Jennifer Stone, an alum of Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” and current nurse, shared she auditioned for HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” but had a physical reaction to the script.
During a Monday appearance on the “CHEERS! with Avery” podcast, the former Disney Channel star reflected on almost landing a part on the Noah Wyle-led medical drama, confessing she used to work on her lines while at her nursing job.
“I auditioned for one of like the series regulars for ‘The Pitt’ when that first came out,” Stone recalled. “At the end of the pilot episode, the Noah Wyle character, he’s having like COVID flashbacks. As I often do, I was reading the script and like, working on lines while we were waiting for a patient to get admitted or something like that. Kind of in those brief little, you know, pockets of time that you have. So I was working on the lines and reading the script at work and it got to those last few pages and … I started having a panic attack.”
She added: “Even, like, just hearing about that, I started having like the heavy breathing and I started having to do like the, ‘Okay this is the floor. That’s a table.’ I started having to like talk myself down ’cause it’s still back there you, know?”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stone confessed that she has a “hard time” watching “The Pitt” as “it’s too close to home a little bit.” Though, she admitted that she’s a big fan of “Grey’s Anatomy,” adding, “Like, the first two seasons, I played on repeat during nursing school because it also helped me get the lingo down, right? Because it is a different language.”
“There is more of a fantasy aspect to that show than there is on something like ‘The Pitt,’” she explained on her preference for “Grey’s” over “The Pitt.” “And more of an entertainment value.”
Nonetheless, Stone applauded “The Pitt” for sparking conversations between healthcare workers and their loved ones.
Watch Stone’s commentary above.
While Stone currently works as a registered nurse in the emergency room, she rose to fame starring opposite Selena Gomez on “Wizards of Waverly Place” between 2007 and 2012. She later reprised her role of Harper Finkle in the final season of the sequel series, titled “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.”
The post Disney Channel Star-Turned-Nurse Jennifer Stone Reveals She Auditioned for ‘The Pitt,’ Says the Script Gave Her a Panic Attack appeared first on TheWrap.
