Noah Wyle is only about four years older than Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra, his new co-stars on “ER.”
But for almost 10 of his 32 years, Wyle has been part of the ensemble on the NBC drama, which placed him in front of millions of viewers before Cardellini and Nagra were out of their teens. And as other original cast members have left the show, Wyle has become its elder statesman–and therefore something other than a fellow actor to the younger performers joining the show.
“In my first episode, I was frightened to death,” said Nagra, who shot to U.S. fame in the movie hit “Bend It Like Beckham.”
“I just remember standing there the first day, thinking, ‘God, I’m on the set of ‘ER.’ ‘… I remember, in a scene I just had to act like it was normal that this doctor was walking through the room. And the only thing going through my head was, ‘Noah Wyle just walked into this room!’ “
Cardellini (as nurse and single mom Samantha Taggart) and Nagra (as Neela Rasgotra, a medical student) are the latest performers to bring new blood to “ER” as it copes with the loss of stars such as George Clooney and Anthony Edwards.
Wyle is a fan of the new characters and of other changes in the show to freshen the storytelling.
“Parminder and Linda both bring two very different energies to the show, and two characters that we haven’t really seen before,” Wyle said.
Besides, having other characters helped Wyle take a break from the series for several episodes this season to spend time with his infant son.
His character–Dr. John Carter–went with an overseas medical assistance group for a time. That story, he said, “was plausible for the character to disappear for a while and come back in a dramatic fashion.”
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While he joked that “it’s very disconcerting to watch ‘ER’ and not see myself on it,” Wyle admitted some ambivalence about leaving the show, even temporarily.
He said he loved the time spent with his son, and still hates to leave him to go to work.
But he still feels “the joy that I get from being able to play the same character, hopefully believably. … [Playing Carter all these years] affords me the greatest challenge I could ever ask for, to keep him constantly evolving and keep him entertaining.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Michael Morgan ([email protected])