Patrick Ball discusses the special relationship between his character Dr. Frank Langdon and Dr. Melissa Mel King in The Pitt, crediting co-star Taylor Dearden's expertise and their on-set chemistry for the compelling dynamic that fans love.
The Pitt always has a lot going on, which is probably par for the course whem it comes to the emergency room of a busy big city hospital, and that means nobody should be allowed to catch their breath for more than 4 seconds at a time.
It's full of intense pressure and chaos and each season makes you think the doctors involved lose three years off their lives by the time they finish a shift. And yet the thing that keeps us coming back again and again is probably the quieter connections forming between the doctors and staff. But one relationship above all else is a major talking point with the fandom, and Patrick Ball knows just why you love it.
Speaking with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff during an FYC Forces interview for The Pitt, Ball opened up about the special dynamic between his character, Dr. Frank Langdon, and Dr. Melissa “Mel” King, played by Taylor Dearden. While Langdon has distinct — and not altogether warm — relationships with the other veterans in the department, his spark with Mel has stood out to fans in a big way, and Ball thinks that's really exciting to watch.
“It is an incredible relationship between Langdon and Mel, and it’s pretty awesome to see everybody get so excited about it, and sometimes, I won’t say too excited, but I’ll just say very excited about it. It’s great. Taylor ’s amazing, and she kind of has a little bit of that Noah Wyle quality.
She’s another one of these people who is just such a technician and just really knows what she wants to do and how she wants to accomplish it. Ball explained that he began to lean on Dearden for her experience, and her uncanny ability of knowing exactly what to do, where to stand, even just how to project her presence.
“I’m pretty different," Ball explained. "Especially Season 1, where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was just like, ‘I’m just going to do the thing my character is doing. I’m just going to get this tube down that pipe and hook it up to that bag.
’ How that works on camera, I don’t know, but Taylor knows. Taylor knows. She knows how to find her shot because she’s done this.
" He continued, “So, we found this rhythm that we got in pretty early, where it’s like, ‘Okay, what are you trying to accomplish? How can I figure out how to do that? ’ even whenever I felt much of the time that I was sort of over my skis and I didn’t know how to find my shot, I didn’t know how to do any of that.
But figuring out how to listen to what the other person was trying to accomplish created a really specific way of paying attention to one another that I think then turned into the way Langdon and Mel paid attention to each other, and it ended up being this really useful thing.
" COLLIDER Collider · Quiz Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for.
Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → QUESTION 1 / 8INSTINCT 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 8RESOURCE 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 8THREAT 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid.
No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 8AUTHORITY 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do.
Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to.
Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 8ENVIRONMENT 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 8ALLIANCE 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities.
I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 8MORALITY 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen.
Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed.
I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers.
Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In… Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for.
This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The Resistance, Zion The Matrix You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. The Wasteland Mad Max The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break.
That's you. Los Angeles, 2049 Blade Runner You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. Arrakis Dune Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. A Galaxy Far, Far Away Star Wars The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Why Do Langdon and Mel Have a Spark? What makes this so interesting is that connection wasn't forced into the show from outside, but rather the actors figuring it out as they went.
As stated before, Ball described Dearden as a precise performer who understood the technical side of shooting in a way that helped him, especially during Season 1, when he was still finding his footing inside the show’s demanding pace, and as a result, that connection from off-camera made its way onto the screen.
“It’s sort of a very similar experience with Langdon and Mel, Langdon being like, ‘Okay, Mel, you see things a little different than everybody else. I like the way you see things. I think you see things correctly in a very cool way, but it is different, and I want to understand it.
I want to figure out how to speak that language because I know I’ve got a lot to learn from it,’ which I think that’s true about Langdon and Mel, and I think that’s true about Patrick and Taylor, which has been another one of those great things. Talking about the alchemy of ensemble, that’s something that we just kind of discovered for free.
” The cast of The Pitt includes Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, Katherine LaNasa as Dana Evans, Supriya Ganesh as Dr. Samira Mohan, Fiona Dourif as Dr. Cassie McKay, Isa Briones as Dr. Trinity Santos, Gerran Howell as Dennis Whitaker, Shabana Azeez as Victoria Javadi, and Jalen Thomas Brooks as Dr. Mateo Diaz. The Pitt streams on HBO Max.
Stay tuned for the full interview when it drops tomorrow. The Pitt Like Follow Followed TV-MA Drama Release Date January 9, 2025 Network Max Showrunner R. Scott Gemmill Directors Amanda Marsalis Writers Joe Sachs, Cynthia Adarkwa 6 Images Close Cast See All The Pitt is a medical drama developed by veterans of the television series ER.
The series will follow healthcare workers set in Pittsburgh, showing he challenges faced in the modern-day United States by nurses, doctors, and other medical professionals. Powered by Expand Collapse
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