Katherine Lanasa's character Nurse Dana in The Pitt.Crave/Supplied
The Pitt, HBO Max’s critically acclaimed real-time hospital drama that streams on Crave in Canada, never shies away from the harsher realities of contemporary American life in its depiction of a fictional Pittsburgh emergency department.
But this week, the Emmy-winning show dove right into one of the hottest button issues of the day when two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents came in with a detainee who needed treatment – throwing the medical staff into chaos.
Katherine LaNasa, a familiar face from American television and film for the last three decades, is always at the centre of the controlled chaos of the show as charge nurse Dana Evans.
The blue-collar role earned the 59-year-old actress her first Primetime Emmy Award last fall, for outstanding supporting actress in a drama.
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“Being one of those types of actors that’s nominated for awards and even wins an award, I just thought that that kind of possibility had passed me by,’ she said.
LaNasa met with television critic J. Kelly Nestruck at Bell Media headquarters in Toronto in early February, while ICE’s Operation Metro Surge was still fully underway in Minnesota.
I just watched the upcoming ICE episode. It’s been upsetting to see what’s going on in the States right now, but it really hit home in a different way seeing it enter this fictionalized world.
I think the situation with ICE in the country right now is terrorizing. I was reading this book by Dave Eggers called Zeitoun, which is about a character that gets detained by ICE during Hurricane Katrina, while we were shooting those episodes. Just happenstance. It really lays out the lack of prisoner rights in the ICE situation, and how brutal the environment is in ICE detention centres. I had an education of what was at stake.
The Pitt’s nurses and support staff characters on the show are mostly people of colour. Many flee or leave for the day in this episode because they’re worried about being picked up by ICE whether or not their documents are legitimate. Did you talk to any real nurses about this?
I had not had the opportunity to talk to a nurse specifically about ICE. I don’t know where that storyline came from. They usually try to stay true to life. ICE is terrifying for people of colour in general.
'The Pitt' dove right into one of the hottest button issues of the day when two ICE agents came in with a detainee who needed treatment.Warrick Page/MAX/Crave/Supplied
One of other difficult, eye-opening storylines Dana has been at the centre of this season shows step by step, what happens when a sexual assault survivor comes into the emergency department. How you’re preserving the line of evidence and have to help that person through the process and also give them opportunities to leave.
I went to the Rape Treatment Center in Los Angeles, which is part of UCLA Health. So I toured the facilities and got to speak with the nurses there, to get an understanding. The design of the Stuart House for minors, which is part of that, is beyond compassionate. They even have mini courtrooms in there, so kids can experience what it’s going to be like if they have to go to court and face their aggressor.
I went back a second time because I wanted to go through the rape kit, really specifically – like how you roll a swab, all of the details, so that it would look like I’ve been doing it for a long time.
What did you learn that surprised you?
I didn’t know that you can get a rape kit done and decide later if you want to report it to the police, that you don’t have to know right then. You can preserve the evidence and then decide later. You can do it under a pseudonym that doesn’t go on your permanent medical record. There are so many things that are geared toward helping the victims to come forward.
I also thought this storyline was really interesting because, you know, Dana didn’t press charges against the guy that assaulted her in the first season. So now here we are, 10 months later. I think she really wants that girl to press charges, to do what she kind of couldn’t do and didn’t do for herself, but she can’t pressure the patient, right? She just really doesn’t want her to give up on herself.
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Do you feel Dana gave up on herself a bit by not pressing charges against the patient who punched her?
I think that Dana made a choice, which is a fine choice, that she didn’t want to be more involved with her assailant by going to court. I think that’s an okay choice if you want to make it, but I think not trying to prosecute someone, or not being able to prosecute someone, for violence can often lead to a lot of unresolved feelings of rage and anger and grief. Later you’re left with what happened to you, and no kind of justice.
Dana’s feelings about injustice are driven home by when she puts that young woman’s rape kit in the fridge – and finds an older one there still unprocessed by police. Then, a few hours later, you’ve got these two federal agents who come in – and you see where the resources are being put in this society.
That story keeps going. There’s more about that rage that I feel about that rape kit.
We’ve had issues with unprocessed rape kits or the inaccessibility of them in Canada as well.
It’s interesting how unimportant it is.
New episodes of The Pitt stream on Crave Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET. This interview has been edited and condensed.