combat medic who sports a prosthetic leg — a revelation that came in Season 1’s finale — Abbot comes with a wealth of backstory Hatosy has been able to sink his teeth into. And as a leader in the hospital’s ER, we’ve learned that he’s every bit as committed to the job as his buddy Robby, if his willingness to give blood on the fly amid a mass shooting event and his habit of listening to the police scanner while off duty are any indication. Though he appears in only a handful of episodes, Abbot has a presence about him that’s felt even when he isn’t around.

“It’s fantastic,” Hatosy said of how audiences have gravitated toward his supporting character. “I think Abbot has a way of, even when he’s not there, he’s kind of there. In Season 1, we learned from one patient that he fudged numbers so she could get the care she needed for an abortion. And then he writes the letter to the sister of the veteran who passed. So, it’s like he’s not there, but he kind of finds his way in there.”

“There’s something about the day shift running, and there’s a lot going on, and Robby’s dealing with his own personal mental stress that he’s having a hard time understanding, and he doesn’t have a lot of people that he can talk to about it. So there’s this need, I think, of Abbot showing up when he’s most needed, so that also creates this appreciation for him. I have played a lot of different kinds of characters, and I think I’ve said in the past, but it’s really nice to play a character that basically everybody likes.”

Still, as “The Pitt” progresses, it’s clear that there’s much more to Abbot as a character than what viewers have seen so far. And if Hatosy has anything to say about it, he’s more than ready to find out what’s really under the hood.

“I think he’s drawn so wonderfully, and there are a lot of questions about what’s going on with Abbot,” he said. “I mean, we did see him up there on the roof in that first episode, so he’s clearly someone who has his own hidden trauma. There’s the information about him being a single-leg amputee and losing his wife, and all of these are answers that I’m sure we’ll dig into, and it will shape how we see him.”

“I have played a lot of different kinds of characters, and I think I’ve said in the past, but it’s really nice to play a character that basically everybody likes.””

There’s also the fact that Abbot has become one of Dr. Robby’s closest confidants at the hospital, who can both relate to his struggles and knows how to talk him down when he starts to unravel. As the finale episodes make clear, his emotional conversations with his PTSD-stricken colleague have given “The Pitt” a rather compelling way to examine the lasting scars that medical professionals can sometimes carry from the job. Refreshingly enough, they also offer viewers a chance to see the doctors as more than just their profession.

“What strikes me about these characters is that they are two incredibly competent doctors,” Hatosy pointed out. “There’s not any [physical] trauma they can’t handle, right? But when it comes to their own mental health, they are completely confused and making the wrong decisions, and I think that says a lot about what they’re having to deal with and how hard it is to admit that you’re struggling.”

“One of them, his therapist said, get a hobby, so he decides that he’s going to go moonlight as a SWAT medic. The other one decides, ‘I’m going to drive a motorcycle across the country without a helmet on,’” he continued. “There are these subtle red flags and cries for help, but what is really moving about that scene at the end [of the Season 2 finale] is that Abbot is finding himself in a situation where he can’t fix Robby. All he can do is offer his perspective, and sometimes that’s enough to make someone realize they’re not alone.”

For Hatosy, working through that particular scene with Wyle and Wells, “two people that I admire and respect so much,” was a “creatively beautiful” experience that he hopes to continue “for many years to come.” Just as long as “The Pitt” keeps the seasons coming.

On the flip side, Hatosy is eager to “see that dynamic reversed a little bit” when it comes to Abbot’s personal trauma too. While he can’t say much about what’s ahead in Season 3 — in part because he hasn’t received all the scripts yet, including the second episode he’ll direct for the show — he’s hopeful the upcoming season will at least bring another signature heart-to-heart moment between Abbot and Robby.

“I feel like that’s sort of what is expected,” Hatosy said. “But who knows? These guys are really clever at setting up an expectation and then pulling the rug out from underneath us.”

Could one of those curveballs be the long-hoped-for night shift spinoff fans have clamored for ever since meeting Abbot and his crew?

“Tonally, there’s an opportunity to explore a side of Pittsburgh that steps through these doors in the middle of the night,” Hatosy teased. “When you look at the types of people that make the decision to work at night, it takes a certain kind of individual.”