Noah Wyle Looks Back on "ER"

[JamesG]

I was one of the many people who watched all 15 seasons of "ER" when it landed on Hulu at the beginning of last year. How did "ER's" streaming debut impact you?

I just did an interview earlier and they asked whether or not I had a whole bunch of new fans coming up to me who were new fans to the show because of Hulu. I think that it probably just entrenched the ones that were fans before a little deeper.

I think we touched a nostalgic nerve for the people who watched it back in the '90's, who re-watched it almost like comfort food. It was a lot of, like, reaffirming nods from people in their 50s. It's not new and novel, like, "Oh my God, I didn't watch it the first time around." This is more like, "Yeah, that was good."







It was good. Is it weird to you to revisit it at this point?

It's fun, in a sense. Eriq La Salle and I just spent a tremendous amount of time together because he's the executive producer of NBC's "Chicago P.D.", so he's in Chicago. And I was there all fall filming "The Red Line".

I spent more time in the fall with him than I have in the past 10 years. George Clooney and I have been reconnecting, Sherry Stringfield and I have been reconnecting. I just got an email recently from Julianna Margulies. And I saw Paul McCrane up in Chicago because he was directing for Eriq. And Lily Mariye came in and directed for Eriq.

So we're all kind of swimming in the same pool still and whenever we meet up, we never really talk about the old days. We really are forward-thinking people who are all engaged in interesting and engaging work. So this uptick in interest allowed us an opportunity to do what we rarely do, which is to talk about it: talk about how hard it was to shoot, and how much fun we had doing it, and how little of the impact at the time we were aware of because we were so sequestered on a sound-stage working on the drama.



In a way, it's like getting to take a bow that we didn't really take 20 years ago because we were so invested in keeping it going and staying on message and working hard. It's a terrible analogy to make because it really makes us sound quite self-important, but I remember hearing a quotation from Neil Armstrong where he said that he felt occasionally like he'd missed out on the moon landing because he was on the moon.

You have to experience the moon landing on Earth, the impact of it. I remember hearing that and thinking, huh, I guess that's sort of how I feel about it. When people talk about what it meant to them, it means something so different to me. I don't really know what they mean, but I love it. I love it too.







It would probably be weird if you saw these people and you only talked about "ER". It would be strange if you were stuck on that.

A little bit, yeah. Tony Soprano had a great line where he said, "Nostalgia is the lowest form of conversation." Or, "'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation."

When all you can do it talk about the old days it means you don't have much in common anymore. I'm happy to say that we have enough in common that we can talk as contemporaries.







Which is a good thing. Though I'm going to keep talking to you about the old days a little bit longer. One thing that struck me in binging the show was how things that happen gradually are much more noticeable.

For example, the difference between the first, second and third seasons as "ER" was establishing its tone. You realize that the show helped establish what a modern medical drama looks like. If you watch a really early season one episode, you don't get the noise and chaos of the E.R. like you do in the later episodes.

Can you look back on that and see its evolution?


Well, it's sort of like there's Before Guy Bee and After Guy Bee. Guy Bee was the steadicam operator that came in — his first episode that he did was [season one, episode 10, "Blizzard"]: a massive car pile-up. The whole first act of the show was just us getting ready for what's coming. The second act of the show is just an unrelenting amount of patients coming through the door.

And that was the first episode that this guy came in to shoot as a steadicam operator. We hadn't used that much steadicam up until that point, especially on the pilot, which was traditionally shot. But then when Guy Bee came in — and he's only about 140 pounds — he could work this camera like I've never seen anybody ever before work it, or since. He just was honest. He brought a pace and a vitality to the show through the lens of the steadicam. We shot everything on the steadicam after that, because we could.

So the look and feel that I think you're referring to has a lot to do with technology that we began to be able to use because of the talents of the operator.




When we saw the visual effect and what that gave us, then music only enhanced it. The sound was only going to enhance, and the actors and the scripts. You didn't have to be locked on to marks. We could have total free range of motion.

If I needed to go get someone across the room, he could follow me, which meant I was doing a play as opposed to a TV show, which meant we could move and do the procedures like you would if you were a hospital. So we had to learn them, because you could see our hands. You didn't have to shoot everything tight. You could be in a medium shot moving around the table. It was messy and passes going foreground, background.

And real E.R. nurses would be brought in from hospitals doing all those things in the background so that they know what they're doing.







What else stands out for you, when you look back at the show?

I'm so proud. We talk about inclusion and diversity in television now as being a new type of buzzword, but John Levey, our casting director, would put head shots of background actors out on the floor to make sure that he had a racial cosmology that would look indicative of what you would find in Chicago. We were really thoughtful about that. We were employing women as executive producers and writers and directors. We helped launch Mimi Leder's directing career.

I was incubated in this wonderful environment of diversity and inclusivity and pushing storylines that were way more progressive than anything else on television 20 years ago. It's ironic that this is the order of the day because we not only did it, but we became the most successful television show in the world doing it. You'd think it would be a replicated model. And yet, here we are.

There's also a show called "The Red Line", shot in Chicago, that's a diverse show, staffed by people of color and women and people with disabilities as if this has never been done before. We moved away from something that could have worked really well, and did work well, and now we're figuring out that it's not only necessary, it's on trend.







You stayed on "ER" for 12 years and viewers really loved your character. At what point did you start to think about leaving the show, and why did you decide it was time?

I'm going to be so specific: Nov. 9, 2002. Owen Wyle was born into the world. It was a Thursday, and I didn't go to work Friday. I had an early call time on Monday, and I went to work, and at about 10:30 in the morning, for the first time in [almost a decade] I looked at my watch, and I looked up from my watch, and I said, "Come on, everybody. What are we doing? Let's go." And I thought, "What are you doing? Where do you want to be?" And I thought, "You know where you want to be."

I just thought, I can't be here for 80 hours a week and miss this. And I quit. But I called it a divorce with visitation rights, because I didn't want to say goodbye, obviously, to the best job and experience I've ever had. And really, the family [on the show] had become more than just a surrogate family to me. I was about to make a real family that needed to take precedence.




[Creator/showrunner] John Wells had told me early on that he felt because John Carter was the eyes and ears of the audience, that he needed to be part of the closing. [The character] needed to come back and end the chapter. I knew I'd be back at some point. I didn't come back at all the 13th and 14th seasons, and then I think I ended up doing six of the 15th and final season, which was so great.

Talk about closure. To not be on that show and have that show be on TV was horrible. It was like watching somebody else raise your kids. But I was raising my own, and that was amazing. I don't have any regrets. That is exactly what happened.







It was pretty unique that so many original cast members returned for the final season. Clearly you all had an affinity for the show and cared how it ended.

It was great. It's difficult to leave something that's special. So when you leave, you either leave because you have something more important, like a son, that is amazing. You go to a better opportunity or a film career like George has, or you leave angry because you're not getting something that you want and you feel like you should have more, or something's not working in your life.

So there's lots of different reasons to end a working relationship, but they're not always the ones that you can live with. So to have an opportunity to come back with a little maturity and little time and a little distance and say, "Now that that's done, I'd like to come back and just enjoy the best part of this, which is the people and the character, and wrap this wonderful experience,” it gave us all an opportunity to put some **** to bed and come back and enjoy what we created and take a little bit of stake in feeling like we have creative ownership of being part of the final season.







Of all of Carter's love interests, who was your favorite?

That's a tricky question because are you talking about for the character, or what actress I enjoyed working with most?


Both!


There was something so incredibly special about the relationship that John Carter had with Makemba, Thandie Newton's character. She really brought out a side of that character that was the truest. I think he was always a WASP, born into a rich family, never feeling like he deserved his love, always trying to trick himself into bigger challenges, to feel like he was deserving his birthright, and needing the approbation and approval of somebody like Dr. Benton before he could feel like he was a man — before his own father.

You know he's going to be king one day, but before he takes the crown, he's got to prove himself among that vagabonds, and the thieves, and prostitutes, and the drunkards, because they're the real people. And then he goes to Africa, his biggest challenge of all, and that's where he falls in love. So that's the best relationship for him, for the character. And I loved working with Thandie.

That said, I think Maura Tierney was the best actress I've ever worked with. She just is an amazingly facile performer and I enjoyed every scene she and I played together.







I was definitely a Carter/Abby fan. My friend has a theory that if Jack Orman hadn't stepped down as showrunner after season nine that they would have ended up together.

It's funny you should say that, because one of the most interesting episodes between those characters was one of the only episodes that Jack Orman ever directed.

It's true, I think in a lot of ways he was pushing for that relationship.







And finally, I just want to know —

Luca happened. Luca's what ruined it.



Damn it, Luca!

But when [Goran Visnjic] came on to the show, I had a chip on my shoulder. I had a chip on my shoulder with anybody that came on that show. I've systematically gone to and apologized to everybody over the years about being the person that I was — which was, “You better come to play, you better bring your A game. This is pro ball, blah, blah, blah.”

And it was not an easy environment to work in because we didn't suffer fools. We were really hard on people, and I was hard on people that were coming into the show, like Erik Palladino or Michael Michele. Everybody had to earn their keep, in my opinion, especially poor Kellie Martin. I owe her a big apology.

Goran, I gave him grief when he first came on. And then I realized that he was a way better actor than I was. He performed Hamlet in Dubrovnik in front of thousands of European screaming fans. He was the real deal. I hated him because I always felt like I was losing a scene to him.

Alright. Let's talk about something else...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/li...d-line-1203292