Steven Prusakowski
When speaking to actress Isa Briones on TV Topics podcast about her work as Dr. Trinity Santos on HBO Max’s Emmy-winning medical drama The Pitt, I jokingly told her that the best acting she’s done was during the post-credits scene of the season two finale. In that brief but memorable moment, Santos and Dr. Mel King (played by Taylor Dearden) share a much-needed bonding experience, belting out the classic Alanis Morissette hit “You Oughta Know” in a karaoke bar. The two doctors, perhaps fueled by a few alcoholic drinks, do admirably, but if this were American Idol, the duo probably wouldn’t be moving on to Hollywood.
The humor relies entirely on the fact that Briones can sing like nobody’s business. I recently caught her run on Broadway’s Just in Time, where the musical theater trained actress brought the house down as Connie Francis, belting out emotional, theatre-filling tracks. When I say Briones can sing, SHE CAN SING. Making her come across the least bit capable of holding a note is a feat in itself.
Briones demands viewers’ attention in every scene. Yet, it’s not always just what Isa reveals on screen, it’s what she’s holding back but we can sense from her work that is most impressive. Like an ocean, it’s not the waves on the surface that carry the weight, it’s the undercurrent that pulls you in.
As Santos, Briones portrays a woman known primarily for her sharp, sarcastic sense of humor. She is driven, judgmental, and rarely easy to get along with, leaving her colleagues constantly walking on eggshells. In reality, that prickly persona is a carefully constructed defense mechanism, a wall built to protect herself from pain after childhood abuse and the sudden loss of a close friend left her deeply scarred. We begin learning bits of Santos’ story in season one, but it is season two where the true heartbreak of her reality unravels as she lets down her guard to help a patient.
Santos often clashes with Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), bravely and directly confronting him about his drug theft from patients and calling out his risky behavior in the ER. She also relentlessly teases the young doctor Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez), nicknaming her “Crash.” Beneath all the sharp sarcasm and tension with her colleagues, however, lies a much more tender and vulnerable heart one she guards carefully and reveals to few through quiet acts of compassion, particularly when caring for frightened, hurt patients and children.
Briones’ work has always been compelling, but it is how she captures the duality that adds layers upon layers to her character’s emotional fortress. The sharp doctor using lowering her barriers to become the deeply caring advocate willing to stand up for what is right, no matter the cost. All the while her colleagues know nothing about the pain she harbors.
“Well, it was written very sarcastic and I think they gave me kind of all the tools I needed in that first episode to know like, okay, I know how she kind of creates this barrier that’s the sarcasm, the snark, like all of those things are there,” Briones explained. “And I think it more just came down to what I got to bring to it, which felt natural… I got to bring the snark but with the layers of vulnerability underneath. I think any intelligent person watching the thing is going to be like, ‘Oh yeah, she’s hiding the fact that she’s very vulnerable and actually just as insecure and scared as anyone else, but just this is her way of dealing with it because she never wants to be a victim. She never wants to be seen as weak or whatever. So, she fronts.’”
That guarded exterior doesn’t stay up in every situation. Briones explained how Santos’ superpower emerges when her own vulnerability serves her patients.
“I think that is like a big part of her superpower as a doctor, and she hides it behind – the snark and the sarcasm. But when she’s with patients that she can sense are in need, like the guard comes down,” explained Briones. Especially in season 2, you see her with a lot of kids and I think that opens a lot in her and is a little triggering at times for her, but you see that care immediately comes out because she knows how it feels.”
Briones shared her deeper thoughts on the character and how personal it feels to convey some of these insecurities and pains she hides. “I think what it is is like I have a lot of the similar mental health issues as her dealing with the depression and all of those things, but we just handle it publicly in different ways. Like she’s more about pushing people away… I think I’m I get more like anxious about like well like now everyone hates me and now everyone’s going to leave me but it’s like it’s coming from that like the panic of like I need to keep everyone whereas she’s like fine then everyone can go because they’ll just leave me anyway.”
At the heart of these contradictions lies deep trauma that shapes every relationship.
“Scott Gemmill and John Wells, before we started season 1, they had meetings with us to kind of give us just a general backstory of every character… for Santos it was that she had experienced abuse as a child from an authority figure… her best friend took her life and she went through a lot of this trauma of I’m okay so if I get close to people they either hurt or they leave,” shared Briones. “So that I think really framed a lot of just her worldview, especially as you get into her relationships with all these different people.”
Briones added that despite the walls, connection is what Santos truly craves.
“The unfortunate thing is that what she really needs is friends, like a real friend. She just needs community, like people to actually be there for her. But as long as she keeps kind of pushing people away, it’s just kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Briones.
Briones shared how all the the intensity of her roles makes her mother’s plea for something lighter. “My mother gets so upset,” Briones shared. “She’s like, ‘God, why do you have to do things that are either scary or so sad?’ Becuse I’ve either done horror or this,” revealed the actress. “She’s like, ‘Can you just not for a second? Can you do something that makes me happy? Pick one in the middle.’ … do a Fleabag.”
Briones who when discussing some TV topics, noted that she is a self-described big rewatcher who turns to comfort television for relief from anxiety. “I’m a big rewatcher. I’m a big comfort watch kind of person. I think I have a lot of anxiety, so I like to return to the things I know and love,” she said. Growing up, her family constantly rewatched Friends, later adding How I Met Your Mother and New Girl. These days she’s deep into a The Office (US) rewatch, naming Dwight as a favorite.
“I’ve been doing a big rewatch of The Office lately. I mean I love Dwight,” declared Briones. “I was doing a thing making my sun, moon, and rising my astrology sign as the characters and I feel like my sun or my rising is a Pam (Jenna Fischer) or something or because it’s like what people kind of view you as, but then like my sun is like Dwight (Rainn Wilson ) and my moon is Erin (Ellie Kemper) from the later seasons.”
Whether delivering the raw drama on The Pitt, shining bright on Broadway, or hopefully eventually taking on the comedy her mom craves, Briones keeps adding to the layers to what we know of her. She admitted, “I’d love to do a comedy. I’d love to do a rom-com. I’d love to do any of that. I want to do it all.”
Something tells me, she can.
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