Men's Health March 20, 2026 0 Comments

Could Lucas Iverson Be the Student Doctor Who Changes Everything You Thought You Knew About The Pitt?

What does it take to turn a “know-it-all” med student from the character everyone loves to hate into someone who might just make us rethink empathy in medicine? Meet James Ogilvie from The Pitt — a guy who’s not exactly winning any bedside manner awards but somehow commands your attention with a blend of blunt intelligence and surprising vulnerability. Lucas Iverson, the actor stepping into Ogilvie’s shoes, didn’t stroll red carpets at the Emmys but found himself smack dab in the chaos and glory right after, filming intense scenes that reveal the raw, relentless pace of emergency medicine. It’s a wild ride watching Ogilvie fumble through his overconfidence, awkward social graces, and moments of breakthrough — reminding us all that every doctor starts somewhere. So, what’s behind that sharp edge, and can a guy who’s “full of it” actually teach us about care and control? Let’s dive into the man, the myth, and the medical jargon-heavy madness that is Ogilvie’s journey. LEARN MORE

11 min read

The following story contains spoilers for The Pitt season 2, episode 11, “5:00 p.m.”

LUCAS IVERSON DIDN’T go to the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, but he certainly witnessed the aftermath. The 30-year-old actor joined the second season of The Pitt as know-it-all medical student James Ogilvie. On the day after the Emmys were held last September, the cast went right back into production on location in Pittsburg, meaning the first season’s cohort had to fly straight back from the night’s festivities. That included Noah Wyle, who’d just won for both Best Actor in a Drama, and Best Drama Series as a producer. “Noah was the last one there,” Iverson says, “and he’s got thick sunglasses on.” It also included Fiona Dourif, who plays Dr. McKay. That day, she and Iverson were shooting the kind of scene that doesn’t happen all that often on the show: a scene outside the ER, where McKay brings Ogilvie along to care for a drug addict, a patient she normally treats as part of the hospital’s street team, in a nearby park.

Filming out in the open with stars of The Pitt stars, right in the middle of Pitt-mania, meant getting a front row seat both to the round-the-clock work the show requires but also the reward. While the show’s first season built its audience slowly, over the course of its 15-week rollout, it became a bona fide smash hit. “Seeing people film us on their phones, taking pictures. It was my first time being observed in that way,” Iverson says. “I’ve never seen a production control traffic before. I was like, ‘How are we able to do this?’ But thankfully, I had the work to rely on, which was really fun.”

Fans wouldn’t have recognized Iverson that day, since the second season had yet to air, but perhaps that was for the best. While Ogilvie is an undeniably smart and eager student, he lacks bedside manner or even a sense of standard social graces. Over the second season’s first 11 episodes, he’s become the character audiences love to hate. In many ways, he represents the shortcomings of a medical institution—and some of the medical professionals it produces—that can dehumanize or dismiss patients amid the churn of an over-extended system.

Iverson knew the character was meant evoke this kind of reaction. (“Ogilvie syndrome,” after all, is a real-life term for a particularly severe blockage of the colon. In other words: being full of shit.) “I started looking at online comments when the show came out because curiosity killed the cat,” Iverson says. “And I learned very quickly that that’s not a space for me. But I’m also living with end-of-season Ogilvie, and nobody else is there yet.” He promises a that, like the rest of The Pitt‘s stories, Ogilvie’s ultimately leads to lessons about empathy.

As The Pitt marches toward the final hours of its second shift in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, Iverson spoke with Men’s Health about playing the show’s resident asshole-savant, how he managed to memorize all that medical jargon-heavy dialogue, and why Ogilvie may yet win us over.

John Johnson/HBO Max

MEN’S HEALTH: You’ve talked about how you auditioned to play Whitaker before the show’s first season. He and Ogilvie are very different characters. Do you feel more comfortable with where you landed?

LUCAS IVERSON: More comfortable with Ogilvie is certainly a crazy way to think about it! There is a stark contrast. I think I, Lucas, am closer to Whitaker than I am to Ogilvie. But that’s not to say they’re actually all that different at their core. They’re both really sensitive people, and maybe one is more comfortable being open with their sensitivities than the other.

Ogilvie has a degree of empathy, and by episode 11, you see it peek through a little bit more. Connecting with patients is not something he considers a priority when it comes to medicine, but throughout the day, he learns that, actually, it’s so important. The way you care is instrumental to who you are as a doctor, and that’s one of the big lessons he has to learn. In that way, Whitaker ends up being Ogilvie’s constant throughout the day. They’re together through a significant chunk of it, and that pairing, I think, is intentional. They bring out something in each other.

MH: Ogilvie may not be emotionally intelligent, but has a lot of book smarts. What was it like memorizing his info dumps of medical jargon?

LI: Memorizing was hard. I knew Patrick [Ball, who plays Dr. Langdon] from grad school. We overlapped at Yale Drama together. He’d warned me that there are no sides on set, so when you show up, you’re supposed to come correct. That’s literally what he said to me in a text. I was like, “So what do you do?” He said, “Come correct.” And so I did. But for those extensive word vomits about medicine, it was tricky. I’m playing somebody smarter than I am. For him, that’s no problem. So I have to try and elevate my intelligence to be somewhere nearer to his, where I look like I’m both saying and understanding the words. It felt like extra homework: Memorize it in the correct order, say the correct thing, and also know what the hell you’re talking about.

Andrea Fremiotti

MH: Did you draw on any influences or references for the character?

LI: Yes, in a sense. I pulled from Uncle Vanya. There’s a doctor character in that play, Astrov. I played him in grad school, and I was surprised at the amount of ways he peeked out in this role. There’s something about Ogilvie’s callousness that relates to that character.

And the producers were very helpful in shaping him. There was a moment in episode 1 where John Wells pulled me aside, and I was like, “Hey, am I being too much of an asshole?” And John literally said, “Your job is to be more of an asshole. Here’s why. Here’s what a ‘gunner’ is….”

MH: What is a gunner?

LI: A gunner is an archetype of med student who is determined to “win,” essentially. They always want to be the best. They’re always trying to show off to their residents and their attendings. They’re always bragging. They throw other people under the bus. I mean, they’re intolerable to be around. Nobody wants to work with a gunner. And apparently, every med school has at least one. True to the show’s commitment to accurately depicting the medical world, they needed an Ogilvie there and he needed to be just the worst person in the room.

MH: Ogilvie can be blunt and abrasive. His reaction to Louie’s death or the way he talks to Howard, the bariatric patient—how do you approach delivering those kinds of lines knowing the natural reaction audiences will have to them?

LI: The writers are brilliant because they put in these shock lines that also make sense to the character. Like with Howard, the obese patient, Ogilvie thinks he’s being helpful when he throws out suggestions like water aerobics and all these things. He’s trying to give care, but he’s not conscious of how it feels for Howard to receive that information in that way, or how frequently Howard might have heard it before, or any number of things that bariatric patients face all the time. What I’ve learned online is how frequently bariatric patients are treated that way in a hospital setting. So I think it’s brilliant of the writers, using Ogilvie to highlight a real societal lapse in our understanding of care.

But with Louie, I think it was a bit different. Of all the Ogilvie lines that made me think, Oh, this guy’s going to get flack online, “He croaked” was not one of them. From Ogilvie’s perspective at that point in the story, here comes a chronic alcoholic, he’s here for a few hours, I’ve spent maybe 15 minutes treating him, and something goes south and he passes. The first thing you learn about the emergency department is how frequently death occurs, and if somebody were to try and protect themselves or create an emotional distance from their patients, I think that’s how it would manifest.

MH: Then at the end of episode 6, when Robby is eulogizing Louie and telling everyone about his life, Ogilvie is there in shot right behind him. It’s a really powerful, subtle moment of growth.

LI: Do you know what was so brilliant about that? Ogilvie was not originally supposed to be in that scene. When the initial draft came out at the table read, it listed everybody who’s in that room, and Ogilvie was not there. But on the day of the shoot, I had finished another scene right before, and Noah said to me, “All right, come here. You’re going to be in this scene. Stand right here.” He was directing that one, so it was his choice to put Ogilvie there. He was onto something, as he always is.

I think it was so informative for Ogilvie to see this doctor, who he respects so much, be as vulnerable as he was in that moment of eulogy. Ogilvie learned that there’s something more to doctoring than just textbooks and medicine—that you’re there to tend to the souls of the patients as well.

John Johnson/HBO Max

MH: You really see that arc throughout the day. He starts out very impressive, and then he’s overconfident, and then he gets on people’s nerves, like when Robby says “Ogilvie, put your hand down.”

LI: [Laughs] Also improvised by Noah.

MH: Then eventually we see his facade crack a little. He and Robby have that great scene on the roof in episode 10. What did that scene represent in Ogilvie’s arc?

LI: It was so interesting to me that Ogilvie—kiss-ass gunner Ogilvie—finally gets a moment alone with the attending. And instead of trying to ingratiate himself further, he, in his own stunted way, asks for help, saying, “I’m struggling. I didn’t expect this. I’m overwhelmed. How do you do it?” That’s really telling as to where he is in his arc through the day.

MH: How did it feel to be handed that severed leg right after?

LI: Oh my god, it was so gross. At first, we hadn’t figured out how to wrap it correctly, so fake blood kept leaking out onto my gloves and clothes. And the leg looked so real and it weighed a lot. It was just the nastiest thing. In terms of how Ogilvie felt, a moment prior, he opened himself up a beautiful way. He extended himself emotionally, put his chin out, and then the leg gets dropped into his arms and it’s just like, boom, another punch at the worst possible time for him. He’s thrown into that next trauma in a crazy way.

MH: Even though you knew those bodies and body parts and insides were all fake, did you still ever get squeamish on set?

LI: Completely. I was so squeamish at the start of the season, and now I’m immune to everything—except eyes. Eye stuff still gets me. But yeah, it was so grotesque. The fake body doubles we use are so realistic. In one scene we had an actor playing one of my patients on the table, and then in the next scene, he was replaced by his double—but I didn’t know this. I went to the bathroom, came back, and they had swapped him out. I was like, “Hey Will, how’s it going?” I’m talking to him and he’s not answering, and everybody’s like, “Lucas, that’s the dummy.” [Laughs] It was so realistic, particularly the nipples. The nipple paint is so real. If you look at them too long, you’ll convince yourself you’re operating on a human being.

Andrea Fremiotti

MH: Ogilvie mentions how he wants to set a record for most intubation in one shift. Most viewers probably perceive that kind of statement as insensitive at best and borderline sociopathic at worst. In moments like that, how do you tap in and relate with your character?

LI: Well, I actually think he’s incredibly sensitive, and he and I are alike in this way. I had difficulty with Ogilvie until I realized his purpose in the show. He represents a particular ideology in the world, which is that only you are responsible for the state of your own life. That’s a double-edged sword—it’s how he views both his patients and himself. It explains why he lacks sympathy for someone like Louie or Howard or Kiki, Dr. McKay’s patient in the park. He sees all three of these people and his initial reaction is to say, “How have you allowed this to happen to your life? Whatever comes out of this, you’re doing to yourself.” The growth that comes from each of these cases, thanks to Robby and McKay, is that he understands how these people are trying their best to manage the burdens that life has given them. That’s an awakening for him.

The intubation record isn’t about loving intubating people, it’s about wanting to get his name out there, wanting to give himself the career he dreams of. It’s about trying to be the best—because he’s responsible for the state of his own life. He desires control over his life. Who doesn’t want that degree of security and control? And this is the attitude he’s decided to adopt in order to get that control. It may not be the right one, but that’s for the world to teach him. And I think the show does teach him that.

MH: Ogilvie’s attitude towards his coworkers can also use some improvement. At one point after her panic attack, he says to Dr. Mohan, “I heard you had a heart attack.” What do you think came over him?

LI: He thinks he’s trying to develop a rapport when he says stuff like that. He thinks it’s light teasing, sort of in the way Santos does. But he doesn’t have enough emotional currency in the bank for a statement like that. He and Mohan aren’t close, so for him to say that, it comes across as abrasive. But he’s trying to get closer. He’s really asking, “Are you okay?” In fact, the line used to be, “I heard you had a heart attack. You okay?” We cut the last part because we thought, “Ah, that’s not really Ogilvie.” He doesn’t have the ability to say, “You okay?”

MH: Now that you’ve spent a season with Ogilvie, what do you enjoy about playing a character like him?

LI: My favorite thing is the idea that he’s at a beginning phase. It’s honest to show that not every doctor is a Whitaker when they start. It also brings some really valuable questions about empathy to the show. How do we decide who’s worthy of our empathy? What do we do with people like Ogilvie? Sadly, the number one thing that people message me on Instagram is, “I know an Ogilvie. I was treated by an Ogilvie.” So what’s the path forward for a doctor like that? Or for someone like that in any profession—a lawyer, a CEO? What do we do with an Ogilvie? I love that he’s a box of beginnings in that way.

Grooming by Evy Drew

Styling by Tabitha Sachez

Styling Assistance by Spencer Bronfman

Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.