The actress previously told PEOPLE that she felt more comfortable on set for the second season because she was aware “how the trauma scenes would go”
Credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max
Taylor Dearden brought something personal to her onscreen character.
The actress, 33, opened up about how she incorporated her own experience with ADHD into her portrayal of Dr. Mel King in The Pitt.
“I’m on the ADHD spectrum so I gave myself advice in the mirror,” Dearden said during a panel for season 2 in December.
Credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max
She explained that while her character Dr. King has not been diagnosed with ADHD, Dearden thinks the doctor has likely been affected by her sister having autism.
“If you have a sibling who’s more severely on a spectrum, the parents often don’t even notice that their other child is,” Dearden said. “That’s kind of always how I saw it. With a lot of Mel, it’s just kind of unmasking and seeing what that looks like, and then also being like, ‘Wow, I’m kind of glad I mask sometimes.’ “
Mel’s sister Becca King, played by Tal Anderson, is featured in the first and second season of the show. She lives in a care facility and Mel serves as her primary caregiver.
Deaden spoke about Mel’s quirks in an interview with NPR, saying, “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, which I’m really glad they show that part because they don’t usually show that.
The actress further noted that The Pitt is “a very tough show for neurodivergents to be in.”
“It moves really fast,” she said of her experience on set. “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.”
The Pitt‘s second season premiered Jan. 8, and follows the workers at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center through a 15-hour shift on the Fourth of July. The show won five Emmy Awards in 2025, including Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actor for Noah Wyle.
Dearden, the daughter of Bryan Cranston and Robin Gale Dearden, previously told PEOPLE that she felt more comfortable on set of the second season because she was aware “how the trauma scenes would go.”
“The first time we were like, ‘We have no idea or any context of how this is supposed to go or anything,’ ” she explained, adding that to have “the first time behind us” was reassuring.
Credit: Warrick Page/HBO Max
The actress also teased her character’s relationship with Patrick Ball’s senior resident Dr. Frank Langdon. “I think Mel has always wanted a mentor. To have someone who was also willing to learn her just really made him the top of her list,” she said.
New episodes of The Pitt season 2 air Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO Max.
