Shawn saying he hasnāt been sent any scripts, he only knows Abbot will be back, in whatever capacity. I remember him also saying that last year he had no idea until very close to filming that Abbot would be returning in the middle of season 2, rather than at the start. Sepideh saying she has no idea what capacity Al-Hashimi will be returning, or even for how many episodes, only that she will be back at some point.
And people were seriously trying to argue for a while that there was no way they fired Supriya last minute, even though this production is clearly doing just about everything last minute. The writers room for season 3 didnāt convene until late Feb/early March. I bet they didnāt tell Supriya anything until early to mid March. She probably expected to be filming season 3 of The Pitt for 7 months (June 2026 - Jan 2027), right up until then, and likely wasnāt even thinking about needing to book any jobs for that period.
I donāt care if itās the norm for television or not, itās a shitty, exploitative labor practice regardless, to keep cast members on the hook that way, expected to keep their schedules open and just hope the producers donāt suddenly decide to discard them. Especially given the dumb shit NW has said about how the cast shouldnāt be looking for other work because this is the best theyāll ever get, and his weird snide comments about what sort of work they DO choose to take between seasons.
I really donāt get why some people who otherwise identify as āprogressiveā are so eager to defend this shit. The ensemble donāt get the security of multi year contracts, they donāt ever have the option to negotiate their salaries (which are reported to be set rates below industry average, despite the cast having to shoot a higher number than average days because they have to be present for all the background work). Since when do bosses, especially old white male hollywood executive producers, deserve that kind of good faith interpretation of how they treat their employees?
It's especially funny that TV actors are always feigning ignorance when asked these types of questions but for The Pitt, even the writers don't know the answers! They're not playing coy! They're shooting finale scenes without knowing how the fuck the season ends!! They're doing what I do when I'm making dinner, just throwing shit in the pot and hoping it comes out edible, except this show is costing millions and millions of dollars! It's infuriating.
And you're right that it's a shitty exploitative labour practice. And it certainly disadvantages the younger/less experienced actors more than anyone else. I don't know enough about the TV industry to know whether this sloppy way they are running this show and the almost-certainly last-minute decision to fire Supriya meant that she missed out on auditioning/booking replacement jobs for the fall. I hope it's not the case because that's her fucking livelihood and she's already going to have to deal with the ramification of losing this job suddenly, let along the added negative impact of missing a whole audition/casting cycle.
I did get the sense that for Shawn Hatosy at least (since he's the cast member I know the most about) they dropped the ball and didn't lock him down until after he was booked in for Fire Country (and maybe Cry Wolf?), which limited his ability to make it to The Pitt.
But more and more I'm understanding The Pitt to be the type of workplace where they underpay and "compensate" with prestige and exposure. They're paying below-market but hey, they're gonna film every year! They're paying below-market but it's a diverse show that empowers marginalized voices! Isn't that exciting? Isn't that worth it?
(I myself have worked "cool" jobs that underpay and, weirdly enough, I still had to pay my rent in real dollars and not in "cool" points.)
I hate that this is what The Pitt has revealed itself to be. I hate that they're going to say "well we guaranteed a season a year and that has implications for the amount of time we have to write" when it's fucking bullshit and HBO specifically has decades of shows that put out a season a year without the story being trash. I'm not asking for The Sopranos here, but surely there's a middle ground we can reach! And I hate that I'm invested in these characters and actors when we're just gonna watch them be misused and mistreated.
(Thanks, anon. Come back anytime.)
