- Noah Wyle opened up on Jimmy Kimmel Live! about his many years of playing a doctor on TV and explained why it doesn’t make him a real doctor
- Wyle remembered when he and his ER costars George Clooney, Eriq La Salle and Anthony Edwards were all together when Edwards’ son choked on a french fry, and they all failed the “trial by fire”
- Wyle also confirmed he’s heard complaints about the errors he made in The Pitt‘s first season, including his backwards stethoscope
Noah Wyle promises he’s not a doctor — he just plays one on TV.
Wyle appeared on the May 5 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! to talk about his Max series The Pitt, on which he plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. The 53-year-old actor previously starred on ER as Dr. John Carter, beginning with the show’s premiere in 1994 and appearing regularly over 11 seasons.
Kimmel joked that Wyle has played a doctor for more than 15 years, which is “much longer” than actual medical school. He asked if that was enough for him to be a doctor in real life, too. But Wyle shut him down.
“I think trial by fire is where you determine whether or not you have what it takes to be a doctor or not,” Wyle explained. “And in the times I’ve been tested, I’ve found that I don’t have what it takes.”
“The first time I remember being tested — and I was not alone in the test — George Clooney, Eriq La Salle, Anthony Edwards and Anthony’s young son Bailey, who was maybe 4 at the time, we all went to lunch at the smokehouse restaurant across from Warner Bros. one day. And we’re all wearing our doctor clothes,” he remembered. On ER, Clooney played Dr. Doug Ross, La Salle played Dr. Peter Benton and Edwards played Dr. Mark Greene.
“And Bailey started to choke on a french fry,” Wyle said, laughing at the memory. “Which is not funny. But [what] was funny is that the four guys dressed like doctors didn’t know what to do.”
“The bus boy walked over and gave Bailey a little push and the french fry came out. The restaurant got treated to four guys that look like doctors, looked like ‘Keystone Cops,’ ” he said, nodding to the fake cops of the silent film days. “And I think it was answered that none of us have what it takes to really do that for a living.”
When the audience clapped, he joked, “We’re applauding my inadequacies.” Wyle also told Kimmel that his mom is a nurse, and she has been on his case about inaccuracies in his fictional depiction of hospitals. And though healthcare workers have praised The Pitt for its accuracy, Wyle promised he’s heard their complaints about the show too, including about “all the words I say wrong and that my stethoscope’s in backwards.”
Back in April, Wyle reunited with Clooney, Edwards and Julianna Margulies (who played Nurse Carol Hathaway) at opening night of Broadway’s Good Night, and Good Luck, in which Clooney stars.
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Wyle told PEOPLE in March that doing another doctor show “was like getting to go back to high school.” But he was hesitant to do another medical drama for a long time.
He decided to do it anyway, he said, because The Pitt “was an opportunity to shine the spotlight back on the first responders who really need it right now,” he explained. Still, he knew it needed to have something “necessary to say, or new to say,” because otherwise he “would really risk ruining the legacy” of ER. The Pitt creator and showrunner R. Scott Gemmill and executive producer John Wells are both ER alumni as well.
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