“The Pitt”’s Alison Haislip Reveals Noah Wyle's Reaction After She Went Through Chemo in Real Life (Exclusive)

Eileen FinanTue, June 16, 2026 at 1:16 PM UTC

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Alison Haislip (left) with Taylor Dearden in The PittCredit: Warrick Page/HBO Max

Key Takeaways

Alison Haislip filmed her role on The Pitt while navigating breast cancer treatment, including surgery and chemotherapy

The show accommodated her health needs by adjusting schedules and providing a private dressing room during filming

Haislip now hosts a podcast, Big C Energy, featuring candid and humorous conversations about cancer with notable guests

Alison Haislip thought she might lose out on one of the biggest breaks in her career because of breast cancer.

The actress, who has been a host on Attack of the Show and who's appeared on The Rookieand911: Lone Staramong other shows, planned to audition for season 2 of The Pitt for the role of hospital lawyer Morgan Stiles not long after she was diagnosed with cancer last August.

When it looked like Haislip's double mastectomy surgery might conflict with the shoot dates for her scenes, Haislip thought she might need to take herself out of the running.

The show said they wanted her anyway.

"It turns out casting for The Pitt has a very, very close relationship with breast cancer. They were like, 'We're going to see if production will get you shot out before your surgery,' " says Haislip, who has just launched her own podcast, Big C Energy. "For them to be that accommodating to me... it just gets me emotional again because I just couldn't believe that any show, let alone this show, which is the show everyone's talking about and everyone wants to be on, would accommodate me in that way."

Haislip with Taylor Dearden on the set of The PittCredit: Alison Haislip/instagram

She credits the unusual understanding to the show's dedication to, and respect for, the medical field — as well as to the tone set by the show's executive producer and star, Noah Wyle. "Noah's just been so passionate about the medical community, basically his whole life," says Haislip. "His mother's a nurse and ER is what got him his start. I know he has the CPR dummy from ER, where they taught them all how to do everything on that show. That's how much this all has meant to him."

At a quiet moment on set between shooting her scenes, she found herself standing next to Wyle, who turned to her and said, "It must be wild working on a show like this going through what you're going through." She agreed: "Two weeks earlier, I had an MRI and was wearing the same socks that all the patients in this scene are wearing! It was wild."

Alison Haislip undergoing blood tests before a chemo treatmentCredit: Alison Haislip/instagram

Haislip ended up wrapping her scenes in October, a week and a half before her surgery. Surgery day began as "the worst morning of my life," she says. "I had never had surgery before. I did not know what to expect. I felt like I was going to throw up."

She told her nurse she felt like she was living out an episode of the show she just shot: "I said, 'I think I'm having an out of body experience. I feel like I'm on an episode of The Pitt." The nurse replied, "Oh my God, I love The Pitt!"

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When Haislip mentioned she'd just filmed an episode of the show, suddenly she was the star of the OR."They rolled me through the doors and there's doctors and nurses in the hallway and they're like, 'She's going to be on The Pitt!' Everyone turns around and they're like, 'Oh my God!' I went from feeling like I was being pushed to my doom to then feeling like I was going through the tunnel to run out onto the Super Bowl. It changed everything for me."

Haislip was initially diagnosed with triple positive HER2-negative breast cancer, but after testing following her surgery, she learned she was HER2-positive, meaning she had a more aggressive form of the disease and would need chemotherapy. A week before she was to begin chemo, The Pitt casting called back and said they were bringing back her character for another episode and asked if she could film in January.

Alison Haislip's new podcast Big C EnergyCredit: courtesy Alison Haislip

"I didn't know how chemo was going to affect me. I didn't know if I was going to keep my hair," she says. "We told casting, 'Yes, I'm available but I might not have hair. You might have to wig me.' They were like, 'She's booked.' Didn't blink an eye."

She shot the finale after undergoing two rounds of chemo. Because she had low immunity, she had to ask if she could have a fridge in her trailer because she wouldn't be able to eat with the rest of the cast and crew. Instead, the show gave her her own dressing room on the stage. "They took such good care of me," she says.

Because the show is structured so that each season chronicles a single day, Haislip says she was faced with a unique challenge with her wardrobe because of her cancer treatment. She was in the same green suit she wore in the first scenes she shot, "the set dresser was tugging on my shirt a little because I knew it wasn't sitting on me the same way. I wanted to be like, they're all new boobs! I know they just don't look the same!"

She also needed to disguise her shorter hair, so they opted to have her pull it back into a ponytail as she entered the scene.

Haislip and James Pickens Jr. recording an episode of Haislip's new podcastCredit: courtesy Alison Haislip

When Haislip was asked if she'd like to host a podcast about cancer, "I felt like I couldn't not do it," she says. "I've been interviewing and hosting for 15-plus years now and one of the things I think I thrive at as an interviewer and as a host is having really candid, grounded conversations."

She wanted to make sure the podcast "wasn't going to be a downer or that every episode was going to be us crying and it being a Lifetime movie." Instead, she says, she wanted Big C Energy "to be funny and entertaining and I want it to be a bitch session because that's how I got through a lot of the really hard stuff was being able to call someone else who had gone through this and be like, "What the f--- just happened to me? Or what am I about to experience?"Her conversation with her first guest, ER star James Pickens Jr., who underwent treatment for prostate cancer while filming his show, was a perfect example, she says.

Haislip and Pickens Jr.Credit: courtesy Alison Haislip

"He's just as delightful in person as he seems to be on the show," says Haislip, a huge ER fan who has "seen every episode" but had never met Pickens before. "He's someone who's truly about the advocacy of it who's truly like, 'Let me get the message out. Let me help save lives.'"

Haislip, who will host Olympic skater Scott Hamilton and YouTuber and writer Hank Green on future episodes, is now "done with the big stuff" for her own cancer treatment. She will need to continue immunotherapy injections through the end of the year and will have five years of hormone therapy but she is finished with her surgeries — and looking forward to her future, which she hopes might include more episodes of The Pitt. "Let's just say I feel good about her returning," she says.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”