Sepideh Moafi Keeps Her Cool on The Pitt

It was fairly easy for Sepideh Moafi to slip into her character’s scrubs on The Pitt. After all, her first day at work was also Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi’s orientation to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. She is a welcome addition to the orchestral harmony that makes the hour-by-hour format of our favorite Emmy-winning medical show so enjoyable to watch, even amid broken bones and poop explosions. “I got to enter and introduce a different melody into this cacophony of tunes,” she tells The Cut. “I was most intimidated by the fact that I was the only cast member entering the show as a senior doctor. It’s not like I can mess up or look like I’m not competent.”

Moafi was first an opera singer before trying out theater, eventually appearing on David Simon and George Pelecanos’s sex-work drama The Deuce and The L Word: Generation Q. Similarly, The Pitt’s juicy story lines that intersect with social and political identity were a major draw for Sepideh. “A hospital, by its very nature, is a convergence of all different points of society,” she says.

Coming from Veteran Affairs, Al-Hashimi is a more buttoned-up foil to Dr. Robby, encouraging residents to use (often inaccurate) AI to speed up the charting process. In brief moments, we can see that there’s something bubbling beneath the surface with Al-Hashimi. We don’t yet know what it is, but it’s heavy enough that Sepideh refused to bring the character with her when she left set for the day after filming. “Later in the season, there are more intense scenes, and it was the first time where I did a green light/red light thing, where I was on and off,” she explains. “Taking care of myself — physically, mentally, and spiritually — was really important.”

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