The Pitt Star On Medical Community’s Response to Show, Possible Javadi-Mateo Romance

While speaking with TooFab ahead of Thursday’s season finale, The Pitt actress Shabana Azeez — who stars as 20-year-old med student Victoria Javadi — reflected on the fan love for the show, and became emotional as she opened up about how medical professionals have reacted to the series.

In addition to the show’s unique format (each episode is an hour of a shift), a weekly release schedule (primetime and on a streamer!), and stellar performances (including lead actor Noah Wyle, who is also a writer and EP), the Max drama has been praised by the medical community for its accuracy, not only for how its portrayal of emergency medicine, but also how it highlights the obstacles medical professionals face in hospitals and in healthcare today.

According to Azeez, who is from Adelaide, Australia, she knew The Pitt was going to be “special” in more ways than one.

“Being from Australia, not many Australians watch Australian TV, so I’m not used to making things people are watching, so that I knew was going to be special,” she told TooFab. “But then seeing the shift as people see what it is, the perception has changed for the better. It seems like every hour, people are becoming more and more passionate about it. People are becoming more and more connected to it, having empathy for the characters, the layers of politics at play. It’s really exciting.”

When asked if there has been a response from a viewer or from the medical field that has stood out to her, Azeez said there are “so many,” before she started to become choked up as she recalled how she read about a charge nurse who was assaulted, similar to how Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s ER charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa) is punched outside of the hospital hospitalby disgruntled patient, Doug Driscoll.

It becomes the catalyst for her to decide to — possibly — quit her job at the hospital.

“I was reading, this woman was talking about how she got punched when she was a charge nurse. And I’m going to cry now,” Azeez told TooFab, getting emotional. “Yeah, it was really something to be like, ‘Wow, that that happened?’ This is something that we’re all like, ‘Doug Driscoll, I’m going to get you!’ And then the fact that it actually happens to people… and it happened to her in that same context and I can’t imagine what that was like watching that for her.”

She went on to recall her reaction to reading an Instagram comment from a woman who opened up about coming home after a long and exhausting shift in the emergency department.

Azeez said, “I also remember reading about this woman — I think this was yesterday on Instagram — she wrote this long comment about coming home some days and just going straight into the bath and ignoring her children for a bit — not ignoring but just like taking some space for a bit — to become sort of like a person again and decompress and heal and then go out and see her family between the shift, and her being able to be a social person.”

“It was really something,” she continued. “It’s a really hard industry to work in, and ED, you know, the wait times and how angry people can get and how they treat you because of that. It’s really something, and hearing the true stories. Obviously, the show is so powerful, and we explore so much of that. But hearing that sometimes it’s easy to be like, ‘Oh, that’s just dramatized.’ You know what I mean? ‘Oh, somebody getting punched is drama.’ But it’s not. And that’s, I think really fascinating. I think we’re so used to seeing medical shows that are really dramatized that when you see one that’s not, you go, ‘Well, some of it must be.’ … It’s a hectic shift. But this stuff happens.”

On a much lighter note, Azeez also spoke to TooFab about Javadi’s relationship with ER nurse, Mateo Diaz (Jalen Thomas Brooks).

As viewers can recall, Javadi — a somewhat socially awkward child prodigy who graduated from college at 13 — forms a crush on Mateo, and unfortunately becomes the subject of a few cringeworthy moments when she tries to talk to him and ask him to hang out. Despite being turned down, following the mass casualty event, Mateo sits Javadi down, hands her a juice box, and calls her a “rock star,” before inviting her to have drinks with the group in the finale.

When asked if she thinks the sweet moments tease a possible romance for the two, Azeez said, “I think as Javadi … any little hint and she’s like, ‘It’s happening!'”

“And I’ve been seeing — actually, Jalen sent me like a fan edit of us this morning,” she shared. “People have made a hashtag #Mavadi…. And so I hope, I mean, I’m rooting for her. And so I’m rooting for them.”

“I also think she’s probably, she’s never had a boyfriend before,” she continued. “She never had a partner before. … I don’t think she’s ever been on a date. Maybe maybe a couple of dates, but she’s never, like, had a thing. And so I want that for her. I want her to grow socially in these ways.”

“I ship it!” she said, adding that she believes Mateo “had a little energy” during their encounters in the final two episodes.

Another one of the several ways The Pitt stands out from other medical dramas is its diverse cast. Azeez is one of several South Asian actresses who star on the series, alongside Supriya Ganesh, who stars as third-year resident, Dr. Samira Mohan, Deepti Gupta, who plays Javadi’s mother, Dr. Eileen Shamsi, and Sasha Bhasin, who portrays a beauty influencer named Nandi in multiple episodes.

Azeez told TooFab that it feels “so good” to be on a series that features so much diversity.

“Because you don’t feel alone at all, any of your experiences,” she said. “Especially now, … public reception happens and people get treated differently based on whatever factors, having Supriya, like, having a sister like that to go through this all together, good and bad, is so special and so lucky, and I don’t take that for granted.”

“There’s a real world in which John [Wells] and [showrunner and creator R. Scott Gemmill] and the powers that be didn’t make those choices and didn’t let two of us who — we don’t look similar — but we’re similar, [we have] similar backgrounds,” she added. “And they could have made a different choice, and it still would have been — for the audience, I think the same thing — but for us, I think it’s so special. I’m really grateful.”

The Pitt premiered in January and was renewed for a second season a month later. The second season begins shooting this summer, and will premiere a year after Season 1, and will be set 10 months later over the Fourth of July weekend.

When asked what she hopes to see for Javadi in Season 2, Azeez said. “I mean, your guess is as good as mine. They don’t tell me anything. I’m fully in the dark. I’ve seen a lot of tweets that are like, ‘I’m begging this girl to go into dermatology.’ And I was like, ‘No! I need a job. They’re not making a TV show about the dermatology department!'”

“I think that if [Javadi] stays [in the ED], I want her to want to stay,” she added. “I think she deserves …I think she’s done what, other people want her to do for so long, and I think that’s why Mateo is so exciting to me because it’s the first time she’s doing something she wants to do and nobody else is expecting that of her or wants her to pursue him in any way.”

“I hope that she learns to love — whatever she does, I hope she loves it and can give it her all because she’s gonna be such a great doctor, no matter where she goes,” Azeez said.

Azeez also opened up about the moment Javadi stood up to her mother, shared which medical jargon-filled line was hardest to pronounce in an American accent, recalled how she fared against her co-stars playing Mario Kart on set, and more.

Watch the full interview in the clips, above!

Season 1 of The Pitt is streaming now in full on Max.