'The Pitt' star Sepideh Moafi on being limitless

So the first question I'm going to ask you is, what is the most unhinged thing that you sincerely believe? You know, it's interesting. I was talking to a coach of mine the other day, and I was telling her about my goals in the upcoming weeks, months, years, and I was being of itself deprecating. I was like, you know, I know it's delusional and I know it's a big grandiose, but now it's the time, I guess, and she's like, what's delusional and grandiose about having an expanded imagination and knowing your word? So I've been thinking about this ever since I'm like, it's funny, we self deprecate and we sort of downplay ourselves in our dreams throughout our life, especially for people who grow up in marginalized communities and people who are not necessarily, you know, born and raised here, or people who come from immigrant or refugee families. And it's time to sort of reclaim ourselves in our dreams and our narratives. So I would say I think the most unhinged thing that I believe is that there is no limit. I love that. Season 2 of HBO Max's beloved series The Pit came back with a splash and a new face in the crowded ER, attending physician Dr. Baron Al-Hashami, played by Sephi Demoafi. Dr. Al-Hashami immediately makes her presence known by encouraging structure in the ER. She wants the hospital staff to stop calling it The Pit because she believes it has a negative effect on morale. She suggests the use of AI to help doctors work more efficiently. She even challenges fan favorite Dr. Robbie, played by Noel Wiley, with varying degrees of success. The season progresses, Dr. Al-Hashami, much like the other members of The Pit, slowly but surely allows us to see behind the curtain. And I don't want to spoil too much, but her story culminates in a moving reveal about her health. Sephi Demoafi has earned her an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a drama. This makes her the first Iranian woman and the first woman of Middle Eastern or Swana descent, Southwest Asian or the African, to get nominated in the category. Today on the show, Emmy nominated actress, singer, producer and human rights advocate, Sephi Demoafi joins me to unpack how her personal journey led her to this historic moment. Sephi Demoafi, welcome to it's been a minute. Thank you, hi. Hello, hello, I'm Brittany Loose and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. I want to start with something about your artistry and experience that I feel very connected to because this is something that I did when I was very young, like a child, which is opera. You studied opera, retrained opera singer. I wonder like what has opera given you as a foundation for your current work on screen? I'll start by saying, if I veer too far away from the operatic lens or the operatic approach, I feel lost. That is always at the base because think about it. When we lack hinge, going back to the first thing he said, when we allow ourselves to be exposed and in private, like our emotions run us wild. And think when we were like 13, going through puberty, how to crush it, like it was life or death. So we felt so deeply and then we spent our adulthood trying to cover feeling and trying to numb ourselves and distract ourselves. So acting, we get back to the source of these raw, exposed, unhinged feelings and depending on the character and depending on the circumstance, depending on the point in the story, we hide. For a character like Dr. Al-Hashnamy on the surface, she's reserved, she's contained, but there's this volcano beneath the surface that she is on a surfboard navigating underneath. And that's like anybody, and you know, I don't think there's a difference between the depth of feeling that I have or the depth of feeling that somebody who doesn't show emotion has. It's just about what we're willing to share. And so going back to the opera, what opera taught me and gave me a foundation with is the size that's required, the lung capacity, the breath, the commitment, the follow-through, of gesture, of emotion, of intention. And so I think about the difference between opera and film acting actually is more of a dial, you know. If I'm speaking to somebody or singing to someone, it's a 2,000-seat house, then I got to go to the back of the house. And so everything I do is with intention to the last person at the back of the house. But with a camera, it's the person in front of me and it's the camera here. So it's about the intensity and the size of feeling, it's just you scale back and sort of adjust to the size of the space, to the proximity of the person or the camera. And so if I notice myself becoming disembodied or becoming, you know, disconnected, then on set, I always go back to like Shakespeare monologues or I'll do, you know, drills or something in my room to get me back in my body and give me that access point of the well and that depth of emotion and that size. It's the same mechanism, it's just adjusting for the tone and temperature of the piece. I love that. I love that. I'll tell you what, you were very well-adjusted. Your tone is very well-adjusted in your performance as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi on the beloved. Beloved, I feel like, is actually underselling it. The deeply beloved medical drama, the pit. You say her name and my heart warms. Oh, I'm so glad. A lot of characters pronounce her name differently. I think it's actually, it's so accurate. I grew up my entire life having people call me sapeda, sapeda, sapeda. And I know, hey, it's just, I know it's different, but I think when you spend time caring for someone or listening to the detail of pronunciation, it shows attention, right? And so from the Dr. Al-Hashimi, that was important for me to pronounce other people's name correctly, too, because she cares about the details. She cares about the details. Well, I noticed that with Dr. Javati, like she says her name differently than everybody else who pronounces it javati, pretty much the entire rest of the cast pronounces her name that way. And I noticed that. I was like, ooh, Dr. Al-Hashimi. I mean, that's one of the things that made me love her. I have to say, like, she's professional. She's no nonsense, but she's also very fair. And I personally loved her from the start, even though she is really pushing that AI. And I was like, I don't know about this girl. But I loved her from the first episode, but people have had a variety of strong reactions to this character throughout the season. There are a lot of people that love her. There are a lot of people who found her very prickly and not likeable. Why do you think Dr. Al-Hashimi is listening to such a strong response from the audience? Well, I think there are some pretty simple reasons, and then there's some complex reasons. I think the simple reasons are, she came in as this counter to Dr. Robby philosophically. She represents more of the modern approach to medicine. She comes in guns blazing. It seems like she's coming in and these ideas are fresh, but realistically, she would have had to go through administration. She even said in the beginning, you know, I sent you a package that he never read. And so there's that. There's someone coming in who's seemingly maybe not reading the room in terms of how she's approaching day one. I don't agree with that. I don't think she's not reading the room. I think she's just incredibly clear and precise and strategic and meticulous and tenacious. And she has this promethy and drive to innovate and to improve patient-centered care. She's pretty radical in that way, but she comes up against our beloved Dr. Robby. And so there was already so much loyalty and devotion towards this character. And then you're going to bring in a woman, you know, to test him, to hold his feet to the fire a bit. Of course, she's going to ruffle some feathers. But I knew where the character, where the arc was, was headed. And I know so many women, I continue to meet so many women myself included who had to sort of navigate your public perception and sort of accommodate or overcompensate sometimes in order to be taken seriously. This constant back and forth, this balance that I know she's had to navigate her whole life. And on top of that, add this neurological condition. On top of that, add her and her family's struggle and upbringing with, you know, having it being mixed race, being, you know, Iranian and Iraqi and her parents' immigration story. And all of the complications that life deals with us. And so I knew that she was sort of righteous and she was justified in her choices. And I knew that any time we see someone come up against the protagonist that we love. And I don't think it's a hot take to say if it's a woman and a woman of color doing that. It's it's even we are harsh and these biases are so deeply seated and ingrained in our mindset. It's like we don't even I've had so many women, including women of color, be like, you know, you came out hot, you're messing with Dr. Robbie and I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, but that no, hey, you know, no judgment. It's no, but like you said, it's very baked in. It's very baked in, but I had faith that people would at the very least understand that there were deeper dimensions to her character, that she wasn't just, you know, as Dr. Santo says in one episode, Robo Doc. Yes, yes. We're going to take a quick break, but first, if you're a long time listener or brand new to it's been a minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know you can make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app, whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today. Coming up after the break, I have separate my sort of journey into this world, having them born in a refugee camp, and my family's journey getting to the United States as refugees from the 118 million displaced people around the world. Stick around. I mean, I'll say, I mean, by the end of the season, I think a lot of people have turned around on Dr. Al-Hashimi. I mean, it's obviously due to your performance and all of the sort of like biographical detail work that you did on your own to build out her character as well as what we see on screen. So much of doing that work, your work as an actor requires like a degree of vulnerability and openness that feels at least to me kind of at odds with how emergency room doctors approach their work. And Dr. Al-Hashimi for a variety of reasons seems especially guarded to your point. You know, you said that that's something that you think that a lot of the audience might have been responding to in a certain way in terms of that character. Like how do you go about building this character? Who has so many walls up? You know, it's similar actually to your question with the opera and the on camera. It's underneath even when people present or seem on the surface as people who are guarded and unemotional and even like disconnected or disassociated. Those are survival mechanisms, right? So what's underneath that? What happens when we lift the wall or when we sort of dissolve all of these barriers? What's underneath that? It's a core wound. It's these core experiences, these these formative experiences in childhood in life that have forced us to put these walls up. And so when I see on the page or on the surface a character is written in a certain way, I'm always cute. That's like I let you know my nose sort of guide me in terms of like my senses and like let my curiosity run wild. And for me, something that was important with this character was before I got the pit, before I even watched the pit, I have so many friends and colleagues from my like advocacy work. So many people who work in the humanitarian fields tell me to watch the pit. People wore doctors in war zones, you know, who are currently in, you know, Lebanon or or Gaza or whatever who have served and come back be like, this is the best medical show ever and it's not just a medical show. You have to watch it. So I was shocked that my friends around the world were watching this thing and when I finally did watch the pit, I understood because the show honors the internal landscape of our healthcare workers so honestly and so beautifully. And so when I got cast, before I even knew that they would plug her humanitarian background into the work into the story, I had already decided that I wanted to pay a quiet homage to these humanitarian aid workers who are my real life heroes. You know, areas of conflict crisis where you go and you absorb and you hold the death and destruction and you're forever changed, you know. And so it's not so much about, okay, this is just a detail in her backstory. It's what kind of person does it take to do that and the what kind of person comes back home and how does that affect their practice? And the way that it influences her practice coming back, you know, and the level of trauma and compartmentalization that it takes to survive. So she's juggling a lot and so what does that do? These are all little things that change the DNA of a character and then you fill up the fullness of her experience and the fullness of her her existence and then you zip it all up and all of that sort of just like purplates and lives inside and every now and again you get a close-up where people get to see there's something going on but we don't know what it is. This makes me think about another aspect of your career that I want to get into. You've used your platform consistently to bring to light the stories of refugees around the world, for your work with the International Rescue Committee, you you have interviews on your social media profiles have shown a light on humanitarian crises all over the world. I mean you want said to Christian Amin Por in an interview on CNN, you know the best refugee camp is a camp that doesn't need to exist. I wonder how have your politics informed or enriched your work and how has your work informed or enriched your politics? I can't separate my sort of journey into this world having been born in a refugee camp and my family's journey getting to the United States as refugees from the 118 million displaced people around the world. It's really hard to think of myself as the exceptional one who deserves it and it's just luck right. So I can't I could never live with myself nor would I want to live with myself if I received was handed worked for but was also given this amount of privilege and opportunity and just turn my back on that part of my life and these people who I've met you know with my work with the IRC and you know you meet and they're just like I am no more talented intelligence exceptional not that that should be a metric right not like that only the exceptional people deserve to live in B6 no we all deserve I mean there are humanitarian laws that say all children deserve you know an education they deserve to play so there are certain things that are just basic human rights but then it's just opportunity you know and it's luck and I am so in live in such close proximity to my own fortune to my own luck that it's really hard to pretend otherwise nor do I want to pretend otherwise how does that make people feel if I sit here and I say you know I'm just so great and that's why I'm here because I'm just the best it's not true you know yes the confluence of luck hard work opera you know persistence tenacity and all of that I haven't rose but but a few a key part of this is just I was not born in Syria during the revolution I was not born in Reza in 2020 or 2009 or whatever I was not you know I was born in a refugee camp and then we were one of the very lucky families that that had a second shot it's hard to sort of disintegrate this reality so it's not separate for me every character that I take on doesn't necessarily have my of course doesn't have my back story but there's an expanded view of the human condition and this expanded curiosity for the depth and breadth of the human condition like what I've learned from Dr. Alhash all the my characters from Loretta and the dues from Gigi and the L word from you know Dr. Alhashami and the pit it's it's changed my life and it's become part of who I am it's in my DNA it's in my immune system my nervous system and so yeah to sort of answer your question I just I cannot separate my life my experience and what I've born witness to whether it's in life or even online from you know from from these characters I have one last question your performance as Dr. Alhashami has earned you an. Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series, congratulations. That makes you the first Iranian woman to do so. I know you watched the nominations with your parents. What has it been like for you to process this achievement through their eyes? - Yeah, it's, I mean, wow, there are so many ways in which I'm processing this. Seeing them being with pride, not because of the accomplishments. Let me just be clear. If I accomplish nothing, they would be proud of me. It's the way in which this path has forged my life. And I think it's just my dedication over the past. Since I started singing at 15 years old, 16 years old, and now 25 years later, I'm still doing all the things and now having this sort of recognition industry-wise and being the first Iranian in this category, but also the first Middle Eastern or Swana, Southwest Asian, North African, to be in this category. What that means that the way that that can empower so many, so many other people who are struggling in this industry, who are frustrated with the lack of opportunity, or again, the checkbox diversity that we often have to navigate. And so many people who are living under bombs, intense, you know, that pride, that hope that that can give them, that visibility, again, that that can give them, that for me and for my parents has just been paramount because, you know, getting to living through what they live through, it's unimaginable, it's unimaginable. And housing that trauma for decades and decades and not being able to step foot home and questioning for a lot of your life, was it worth it? Was, you know, where are life choices? Are they ultimately of value and worth it? And then seeing the fruits of your family's labor, if it's not so much that, you know, she's reached the top, and now she's this, it's more of, you know, what we sacrificed, what we lived in our lives and what we were struggled was not for not, you know, because she has been able to pursue her dream and achieve a level of freedom and success in that dream that many people don't have the chance for. And I think what makes them more proud than anything else is that I've never forgotten where I come from and who I am in the process. You know, even if I did, they wouldn't let me. You know, so they keep my feet on the ground, trust me. So, and I'm grateful for that. So I think that it's just immense pride in what this moment symbolizes rather than what it is. Hmm. Well, I just want to say again, congratulations on the nomination. It has been such a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you so, so much. Thank you so much. Really a truly a pleasure. That was Emmy-nominated actress, Seppi.moffi. This episode of "It's Been a Minute" was produced by Alexis Williams. This episode was edited by Nina Patuck. Our supervising producer is. Sheriff Vincent. Our executive producer is Barton Gurdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguene. All right, that's all for this episode of "It's Been a Minute" from NPR. I'm Brittany Loose. Talk soon.