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The Pitt star Katherine LaNasa says some of the strongest reactions to her hit HBO Max series have come from real-life medical professionals.
Speaking with PEOPLE at the inaugural Televerse Festival on Aug. 16, the medical drama star, 58, opened up about how nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers have expressed to her just how accurate The Pitt is.
“I think they feel like it’s really accurate,” LaNasa says.
“I think they like the writing, that the writing’s illuminating, either what they’re dealing with from administration, what they’re dealing with [related to] violence in the workplace, burnout, fatigue,” she adds. “I think people feeling seen is very healing for them. So I think they respond and they really appreciate feeling seen.”
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LaNasa has previously been candid about how she was inspired by the nurses who cared for her during her breast cancer journey.
“Sometimes the gestures would be small — like bringing me a warm blanket when I had a scan. When they wrapped me in that cozy material, I felt like somebody cared about me and I could handle anything,” she wrote in a June essay for Women’s Health. “I later told The Pitt writers about that, and in one of the scenes, I slip in and put a warm blanket around someone’s feet who is really struggling. That was based on my own experience.”
According to the actress, she drew directly from those nurses when playing the series’ beloved charge nurse Dana — and one real-life moment that she experienced while seeking post-radiation treatment care even made it into the show.
“The ER nurse comforted me,” LaNasa wrote in her essay, recalling that the nurse told her, “Listen, I get it. I get what you’re going through. The first six months after cancer are really bumpy, and it’s not going to stay like this.”
“That gesture mattered so much,” LaNasa said. “It was so generous and thoughtful of her to take the time in her overwhelmingly busy day to attend to my emotions like that. I tried to channel that into Dana.”
Elsewhere in her conversation with PEOPLE, LaNasa shared that following her first-ever Emmy nomination, she’s doing her best to enjoy the moment.
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“To be honest with you, I’m just trying to feel like everything is enough,” she says. “That I’m enough, and my outfit is enough, and my hair’s enough. That the way I look is enough, that what I have to say is enough.”
“And that I can just be myself and enjoy it,” LaNasa adds. “I just really want to enjoy it. I’m an old lady. Nothing in my world is really going to change except just soaking in the honor of the nomination. That’s it. And so I’m just trying to enjoy it.”
Season 1 of The Pitt is streaming now on HBO Max. Season 2 premieres in January.
