Posted in: HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: The Pitt

The Pitt Guest Stars Allen, Kober & Anderson React to Emmy Nominations

The Pitt guest stars, Brittany Allen, Jeff Kober, and Tal Anderson, reacted to their Emmy nominations and reflected on their journeys.

The Pitt guest stars, Brittany Allen, Jeff Kober, and Tal Anderson, had their own path to becoming three of the 13 best acting Emmy nominations for the R. Scott Gemmill-created HBO Max medical drama when the Television Academy made the announcement. In the case of Allen and Kober, they had to self-submit for Best Guest Actor as HBO did not step up on their behalf, and Anderson scored her nomination as an actor with autism. Allen played Roxy, the terminal cancer patient of Dr. McKay (Fiona Dourif), who failed to show up in her final moments as she was tending to a patient outside, while her boss, senior attending physician Dr. Michael "Robby" Rabinovich (Noah Wyle) had to step in, to his disappointment at the missing McKay, instead. Kober played Duke, a Zen biker friend of Robby who's set to join Robby's sabbatical ride, who needs treatment. Anderson plays Becca King, the younger, autistic sister of Taylor Dearden's Dr. Mel King, who discovers she's in a sexually active relationship, knows nothing of her boyfriend, and becomes protective as Becca pushes her away.

The Pitt: Brittany Allen, Jeff Kober, and Tal Anderson on Their Guest Actor Emmy Nomination Journeys

"A week ago, I couldn't get a good agent if my life depended on it, and in the last hour, I think that's already starting to change," Allen told Variety on her Best Guest Actress nomination. "These nominations and accolades from the industry have credit. It's not always easy for somebody to stand behind an artist based purely on their own belief in them." This is not the first time Allen had to self-submit, as she's won a Daytime Emmy earlier in her career for the soap All My Children. "I tend to do well when I'm in an underdog position, and this business gives you plenty of opportunities to be put in that position," she said. "I get fired up when I get a no. I see doors close around me, and I go, 'Wait a minute, no. I want to be on the other side of that door. I'm going to kick it down.' It reminds me of my own capabilities and my own power."

The gift of playing Roxy was its own reward. "Bringing Roxy's storyline to the screen was one of the greatest honors of my career and of my life, to be able to tell a story that all of us will face in one form or another," Allen said. "To feel the reaction of people who were touched by it has been a great, deep honor. Just keep going. Keep honing your craft. 'The Pitt' came about because I just stuck with it year after year. I didn't let the rejections make me run back home. I stayed here and kept focusing on the work."

Kober had a four-decade career, appearing in some of the biggest shows on prime-time TV, including ABC's NYPD Blue and Lost, and NBC's ER. He also won on a self-submission for a soap opera, General Hospital. "I was happier for her than I was for myself. She was crying," Kober told Variety. "She's the one in the trenches all the time, seeing something in her clients that she wants other people so desperately to see. Every once in a while, it all lines up, and this is one of those times." When it came to how he landed the role of Duke, "I got a call at 9:30, and the audition had to be in at 5 o'clock that evening. I cleared my calendar, worked on these six pages and shot it that afternoon," he recalls. "When I went to put it together to send it in, my microphone batteries were dead, so I had to do it again. But it was perfect, because something magical happened that last time."

As far as Kober's fortunes in Hollywood, "I've been blessed to have lots of opportunities over the last 40 years. Every eight or 10 years or so, you get a job where you really get to fly with it. It's in your wheelhouse, you find yourself in the pocket, and everything supports the work," Kober says. "This is just a time when that happened, and it got seen."

When it came to Anderson, the news was still setting in, "The recognition, it's so hard to comprehend," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "As an autistic actress in particular, it feels like a very big moment. Growing up, I never saw myself onscreen in any character. And I was so engrossed in everything I saw on screen; I loved every story I watched and fell in love with so many characters, but none of them were like me. So, this acknowledgement of my work, doing my best to tell the awesome story the writers on The Pitt gave Becca to tell, also seems like an acknowledgement of me and that it's OK to be autistic, disabled, and different. I'm so grateful for that encouragement."

It was also important to streamline the lives of the disabled in an empathetic light: "The most important thing about Becca's story was highlighting her fight for bodily autonomy," Anderson said. "It's a challenge that disabled people have been fighting for a long time, and it was so amazing to be able to help Becca shine a light on it for the world." Like her counterpart, the actress also bonded with her TV sister. "[Taylor] seems to understand me, and she's super smart and knowledgeable at her job, just like Mel is with hers. She naturally feels like a sister to me, so I really feel fortunate to be working with her and all the incredibly talented cast members on the show."

For more on Allen and Kober's journey, you can check out the rest of the interview and Anderson's journey. The Pitt, which is currently filming season three, also stars Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, and Ayesha Harris, and is slated for release in January 2027.

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