Noah Wyle knows that some “The Pitt” fans harshly criticized his character, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, as the character’s personal struggles led him to lash out at some of his colleagues in Season 2. But he tries not to pay attention to the online discourse.

“The blending of the line between actor and role that I see sometimes, where an actor is blamed for a character’s behavior, or where a character’s dialogue stops being representative of the character and starts being representative of the creative team, as if they are saying something they believe in through this particular vehicle, I think it’s become a little blurred as viewers have confused the message of the character and the character,” he says. VarietyAwards Circuit Podcast. “It doesn’t necessarily have a coded message because someone is saying it. Aside from the dramatic tension within that scene, it’s not necessarily trying to be representative of something larger.”

Wyle says he believes it’s still only a small but very vocal portion of the audience that is amassing, but he prefers not to engage in the more negative conversations that may be out there. “My skin is too thin to deal with anything that might come at me, so I tend to say live and let live, and I’ll do my job, and you can take whatever you want from me.”

Wyle says his son sometimes warned him when the reaction against Dr. Robby got too heated online: “My son is the one who calls me and says, ‘Dad, they’re really mad at you.’ He’s my firewall. He’ll say, ‘Dad, you might not want to go to the market today unless you start treating Dr. Mohan better!’

Wyle understands that the vitriol Dr. Robby received this year “was disappointment at having acted less heroically than he presented himself last year. But when we’re at our most desperate, we’re not always more graceful. And we were trying to show someone who was going through a mental health crisis and was behaving irresponsibly, unprofessionally, and out of character while asking people to see him in his time of trouble and potentially stop it from happening.” harm to himself. That did not “Some people misinterpreted him as simply misogynistic or cruel. “I think there was a much bigger picture at play.”

In this edition of Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, “The Pitt” star, executive producer and director Noah Wyle, a three-time Emmy nominee this year, discusses the wild fan reaction to Season 2 and Dr. Robby’s story, as well as how “The Pitt” shows how to keep production jobs in Los Angeles. But first, the Roundtable looks at the Television Academy’s decision to remove five categories from the Emmy telecast and the debate over whether this will make a difference in producing a more entertaining ceremony. Listen below!

Wyle has been a big advocate of bringing the production back to Los Angeles, and “The Pitt,” filmed locally here on the Warner Bros. lot, has put him front and center in the conversation. “I’m looking at it from the point of view of someone who has grown up in and around this industry and has become friends with people who are from generations of people in this industry and who have seen it really fall apart in the last couple of years,” he says. “There is still a lot of talent here, and ‘The Pitt’ is proof of what you can do with that talent when it’s applied. I think that’s being overlooked in the pursuit of tax credits or to circumvent union protections, since the work not only leaves the state but leaves the country.

“I think, from a financial point of view, ‘The Pitt’ has shown that it is still profitable to film in Los Angeles if you keep your footprint small and have certain considerations from the beginning: in case of success, a rising tide lifts all boats,” he adds. “When we started shooting the pit on the Warner Bros. lot, it was kind of a ghost town. The only thing that happened there were tours passing by empty sound stages, talking about the work that used to be done there. And now it’s a pretty lively place, so I hope there’s a trend.”

Despite some of the harsher talk we mentioned above, Wyle says he’s glad that most of the reaction to Dr. Robby’s mental health journey in Season 2 has been positive. “We hoped that once we got past the architecture of the protagonist having a nervous breakdown at a mass casualty event, the added cost of an average change in the average life of an average career would be compelling enough for television,” he says.

“And season 2 was a little more speculative because of that, and it was more gratifying to see the response, because it reaffirms that there is a narrative here that doesn’t necessarily have to revolve around a stunt, like an air show disaster or something massive to really keep viewers’ attention.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to be on a show that resonates and is talked about,” he adds. “It’s also very rewarding to be involved in a show that says something conversational and intimate in nature. You want to be a fresher show. You want things that people have different opinions about, so that those ideas and debates can happen in the marketplace, and people can come to a consensus and hopefully find common ground in that process. I think a lot more bridges have been built through this show than have been burned.”

As for next season, the show will move to November, a cold month that will be a bit of a contrast to what we’ve seen so far. “We wanted to play with a different season,” Wyle says. “We just came off the hot Fourth of July, so it seemed appropriate to put it in a little bit of a different season. We wanted Robby to have been out of the hospital for a while, so both things seemed like fall would be appropriate. Everyone was turning their heaters on again. The first few rains caused slick roads, different types of cases, different aesthetics.”

Wyle’s first appearance in Variety It was February 9, 1990 for the NBC miniseries “Blind Faith.”

“Given my level of involvement in that event, my grandfather watched both segments and said, ‘I had to watch a ton of Blind Faith to see a little bit of Noah,’” Wyle recalls. “The real story is that someone had told me you had to say seven words to get a SAG card, and my line was five words long. It was ‘What’s going on down there?!’ I spent all morning trying to figure out how to extend it to seven. And when the director said action, I said ‘Excuse me, what’s going on down there?’ And then I discovered that it didn’t matter. “I didn’t have to say seven words.”

10 QUESTIONS WITH NOAH WYLE:

1. Childhood Nickname: “‘Wile E Coyote,’ from ‘Road Runner,’ I was called Wile E. Coyote a lot when I was a kid, or ‘Noah’s Ark,’ obviously.”

2. Something you loved as a kid but can’t believe you like now: “My God, I still like everything I liked when I was a kid. But I had an unnatural obsession with ‘Grease 2.’ I know every word to ‘Grease 2,’ and sometimes, alone in my car, I do renditions of ‘Cool Rider.’

3. Go to karaoke or sing a song in the shower: “It’s a huge phobia that I’ve been dealing with for most of my life. I was embarrassed when I was young and afraid to sing in public, so one of my big wishes was to be able to be confident. Even the mention of the word ‘karaoke’ makes me break out and sweat. Because it usually means I’m being forced to do something I’m not comfortable with. But I’m working on it. I usually prepare slowly with something Rex Harrison can handle.” [What about alone in the shower?] “That’s when I do the full ‘Dreamgirls’ cast album.”

4. Give me an alternative title for your program: [Not asked]

5. What is your secret talent?: “Acting. Don’t tell anyone. It’s my only talent.”

6. Favorite ice cream flavor: “I really like McConnell’s Mint Sprinkle Ice Cream, but I also like Haagen Dazs’ Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. That was when I came a lot into my youth. And I was part of the sorbet craze of the ’70s.”

7. The one item you couldn’t live without: “My wife. I’m not calling my wife an object. I’m just saying that I really depend on her a lot.”

8. What TV show in history would you like to be a cast member on?: “‘Deadwood,’ without a doubt. I always wanted to do a Western, and I loved that show. David Milch’s writing was poetry sprinkled with profanity, and I would have given anything to have been in the room with Ian McShane, Tim Olyphant, Keith Carradine, and some of the actors on that show. I just loved it. We had Brad Dourif, who played the doctor in ‘Deadwood.’ He’s the father of Fiona Dourif, who plays Dr. McKay. I was able to tell him how much I enjoyed his performance, which I thought was impeccable. That man could put more intention into a syllable than anyone I know.”

9. Fictional character you admire the most: “I probably admire Atticus Finch a lot. It’s infused with Gregory Peck’s performance. I saw him at a formative age, and there’s that moment at the end where, on the balcony, Jim and Scout are told to stand up. ‘Get up, Jim, your father is dying.’ And Atticus’s quiet dignity and heroism always meant a lot to me.”

10. Your favorite tip: “The first one that comes to mind is George Clooney saying early on, ‘Take your job seriously. Don’t take yourself seriously.’ That was a big one. I remember once watching an interview with former Boston Celtic great Bill Russell (and I don’t like to give any credit to anything Boston Celtic, but Bill Russell is not your average Boston Celtic) and he said that he learned later in life that it was much better to understand than to be understood. And that we spend so much time trying to expressing our personal points of view and so little time to listen to others, that sometimes we do ourselves a disservice. So I held on to that too.”

Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit,” features interviews with top film and television talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you download podcasts.