As the Emmy-winning series The Pitt returns for its highly anticipated second season, its already diverse ensemble expands with the arrival of a new attending physician: Dr Baran Al-Hashimi.
Played by Iranian-American actor Sepideh Moafi, the role marks the show’s first Middle Eastern character. Al-Hashimi, like Moafi, embraces her heritage openly – speaking Farsi with colleagues in the season’s early episodes.
Joining the established series was “unbelievably overwhelming and exciting", Moafi tells The National.
Moafi, whose credits include Black Bird, The Deuce and Scavengers Reign, is also a vocal supporter of the International Rescue Committee and held a fundraiser for the humanitarian organisation alongside HBO in 2019.
“I was born in a refugee camp in Regensburg, Germany, after my parents and sister were forced to flee the oppressive regime and war in Iran in the years following the Islamic Revolution [in 1979],” she previously told People. “After spending two years in Turkey, then Germany, where they sought political asylum, we were finally granted visas to come to the US.”
Coming into the series at this stage, Moafi says, meant stepping into an already established rhythm – and doing so at the top of the hospital hierarchy. In the show, Al-Hashimi is an attending physician at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre’s emergency room, placing her on equal professional footing with the show’s lead, Dr Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, played by Noah Wyle.
The most immediate challenge, Moafi explains, was the sheer volume of medical jargon she needed to master to approach the role with confidence. “As an attending physician, you’re working at a senior level,” she says. “And I had never held a scalpel.”
While the cast undergoes an intense two-week medical boot camp, Moafi chose to immerse herself further. “The medical boot camp was invaluable,” she says. “I read as much as I could, talked to as many doctors and friends as I could, listened to as many podcasts – I just absorbed as much as I could.”
At the same time, she was clear about what anchored the performance. “I knew they didn’t hire me for my medical expertise,” she says. “I think the reason I was hired was because of her heart – because of who she is at her core. So I anchored into that.”
The environment on set helped ease the transition. Set over a single 15-hour period and shot in a continuous, chronological style, The Pitt demands sustained focus from its cast.
“Everybody welcomed me with open arms,” she says. “And it was kind of refreshing to see that I wasn’t the only one approaching these procedures with a sense of fear. Every procedure is always like, ‘All right, what are we doing?’”
Rather than resisting that unease, Moafi chose to incorporate it into the performance. “She’s entering this new environment as well,” she says. “My day one is her day one. So any time I’d get into my head about something, I embraced the fact that this is exactly where Dr Al-Hashimi is psychologically.”
“I tried not to resist any fear or anxiety, or any surge of energy I had,” she adds. “I tried to use it towards just nailing my stuff as best as I could.”
Living inside that intensity for months at a time took longer than usual to shake. “Our bodies and minds don’t know the difference between an imagined experience and a real experience,” Moafi says. “These images leave an imprint.” Normally, she explains, it takes a couple of weeks to regulate her sleep after a job. “This took over four months, because the intensity is so high.”
That experience has sharpened her appreciation for the people the series depicts. “What’s heroic about healthcare workers is that they’re giving their strength and composure to the people they treat,” she says. “So that they can fall apart later.”
While Al-Hashimi enters The Pitt with authority – responsible for supervising others and making decisions under sustained pressure – she also brings a different perspective on the future of medicine. The character embraces generative AI, patient passports and other emerging technologies that are increasingly central to global conversations around healthcare.
It’s that attention to the realities facing medical professionals, Moafi suggests, that has helped the series to resonate beyond its core audience – finding viewers both inside and outside the healthcare community.
“It’s the kind of show I want to watch,” she says. “It makes you lean in.”
The Pitt season two premieres Thursday on OSN+ across the Middle East
