Before The Pitt returns for season 2, everyone wants to know whether Tracy Ifeachor will be reprising her fan-favorite role of Dr. Heather Collins.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Ifeachor, 39, was coy about her future on the hit HBO Max show, teasing, “Listen, there is going to be an amazing cast in season 2 — just as there was in season 1. I’m just going to leave it there.”
Ifeachor hinted at “a lot of surprises” in the sophomore season, adding, “I’m not a [plot] ruiner. I’m not even going to tell you who is or is not going to come back. I’m just going to say I want you to watch season 2 and just enjoy it as much as you’ve watched season 1. Hopefully there’ll be seasons 3 and 4 and 7.
In response to Us‘ suggestion that The Pitt should come back for at least seven seasons — with Ifeachor featured in all of the future installments — the actress remained tight-lipped about Collins’ journey.
Viewers were introduced to the senior resident when The Pitt premiered in January, and it didn’t take long for Collins to develop a strong fanbase. The medical drama, meanwhile, has become a critical success after introducing a unique format where each episode follows an hour in a grueling 15-hour shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital.
While highlighting how emergency rooms suffer from staff shortages, underfunding and insufficient resources, The Pitt also offered an authentic look at the everyday lives of hospital staff.
Ifeachor, for her part, got the chance to do some significant research to accurately — and authentically — bring her character to life.
“I spoke to a lot of doctors. I watched so many medical documentaries, which were just so amazing. Everything from Extremis to Freedom House: Street Saviors, which is about the first paramedics. I watched a lot of documentaries and stayed away from medical dramas,” she told Us. “I have all the respect for them but I feel like The Pitt is really original and really, really realistic. So I really wanted something that would feel like [my character]. I tried to find doctors who have the same thought process. It was a lot of research.”
With the hospital being set in the U.S., Ifeachor adapted her British accent as Collins, adding, “Obviously I’m born and raised in England so the way our languages are structured — the structure of the words — is so completely different. I’m doing an accent and a dialect that’s not my own naturally.”
It was important to Ifeachor that Collins feel like a real doctor who exists in Pittsburgh.
“I wanted her to look American and feel American. So the minute I would drive onto set, I would switch from English to American. I lived and breathed it,” she recalled. “In addition to documentaries, I was watching 300 hours of testimonials of women who’d had miscarriages and were trying and going down the IVF route. I would put songs to a testimonial. It would just remind me and I would try and listen.”
Ifeachor continued: “We didn’t really get many breaks between scenes so I would be on my own just listening, reading and trying to just get into the headspace of these women — these amazing women who have survived these really tragic and hard events.”
For those who need a refresher, Collins’ shift in season 1 started with her secretly celebrating a pregnancy. Collins ultimately experienced a miscarriage at work, which only a select few confidantes knew before she left early to go home and process the loss.
Season 1 didn’t bring Collins back in the last few episodes as the staff dealt with the cataclysmic aftermath of a mass festival shooting. Ifeachor acknowledged that there was more story to tell with Collins, which explained the overwhelming investment from fans in her season 2 return.
“You never know how a story is going to break. [That break] did enable me to go off and do another project, which I’m so excited about. I can’t wait for everyone to see it when I’m allowed to talk about that,” she shared with Us. “Once we knew she’s going to go home, I tried turning off my phone personally for an hour and it didn’t work. And I am the least on top of technology. I have about 300 unread text messages and I think there are some people that think I’m dead because I rather talk on the phone. So for me, when I even tried turning off my phone for an hour, it didn’t work.”
Ifeachor joked she didn’t understand how Collins’ coworkers were unable to get a hold of her during the crisis. The onscreen departure also didn’t allow Collins and Robby’s (Noah Wyle) romance to get wrapped up properly. Viewers learned in season 1 that Collins and Robby previously dated for a few months — but there was still chemistry there years later.
“I am always a hopeful romantic. I would have loved to have seen that toward the end of the season,” she recalled before quipping, “I remember saying to Noah one time, I was like, ‘I’ve been trying to flirt with you all season [on screen]. You have not even given me the time of day.’ I was always trying to [as Collins] and I felt like it was definitely in the script. … I would say there’s going to be lots of surprises to come.”
Whether Ifeachor does or doesn’t return as Collins, she had an incredible time sharing the screen with Wyle — and the rest of the cast.
“Noah was always watching everything. He is very into the camera angles and how it will be shot and how it will be received in the environment. Sometimes he’s written the episode so he’s going to watch the scenes get filmed. Sometimes he might have an idea of how the medical bit is directed because he has so many hats that he’s wearing before he is even in the scene,” Ifeachor explained. “So [our characters’ chemistry] wasn’t something that we ever actually talked about. Maybe that adds to it because maybe it is something they actually haven’t actually talked about.”
Ifeachor was specifically grateful for Wyle, 53, as a scene partner.
She added: “We just really vibed. We are just both very present and in the scene and very available to each other. Over time — and I am not speaking for anyone else — but hopefully we learned to really trust each other. You are working together and you don’t know each other. It’s just such an intense show,” she continued. “Then suddenly you’re having to do these scenes where you have history. So it was a real journey.”
Since Ifeachor mentioned primarily watching unscripted medical content before filming The Pitt, here at Us, we had to ask about her experience with the massively popular ER, which Wyle starred on from 1994 to 2009.
“I was aware of it. I do remember when I was a teenager just having the most tremendous crush on [Noah]. I can’t even tell you what the show was about. I had this just insane crush,” Ifeachor playfully shared with Us. “I can’t tell you anything about the show but him. I also really loved Julianna Margulies. I thought she was a really great actor too and there’s many, many more people who all just came together and did this amazing show. It was the first time I had seen a group of people who kind of resembled me or looked like me doing these amazing things. I was just so in awe of it.”
The Pitt has been renewed for season 2 and is currently streaming on HBO Max.
