In season two of The Pitt, Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) is feeling the weight of her impending deposition in her first malpractice case and is startled when her sister Becca (Tal Anderson) turns out to be keeping secrets from her and doesn’t want her fully read in on her medical care.
Awards Buzz spoke with Dearden about how the show has gotten even more popular in season two and what that’s meant for her when she’s out in the real world:
“That’s been definitely strange, I think, for a lot of us because there’s a group of us that have been working for a long time and no one really knew who we were, and so this is new. But it also is like, well, we’ve been doing this for a long time, but this aspect is new. Yeah, I think usually it’s something really kind and just like, I love you. And I’m like, you can’t hear that enough! That’s so nice. But yeah, I’m born and raised in LA. I’m third generation, and so LA is so different. They’re so much more relaxed about it. I was in New York, and a lot of my co-stars are in New York too, and I talked to them about like, oh, New York is a different experience for us. And they’re like, yeah, the rest of the place, everywhere else, is a different experience. But in LA, we’ll also get just kind of like winks and points. But it took me a long time – it took me until pretty much season two ended – for me to start getting recognized in public. I guess there’s nothing about me that looks like Mel because I think I look the least like my character out of everyone, but now there’s no real anonymity. It’s wild.”
She described her surprise on finding out about that mid-credits karaoke scene:
“Isa and I were sitting across from each other for much of episode fifteen, and so, day after day, we’re just sitting across and at one point she’s reading her book and she goes, oh, what are you wearing for the karaoke thing? And I went, what? She goes, the karaoke thing with us. What are you wearing for it? Have you gotten your costume yet? And I was like, slow down! What are you talking about? There’s a karaoke thing? And she’s like, oh yeah, you don’t know? I was like, no I don’t know any of this!”
Watch the video above to hear whether she’d like more trips for Mel out of the hospital and what else she’d like to see for her in season three.
The first two seasons of The Pitt are streaming on HBO Max.
