Interview: Shabana Azeez on Playing the Gen-Z Doctor in ‘The Pitt’

“It was such a different process to prep for somebody I was already playing. It’s my first time ever doing a season two….”

You would never know it was Shabana Azeez‘s first time doing a season two based on the incredible work she’s been doing on season two of HBO Max’s hit series The Pitt. Azeez broke out with her performance as Victoria Javadi, a brilliant but awkward student doctor.

“Season one I was very random about my references,” she explains. “I was looking at Adam Brody in The OC and…reading about loneliness and social media and TikTok. This season I had the gift of knowing a bit about her already and not being so in the dark.”

That gift shines bright in the first four episodes of the second season as we see a version of Javadi that is more sure of herself and more refined in her patient relationships.

“Javadi graduated from the McKay School of Doctoring here,” Azeez says. “I think you can see that in the first few episodes how much McKay has influenced the way her bedside manner is. So it was really exciting to be like, ‘What am I taking from Patrick [Ball]? What am I taking from Noah [Wyle]? What am I taking from Fiona [Dourif] as the youngest kid?”

Azeez implements a multitude of small details that inform the way Javadi has grown and changed since audiences first met her. The character feels rounded and rich without bludgeoning the audience with explanation. Javadi’s shifted in myriad ways; you just have to look closely.

These subtle shifts are also drawn out by her rivalry with one of the new student doctors. “With Ogilvie, she doesn’t have to slow herself down,” Azeez says. The contentious dynamic, though comedic, unleashes a side of Javadi that we haven’t necessarily seen before. “There’s a freedom of ‘I can just be free with him?’ Which is so heartbreaking that the place she feels freest is with her fucking enemy.”

Javadi’s quest for freedom manifests in her tense relationship with her mother as well. “Javadi’s just begging for love and she gets mentorship. I think that’s incredibly painful. I’m not sure that her mom ever sees quite how she’s rejecting Javadi constantly, constantly, constantly.”

A brief confrontation in the season premiere showcases a firmer Javadi who’s establishing clearer boundaries. Azeez expertly flips her physicality here and, although the audience does not know all that’s happened between the two, we can feel ten months’ of tension floating between the two.

“She’s so cerebral and so in her head, when she behaves in any way disregulated she’s like shocked and appalled at herself,” Azeez says. “I think we’re sort of seeing her move down her body and into her heart…. We’re sort of seeing her ground in her body and think about her feelings. ‘I don’t care if you’re right and I’m wrong about this medical thing. I deserve love from my parent, I deserve safety, I deserve to fail and to be able to come to you and the fact that I can’t do that is painful….’ I hope that kids of migrant parents see themselves in that dynamic and it gives us a framework for how to develop those social scripts.”

According to Azeez, failure and the permission to do so, feels like a major component of Javadi’s arc this season. “…Javadi fails in a new way that she hasn’t failed before and I’m really excited to show…all the ways that doctors have to be perfect and all the ways that what happened in season one affect somebody. I hope this season…helps med students particularly…feel more comfortable in their growth and the imperfection of the journey.”

The most brilliant part of Azeez as a performer is her awareness for the what the character means in the larger cultural context and what Javadi is a vehicle for. On top of everything Javadi navigates this season, Azeez finds her to be indicative of the Gen-Z experience and, specifically, a showcase for the complexities of young women.

“I’m really honored to play the Gen-Z doctor. I think I’m really grateful to be playing a young physician who’s not performing oldness. She’s not ‘pick-me’ in that way. She’s going, ‘I am a young woman and I am smart,’ not ‘I am a young woman but I’m a great doctor. I’m a young woman and I’m doing all the young woman things and I’m a great doctor.’ I think those things are played at odds with each other and it just is not true. You can be incredibly intelligent and have 15,000 followers on TikTok….”

In the fourth episode, it is revealed that Javadi has amassed a TikTok following and has become something of an Internet personality. “I’m excited for that,” says Azeez, “and I’m excited for people’s biases being tested. And they will be all season with her.

“I think girlhood has been so villainized and maligned for so long and not taken seriously and I think Gen-Z is really telling that mindset to stick it,” she continues. “I’m really proud and excited to be growing up at this time where girlhood is sort of celebrated. It’s such a complicated time of your life as a young woman. Especially with what’s going on with politics…gender…she seems to me the perfect exploration of what it means to be a young person.”

With this care and intention, Azeez breathes intricate life into Victoria Javadi. In her capable hands, Javadi becomes one of the most interesting characters, navigating a formative time in her life in an environment rife with trauma and pressure. Azeez both celebrates and dichotomizes Javadi’s place in the hospital that continues to evolve and grow in spectacular ways across the second season.

You can catch Shabana Azeez’s incredible work on season two of The Pitt, with new episodes releasing Thursdays on HBO Max at 9PM ET. Awards Radar sat down with Azeez to chat about being the Gen-Z doctor, Javadi’s growth since season one, and why she loves ensembles. Watch the full video below.