Isa Briones on Prosthetics, Performing with Her Father, and Filipino Presence on The Pitt

In the Emmy-awarded medical drama The Pitt, Isa Briones plays Dr. Trinity Santos, while reflecting the realities of the American healthcare system and the vital presence of Filipino workers within it.

Each episode of the Emmy-awarded medical drama The Pitt follows a single hour in the emergency department of a busy trauma hospital, repeatedly pushing you to the brink of tension until a new, even grislier injury is rushed in. It’s not even lunchtime and you’ve witnessed a stream of patients requiring intubation, defibrillation, or amputation, and at least one death. Flustered med students face their first live operations while cool-headed Filipino nurses handle many of the integral procedures that keep the hospital running. It’s refreshing to see an accurate portrayal of the American healthcare system, which Filipinos make up a significant portion of the workforce. Nurses Perlah, played by Amiellyn Abellera, and Princess, played by Kristin Villanueva, code-switch easily into Tagalog as they talk and make chismis, casually flaunting the advantages of being bilingual.

In Season 1, Dr. Trinity Santos surprises the two nurses by addressing them back in Tagalog. Santos, played by Isa Briones, is the cocky, competitive new intern, brash to the point of abrasion. She is also protecting something deep inside herself, evident in the way she is especially attuned to victims of abuse. Coming into Season 2, we begin to glimpse more of the burden she carries, but not before an unexpected moment in Episode 7, when she hushes an abandoned, crying baby by singing a verse from the Visayan lullaby Ili Ili Tulog Anay.

On a call from Los Angeles, Briones recounts how that scene came together. It was Scott Gemmill, the showrunner and writer, who emailed her with the idea of singing a lullaby, perhaps a Filipino one. She immediately called her father, Jon Jon Briones, to ask his opinion. When he called back, he had thought of the perfect one. Traditionally sung by an older sister or an aunt, Ili Ili soothes the child in the absence of the mother. “It fit perfectly, especially for the context of this baby being left there,” Briones says. “It was a really cool chance to show a softer side and also sprinkle a little culture in there.”

Briones was born to be on stage; she was practically raised on tour. Her parents met in Germany while performing in Miss Saigon: Jon Jon Briones as the Engineer, the first Asian actor to inhabit the role, and Megan Johnson as Ellen, the American wife. “My earliest memories are trick-or-treating around the dressing rooms, and all of my titas were in their showgirl costumes,” she laughs. “I got to travel the world, not that I really remember it.”

What stayed with her was the ethos of the stage and what it meant to be a theater performer. “It’s all about the ensemble and everyone working together,” she says, “which really lends itself to The Pitt, because it is such an ensemble show.”

From a young age, Briones moved easily within the world of performance, in turn modeling, acting, and singing. She toured with Hamilton at 19, joined the cast of the TV show Star Trek: Picard, then returned to the stage, eventually making her Broadway debut in 2024 as Eurydice in Hadestown. Opposite her, as Hermes, was her father.

“It’s hard to describe. I get very emotional about it,” she says. “Growing up, I’ve always seen my dad on stage, larger than life. Then all of a sudden, I got to be up there with him. It was such a different vantage point.” Instead of only seeing the finished performance, she witnessed how he built a character. “On the flip side, he doesn’t always get to see me work, and he told me it was one of the most kind of emotional experiences he’s had in a while.”

While theater remains her first home, Briones felt ready to return to the screen. “Working with a camera and performing in front of an audience, both are magical things,” she says. “They bring different things out of you, and take different tolls as well.”

Season 2 of The Pitt begins ten months after that first grueling 15-hour shift. Dr. Santos is now a second-year resident whose brittle edges feel more frayed. The return of Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), who had harshly trashed her and whom she exposed for stealing benzos, acts as a major trigger. “As much as she likes to pretend that nothing affects her and nothing breaks through her walls, it really did,” Briones says. “She has a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities she tries not to show.” Santos settles into the belief that she will never be liked. “There’s a sadness there, and the reintroduction of Langdon reignited a lot of the anxieties around the feeling of not belonging. And with Robby leaving, she’s losing that safe space. You really see her breaking down.”

There are moments of levity amid the intensity, scenes of medical realism that make you respect healthcare workers all the more for the sometimes literal shit they confront. When a male patient arrives after ingesting too much Viagra and the doctors are required to relieve the pressure, the camera doesn’t hold back. “When you’re working with a penis, it is a prosthetic penis,” Briones explains. “And we always have actual doctors and nurses who say, yes, this is exactly what we would do. So you get to be in that moment, because you want to honor the reality of what medical professionals do every day.”

She contrasts this with her previous genre work in horror and sci-fi, where she often acted against nothing, imagining what would be later added in post-production. “The prosthetics that they make are unbelievable. It would shock the audience to realize just how little CGI is involved in our show,” she says. “When we’re looking at somebody’s rib cracked open, that is a prosthetic. If there is a heart pumping, someone is pumping it at the bottom of the bed. It does a lot of the job for us, in a way, because we never have to manufacture a reaction.”

But the realness does come at a cost. As they say, the body keeps score. Briones points out that even if your brain knows the scene is fictional, the body does not. “Your body internalizes the trauma as if it’s actually happening. You can go home at the end of the day, and even though you didn’t actually watch someone die, your body feels like you witnessed a lot of death.” Briones turns to things that bring her joy, like painting and singing or finding creative outlets that allow the weight to move through her, “so it doesn’t all compound, and I don’t have a breakdown like Santos.”

The Pitt’s real-time procedural format sheds light on the physically demanding, emotionally consuming, and mentally straining work of the emergency department staff. As a teaching hospital, it also serves as a platform for audiences to learn about what could very well save their lives. One episode carefully outlines what happens during a sexual assault forensic exam and the options available to survivors. Other cases not-so-subtly weigh in on the consequences of not vaccinating your child against measles, for instance. Yet it is the quieter, liminal moments that have moved audiences to tears. In Season 1, Dr. Robby, played by Noah Wyle, shares four phrases inspired by a Hawaiian healing ritual to help two siblings say goodbye to their dying father: I love you, Thank you, I forgive you, Please forgive me.

“I’ve heard so many stories since then, of people using that,” Briones says. “If that’s the only thing people take away, that’s beautiful. There are a lot of people who are going to be able to go into those really tough moments a little more informed, a little less taken off guard. Hopefully this helps with the fear of going to the hospital, of getting sick, of having to deal with a family death. I think it does a lot of healing.”

As Dr. Santos hums softly to the abandoned baby in a rare moment of stillness, we sense that she too longs for reassurance, to be held by something that feels like home. For Briones, that return is imminent. She was seven the last time she visited the Philippines. Now, she has the capacity to travel back with her family, and walk through the places where her father grew up. “I also can’t wait to eat,” she says. Asked about her favorite dish, the answer is, naturally, her father’s adobo.

One day, she hopes to merge her love for stage and screen by bringing the movie musical back. “But I love all of it,” she says. “And I want to do it all for the rest of my life.”

By AUDREY CARPIO. Photographs by JONNY MARLOW. Styling by KAT TYPALDOS. Hair: Jerrod Roberts. Makeup: Hinako.