GerranHowellKnowsthePowerofQuiet

Welsh actor Gerran Howell has built a reputation for quietly captivating performances. Drawn to nuanced, emotionally rich characters, he proves that subtlety can be the most powerful performance of all.

 

WORDS Scarlett Monks

 

Interview taken from IMAGINE Magazine Issue Three Pre Order here

 

Gerran Howell is the Welsh-born RADA graduate delivering nuanced, compelling performances in HBO’s Emmy-winning medical procedural The Pitt. Howell reprises his role as Dr. Dennis Whittaker, the quietly commanding presence at the emotional center of the show’s acclaimed second season. With a magnetic subtlety, Howell has commanded the attention of audiences and anchored the show’s heart.

 

Gerran stands at a pivotal point – proof that quiet intensity and emotional honesty can still break through the noise.

 

Talking with Catch-22 co-star Lewis Pullman, the two discuss the emotional connections between cast and audiences, the misconceptions of playing a quiet, reserved character and how often they get asked whether they’d step up in a real emergency.

 

Lewis Pullman: Where are you right now?

 

Gerran Howell:  I’m back in LA. Back in the same Airbnb that you know quite well.

 

LP: And are you starting on season three already?

 

GH: Yes, I’m doing boot camp tomorrow so everyone’s just landed in town and we’re warming up.

 

LP: How sick are you of being asked if somebody had an emergency on an airplane?

 

GH: Oh my God. Well, because the answer’s always the same. Obviously not. I would never get involved. Of course I wouldn’t.

 

LP: It’s the same thing with me with Top Gun. Everyone goes, “If the plane was going down, would you be able to land it?” No, no, simply no. If you cared at all about the quality and the shape of the airplane upon landing, then no. But I could probably crash land it relatively safely.

 

GH: If you care about surviving? Then obviously not.

 

LP: We first met on Catch-22, an Amazon series based upon the Joseph Heller book. When was the last time we actually saw each other before this interview?

 

GH: It was at the premiere, right? You came to The Pitt season two premiere, which was very nice. You and Graham [Patrick Martin], who’s another guy from Catch-22. You guys showed up. You were very supportive and lovely. Said all lovely things to stop me spiraling. Then I think we put the world to rights a little bit in the Airbnb afterwards. But you are currently right around the corner from my place, so I see you every day now.

 

“On The Pitt you’ve got someone like Noah [Wyle]. I came into the scene and he just sped through it. And at the time I was just shell-shocked, like, “What? What’s happening here?” But it worked so well for the scene, and he completely threw me off, but it really worked for me to be taken off guard seeing him in this other way.”

 

LP: I’ve been seeing you all over the place and hearing the name Whittaker every which way. You’ve become a fan favourite rapidly – we’re going to get into that later – but I will just say upon my first impressions of you because that was such a shape-shifting experience, that whole Catch-22. It was
just a bunch of guys on an island playing military and I always remember you were assessing the situation. I remember thinking this guy is clocking everything that’s going on here.  All the different socio, subterranean, animalistic, behavioural things that were happening. And then I think very quickly me and Graham were like, “Oh my God, Gerran is the secret weapon of this thing and has the great talent of a quiet killer.” I’ve been so proud to watch The Pitt because of that nose to the grindstone work that you’ve been doing for so many years in supporting has come to a head where I feel like you are really getting your time in the sun, your spotlight. You’re able to really put a lot of your amazing talent to work, and it’s being seen internationally. It’s amazing to watch.

 

GH: Thank you. I really appreciate that. Catch-22 was just, I mean, I think we’d all take a bullet for each other from that job. We all got so close. It’s kind of mad, even though we’re all in separate places all the time, that I think that meant a lot to everyone on that.

 

LP: When you are working opposite another actor what qualities would you say help bring out your best performance?

 

GH: Well, it’s a tough question because you can’t predict what you’re gonna get, right? So you kind of have to adapt. But I think I get the most satisfaction from people who are really willing to make the scene work. I know that sounds vague but, not in the way of selfishness, like “Let’s make this a cool scene,” but I really love when actors get really excited about trying to make this thing work.

 

On The Pitt you’ve got someone like Noah [Wyle]. That’s Noah’s whole thing, just play, and you can go into a scene, as an actor, when you can have that really clear vision of like, “Oh, I know what this scene’s gonna be,” and that’s such a trap. But, the amount of times I’ll go into a scene with Noah and go, “Okay, this is the scene where he’s going to discipline me and he’s going to do this,” I remember there’s one particular scene with Amy on the farm. I came into the scene and he just sped through it. And at the time I was just shell-shocked, like, “What? What’s happening here?” But it worked so well for the scene, and he completely threw me off, but it really worked for me to be taken off guard seeing him in this other way. When actors are just willing to play and make themselves look silly or take risks, it makes it fun for everyone.

LP: Yeah, exactly. Not settling for the obvious, take the first read. When they’re like, “No, let’s leave some embarrassing work on the floor and we might get one gem.”

 

Was there a moment during filming The Pitt, when you realised audiences were connecting to Whitaker in a way that you hadn’t anticipated?

 

GH: Well, people love the bodily fluids, so that was kind of instant. They love asking, “Oh my God, are you gonna get shat on?” Wait and see. Season three, baby. Hey, there’s still time. I think the stuff that impacts you the most is when people see a reflection of themselves in the character. Then there were people from the medical industry, I’d get really surprised when people would come up and talk to me, how quickly they would get emotional. They’d talk about Whittaker and say, “Yeah, man, you’re having a really bad day in that first season,” or whatever. It would just be like a little fist bump someone would give me, and an acknowledgement of, “Yeah, I’ve been there, man,” recognising that people get a little bit of therapy from it.

 

LP: I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times, but it’s apparently the only show that a lot of people who actually work under those conditions really enjoy watching because it feels like they’re not spending the entire show being like, “Well, that wouldn’t happen. That’s unrealistic.” They actually feel very seen from this show, and the whole format of how it’s designed is very immersive in a way that isn’t traumatising. It feels like an I see you kind of approach.

 

GH: Yes, The Pitt is all about making it really accurate. It’s still TV at the end of the day and it’s enlarged and big, it has to be entertaining for people, but I think it definitely doesn’t take people out of it. They can watch it and kind of get engrossed, just see themselves in it. It’s been really cool, I think, for medical professionals who have partners or friends, and they get to reference the show and go, “If you want the closest depiction of what my life is like that maybe I can’t talk to you about in real life,” maybe that’s something they can refer people to and say, “Maybe you can get to know me a little bit better through this show.” That’s really cool.

 

“The Pitt is all about making it really accurate. […] It’s been really cool, I think, for medical professionals who have partners or friends, and they get to reference the show.”

 

LP: That’s an amazing olive branch for people to be able to use, because it does feel like that kind of the intensity of that environment is really difficult to depict to loved ones. What a gift.

 

What is the biggest misconception people have about playing a quiet character such as Dr. Dennis Whittaker? ‘Cause you and I have both played quite a few quiet boys.

 

GH: I think they’re reserved. What’s a misconception about it? I guess maybe that’s passive, You still have to do the work. Maybe not more work, but I think it forces you to have to really do the internal mechanics a bit more. And hope that, you still have to know what he wants and what that character is holding back maybe. In a way it can be kind of tougher because, when you’re playing a character that’s putting everything on the table, it’s kind of easy for an audience to digest. But if you’re not, there’s a real temptation to show things, but you’ve got to hold all that back and hope that an audience sees the pressure.

 

LP: Yeah. Well said.

 

GH: Basically we’ve got it tough. We’ve got it tough. We work harder. Is the answer.

 

LP: No, but completely. I think even in watching Whittaker what you don’t say, what you don’t have, and second season versus first season is very different in terms of your position and your self-confidence and I feel like watching what Whittaker may have not said in the first one that he’s now starting to say. So, all that kind of subterranean stuff that when you’re watching it, it’s like the audience still needs to see what you’re not saying, and I feel like you do that so well.

 

GH: Oh, thank you, man. You too. You’re the master at it, man. You’re the master.

 

LP: I learnt it from you, man. I learn it from the best.

 

Following the Emmy nominations, it was reported that The Pitt was averaging 18 million global viewers per episode. How do you conceptualise statistics like that?

 

GH: Surely you don’t. For me a number, you can’t conceptualise. That’s abstract. That’s just noise. There’s no way you can find an emotional attachment to a number that big. But it’s really cool. It just means that a lot of people are seeing it, but I can’t connect to that. Can you? How does it affect you when you see numbers like that?

 

 

LP: Well, my brain can’t really conceptualise numbers above 1,000. It’s nice to know that it’s reaching, that people are investing and people are finding a community in something that feels good.

 

Now diving into our acting portion, going into acting-nerd zone. You started acting as a child in your local drama school performances, which I didn’t even know about, but it makes sense. What was it about acting that you first fell in love with?

 

GH: It was movies for me that I really fell in love with acting, I suppose. I didn’t know what acting was, but I just loved seeing movies that made me feel something and. Do you know what I watched the other day? I re-watched Hook. I don’t know why I re-watched Hook, Dustin Hoffman as Hook- in that. Oh my God.

 

LP: I gotta re-watch. It’s been a minute.

 

GH: Oh, please watch it and report back. Well, I guess I started doing it, basically my very good friend of my mum was a drama teacher in the high school and she would put on these plays with the older kids, it was like musicals and stuff. and she would kind of recruit me, ’cause she knew how much I loved movies and film and acting and I think she saw something in me, so she would cast me in these productions. For instance they did Little Shop of Horrors and they needed a ventriloquist dummy.  So she got me on there and just making a fool of myself and I loved it, man. I really loved it. I got the bug for it.

 

I remember, we did a production of Blood Brothers and that was the first thing I ever did, I really vividly remember it being a blackout on the stage. It was the first time I’d been on a stage. And I just remember like in the blackout “No, No, [swearing]” silently, and then realising I had a wireless mic on and it was reverberating in here, and hearing the sound guy turn it down.

 

But also I did a workshop. It was an after school workshop called Actsly in Cardiff where it doubled as an agency, but it was basically loads of teenagers doing improv in this one room once a week. And yeah, that’s where I got the bug. Goodness … it was really cool, in front of loads of teenagers and kind of friends, making them laugh and having an impact on them. That was like where I first fell in love with it. And then I went off to do the kids TV stuff and it was just the ball rolling, I guess.

LP: What kind of kid were you socially outside of the acting?

 

GH: Oh, inept is the word for it. Socially inept. I would always be the one to recruit people to play, make games and stuff. But, I was very shy, so I guess it was a way to express myself when I think back on it. It was kind of fun to be given a script and given lines to do.

 

LP: Totally, I relate to that. Isn’t it interesting how such a stereotypically extroverted craft often attracts these kinds of introverted archetypes.

 

GH: For me, it was just a way to express myself in a safe environment with instructions. That was quite therapeutic for me.

 

 

LP: You’ve worked on projects from Young Dracula to Catch-22, 1917 and now The Pitt. Which project taught you the most about yourself as an actor? And it doesn’t have to be one of those that was listed.

 

GH: I don’t know if you agree, but you take a lot from everything, right? You take something from everything. The Pitt is very close to me right now just because it’s what I’m doing right now, and I can genuinely say like I’m learning a lot about myself. The stakes are quite high so you have to go inward and think about stuff a lot. Young Dracula I think taught me a lot about set etiquette.

 

And then you go to something like Catch-22, I think then you learn how to operate within something that’s so big. That’s a whole different ballgame, man. We were surrounded by giants and heroes of mine. That taught me to sit and listen and kind of take in how people around you are kind of operating.

 

LP: I would imagine all those things prepped you well for The Pitt. On Catch-22 you would always disappear into your basement room and we wouldn’t see you for a couple days. It was like you were woodshedding in there and prepping. And I imagine The Pitt takes such rigorous discipline with all this jargon that you have to not only be able to spew out but understand to some degree. That must be a kind of a whole new degree of homework.

 

GH: Yeah. It’s confronting. On The Pitt you can really tell that the writers write for you as well, so that’s been kind of interesting. They really try to put as much of the actors into the characters as possible, which is kind of confronting, but you end up learning a lot about yourself through that.

 

“I did feel very exposed [playing Whittaker] because I think I was channeling a lot of my real fear of being this imposter, knowing that I’m not, but it can be very revealing to yourself when you’re letting those feelings run free and those fears.”

 

LP: Interesting. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that. That’s really interesting. Have you found any moments where you feel misunderstood or you feel naked? Like so seen?

 

GH: Well, I think especially for season one of The Pitt, it was the character being so wide-eyed and terrified which was really interesting to play because I think that Whittaker in season one was very, I don’t want to say easy to play, but like a part of me that lives very close to the surface. Because I am a British actor coming into this big American TV show, and as the character of Whitaker, I am this guy coming into the emergency department for the first time being terrified.

 

So I did feel very exposed because I think I was channeling a lot of my real fear of being this imposter, knowing that I’m not, but it can be very revealing to yourself when you’re letting those feelings run free and those fears. And then you gotta put that part of yourself down a bit because you’re like, “No, I’ve gotta act here. I’ve gotta perform and not come out thinking I’m a terrible person that doesn’t belong here.”

 

LP: The second season you mentioned that there was kind of a big character change that happened pretty close to the start of shooting, right? I don’t wanna give away any spoilers, but Whittaker’s journey and his trajectory from what you thought it was, changed pretty starkly, pretty close to shooting. How did you navigate that and the fear of that? What was that whole experience like?

 

GH: I think it was knowing that Whittaker had to be a person who didn’t get fired in between season one and season two or, at least was a person that willingly came back to this environment knowing how crazy season one was for him and how kind of damaging it was for him. People say, “Oh my God, he’s so confident now in season two,” and I think it’s just more of, I had to think of it as that Whittaker season one exists. He hasn’t gotten rid of it, but, it was like, What masks has he now put on to be able to face the day and, and still be a competent, useful person in that environment? So it was just about reframing it, what is driving him to put himself through this again? And, what things has he put in place now to survive and at least on the surface look like he belongs there and knows what he’s doing? It wasn’t about him being a different person. It was just about him now just having survival mechanisms.

 

LP: Totally. putting a new mask on, but still being able to see the residuals from what we know underneath it. It’s a hard little layer cake that you had to build there. Yeah. He’s so deep. That’s why we love Whittaker, man.