Noah Wyle Reveals He Spent All His ‘ER’ Money Before Developing ‘The Pitt’

Before landing his role as Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch on The Pitt, Noah Wyle found himself in some dire financial trouble after spending all the money he made on ER.

Wyle was a breakout star on the medical drama, which ran from 1994 until 2009. Despite its revolving door cast, he was one of its longest-running stars, appearing as Dr. John Carter on 254 of its 331 episodes. Despite the immense popularity it brought him, the actor said he struggled when the show finally ended.

“Well, not to make it a sob story, but everything I pretty much had made and earned on ER, I spent,” he admitted in a GQ article published on Thursday, April 16. “I’d taken it down to the studs a couple years ago, to the point where I was doing work for the money, for the experience, and for the need to work. But I was looking at the rest of my career [thinking], Let’s shrink this footprint down and turn it into something that’s sustainable and manageable.”

Despite working consistently on the TV movie series The Librarian and the TNT series Falling Skies, Wyle’s career never achieved the same levels of success that it did when ER was at the height of its popularity. He recalled that it was during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike that he needed to make a big change if he was going to keep doing what he loves — and that planted the seeds for his return to the medical genre with The Pitt.

“That was the moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is not a guarantee. And if I am given an opportunity to work again, what do I want it to look like? What do I want it to feel like? What did it used to feel like? What do I want it to mean to me again?’ And out of those questions came the intentionality that formed this show.”

Wyle began working with former ER producers R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells to develop The Pitt, which he not only stars in but is an executive producer. The show is set to return for a third season on HBO Max.