The Pitt’s Katherine LaNasa Reflects on Her First Emmy Nomination After a Career ‘Staying on the Sidelines’ (Exclusive)

HBO Max’s hit medical drama, The Pitt, won over fans for its realistic portrayal of a team of ER professionals navigating a shift in a chaotic Pittsburg ER.

Yes, fans loved seeing the return of Noah Wyle in scrubs, but viewers quickly fell in love with the rest of the hospital personnel, including scene-stealer nurse Dana Evans, played by Katherine LaNasa.

The show scored 13 Emmy nominations, including for Best Drama Series, Best Lead Actor for Wyle and Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for LaNasa — a first for the star.

“I feel like I already won because you never un-become an Emmy-nominated actress,” LaNasa, 58, tells PEOPLE. “It’s really a lovely stamp of approval from your peers. I love that it’s something that our peers in the Academy vote on and that only actors can vote in the actor category. I’m really moved by this applause from my own peer group and to be included with these incredible actresses I love so much.”

Even though she’s been in so many hit shows (there’s Judging Amy, Two and a Half Men, Big Love, Satisfaction, to name just a few), she’s still in slight disbelief that she’s being recognized now.

“It’s crazy. You stay on the sidelines for so much of your career, you don’t really ever expect to be one of the nominees,” she says. “To be one is really just delightful. I feel like I got a ticket to ride and I’m happy about it.”

While filming season 1, she knew she was working on something special — but couldn’t have predicted just how big of a hit the show would be. The set, she says, is a real, functioning ER, which felt “so immersive.”

“To bring so much realism felt very new to me, but I had no idea that we were going to do the kind of job that we did and have the kind of impact that we had,” LaNasa shares. “I was loving making it so much that I was really just afraid that we would not be received well and we wouldn’t get to make it anymore. I was really completely afraid of it.”

She’s been hard at work shooting season 2 (the first teaser dropped on Aug. 21) and actually received the news about her Emmy nomination on July 15 while on set.

“We were rehearsing and my makeup artist came along,” LaNasa recalls. “I could tell by her body language that she was excited. She was like, ‘You got it.’ And I said, ‘What about you?’ She’s like, ‘Yes!’ It was really sweet.”

Once she got home, she celebrated with her husband, actor Grant Show, and their daughter, Eloise, 11. “My daughter made me a gluten-free mint cake. It was really, really sweet.”

As she reflects on the experience of being an Emmy nominee ahead of the big night on Sept. 14, she says it’s “forcing me, even as a supporting actor, to step into my own light.”

“I’m a very good supporting actor. I know how to support other people. I know how to support the lead character. I know how to push the story along, the other person’s story, and I have fun. I know how to make it interesting and exciting and creative and I’m good at doing that. But to be the one, even as a supporting actor that has to step into that light, it’s been a little bit harder,” she adds.

The nomination has pivoted how she thinks about her career trajectory. “I think when you do good work with other good people for a long time and you just aren’t the one that’s tapped, I think you don’t really think that that’s your journey,” she admits. “You think that you just have a different journey. It’s not like I didn’t like my journey, but this is a way better journey. I am really enjoying it.”

What LaNasa hopes comes from this recognition is the ability to continue doing good work. “I am an older woman. I don’t need the fame of it or the perception of need to change. I really want to use any kind of acknowledgement that I get to further working with great creative that I admire. That’s all I want is to get those creative opportunities with wonderful creators.”

Season 1 of The Pitt is streaming now on HBO Max. Season 2 premieres in January.