Noah Wyle is riding high after winning a Golden Globe on Sunday (January 11) for his role in HBO Max’s The Pitt, but things were very different just a few years ago, when the actor was facing financial struggles and “profound” depression.
In a wide-ranging profile piece for the New York Times, Wyle opened up about his troubles in the years after ER, the hit NBC medical drama that shot him into the limelight. He played Dr. John Carter from the pilot episode until the Season 11 finale, receiving multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, critical praise, and fandom.
However, while many tipped Wyle to follow in the footsteps of his ER co-star George Clooney, who went on to launch a highly successful movie career, things didn’t quite turn out that way. For years, Wyle struggled to find a role as meaningful as ER, and it seemed he was forever viewed as John Carter by the public and casting agents.
He also dealt with personal struggles, including the breakdown of his first marriage to make-up artist Tracy Warbin, which ended shortly after ER did. He married actress Sara Wells in 2014 and together welcomed a daughter in 2015. Wyles also shares a son and daughter with Warbin.
Despite landing roles in the TV fantasy-adventure films The Librarian and in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama Falling Skies, the buzz around his work died down, and Wyle said he began to have self-doubts about his talent. And with that came money worries.
A few years ago, Wyle revealed that things had got so bad that he was considering selling his baseball card collection, even having an expert come over to assess their value. Realtor.com also notes that Wyle considered selling his house, as he put his longtime home in Santa Ynez on the market for just under $6.5 million in March 2020; however, the listing was withdrawn three months later.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes.
Wyle admitted he was “profoundly depressed” at the time of the strikes, but he went out and joined the picket lines. This ended up helping him, as he felt “useful” again. He felt particularly empowered after Warner Bros. put up a big ER poster outside the studio. “I was the face of the studio again while I was marching underneath it,” he shared.
That connection to ER also came back during the pandemic, when Wyle said he heard from health care workers, some of whom told him they went into medicine because of the show. These health care workers were “desperate for the kind of mass cultural representation ER once brought.”
With that, Wyle was inspired to create something that honored “health care workers struggling to navigate the post-pandemic world.” He said he followed a mantra, which he recited every day, “Please put me in the company of first-class artists with good hearts and good minds doing meaningful work.”
That was what ultimately led to Wyle teaming up with two former ER colleagues, R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells, and the birth of The Pitt, which has been a huge success for HBO Max and launched Wyle back into the limelight.
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