The One Thing The Pitt's Taylor Dearden Wanted To Avoid For Dr. King

"The Pitt" premiered on the soon-to-be rechristened HBO Max in January 2025, and even beyond the show's high-profile star (longtime television "doctor" Noah Wyle, who helped create the series alongside his former "ER" colleagues R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells and leads the series as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch), a big reason for the show's success is its astonishing ensemble cast. Wyle is flanked by small-screen staples like Katherine LaNasa (who plays longtime charge nurse Dana Evans) and Fiona Dourif (daughter of Brad Dourif and a horror icon in her own right), but there are also a handful of excellent newcomers like Patrick Ball, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, Supriya Ganesh, Isa Briones, and Taylor Dearden, just to name a few. LaNasa, Briones, and Dearden sat down with Variety in June 2025 to talk about the female characters on "The Pitt," and Dearden — who, yes, is the daughter of actors Bryan Cranston and Robin Dearden — set the record straight on one thing right away.

"I'm nothing like Mel," Dearden told interviewer Emily Longeretta. "We're both neurodivergent and that's it. We're done."

Dearden brought her own experience as a neurodivergent person to her role as second-year resident Dr. Mel King, who is sometimes overwhelmed by the chaos at this busy Pittsburgh hospital after working with military veterans earlier in her residency. With that in mind, she thought it was important to portray neurodivergence, especially ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), in a way that's not reductive or stereotypical, and avoid one thing she's seen other productions do all too frequently.

"I'm really sick of what people usually do on TV," Dearden clarified. "I feel like every time it's ever been portrayed, it's usually complete robots or completely dysfunctional and can't survive at all. It's ridiculous." To that end, Dearden spent time on set working with fellow actor Coby Bird, who plays a neurodivergent ER patient in an episode of "The Pitt" with whom Mel is able to connect. Dearden says that she asked him about depictions of neurodivergence and the assumptions that people sometimes make about them in real life, and the two openly discussed the frustrating judgments they face.

"He asked me the same. For us, it's like we are f*** ups and we're immoral because of things we can't do naturally," Dearden explained before utilizing some examples. 'Wow, you couldn't pay attention to this conversation? You think you're better than me.' Oh no, I saw a butterfly. He goes, 'We get the "Hey, buddy," extremely slowed down.'"

Dearden also spoke to Jen Chaney at Vulture — a bit earlier, in March 2025 — about Dr. Mel King, and as it turns out, she was able to help make the character's storylines more true to her lived experience. "A little bit ago, probably around episode five-ish, Noah Wyle and I were alone in the room and I pitched him an idea," Dearden recalled of one specific idea. "I was like, 'I don't know if this works for what's written, but with ADHD, we have this thing called hyperfocus, where all of a sudden we can become the calmest person in the most insane situations and just focus on whatever is in front of us. We're able to recall things we learned years ago that are buried and somehow come up. I feel like that'd be cool to show.' And he went, 'Ah, that works.'" (Anyone who, like Dearden, has ADHD is familiar with this aspect of it.)

The actress also said that originally, Mel's depiction was always pretty honest and real to her, but the writers were concerned about how she'd be portrayed. Thankfully, Dearden was there to guide them. As she put it: 

"Honestly, it was written as quite coded and somewhat obvious, but then they wanted to backtrack. I was like, 'It's okay, I have ADHD. We can actually move forward.' I was able to make the decision, which was really cool. There's very little known about the neuroatypical world and about ADHD specifically, but I was informing them that, actually, ADHD and autism are on the same spectrum now. All of the research is done together. There's not much difference."

Chaney also asked about the stereotype, frequently depicted on both the big and small screen, that neurodivergent people struggle to connect emotionally. This definitely isn't true of the Mel character, whose empathy and understanding of her patients is probably her biggest strength. "It's definitely a misnomer, yeah. I think Mel has been trying so hard for so long, and to finally be in an environment where it's all working — even though it's a horribly tragic day — it's like, this is exactly what she wanted to practice," Dearden clarified. "This is the reason to become a doctor. When you finally get to do the thing you're supposed to do, as a neurotypical or neurodivergent person, that kind of peace is everything."

This isn't particularly surprising, largely because the frantic moving pieces of "The Pitt" seem almost as chaotic to film as the scenes they depict, but in an interview with Scott Detrow on NPR's show "All Things Considered" in April 2025, Dearden said it's actually really hard for her on set sometimes. "This is a — it's a very tough show for neurodivergents to be in," Dearden said earnestly. "It moves really fast. It's really hard words. It's actions we just learned. You have to put all of that together at the same time and as quickly as possible. And we go so quickly, we don't have much time to take a second to review, to calm down. And so it's definitely a challenge to shoot."

Perhaps that's why Dearden felt so passionate about bringing her own experiences into the show, and as she told Detrow, she sat down with R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells during the cast's mandatory "boot camp," where they learned to mimic medical procedures effectively, and said she understood Mel immediately. This led to something of a revelation. "When I talked to Scott and John early on in the med boot camp that we had, I told them that I relate to this character because I see a lot of the neurodivergent parts of Mel as something I experience all the time," Dearden said. "And John said something that was just, like, I didn't even think about it, and he was just so wonderful. He said, do you want to come out of the neurotypical, neurodivergence closet, so to speak, for the show? Are you willing to do that? And I had never thought of, oh, yeah, that is something you have to think of."

"And I took it home," Dearden continued, saying that this was, obviously, a decision that required some serious consideration. "I thought it over. And I realized it's, like, you know, I can mask only so much, and I'm really ready for people to know. I tell everyone I meet because there are certain social behaviors that might seem odd. And so I usually have to tell everyone I meet, like, in case I do this, just so you know, it's not on purpose. So it was great for them to let it be my decision completely. I feel like it's the right move."

To that point, Dearden said she really treasures some scenes where both she and Mel get to slow down, which is a deeply important habit for anyone diagnosed with ADHD. "I think there have been a few scenes of just, like, recovery, too," Dearden recalled. "There's a scene where Mel is looking at a lava lamp app or listening to the ocean sound, and it's all of the self-soothing and stimming that is — which I'm really glad they show that part 'cause they don't usually show that."

"The Pitt," including Dearden's stunning supporting performance, is available to stream on HBO Max and is supposed to return in January 2026.