Adam Scott Says He “Really, Really F****d Up” His 1995 ER Scene With Noah Wyle
Before starring on Severance, Adam Scott was just a 22-year-old actor trying to find his footing in the industry and according to him, he royally blew it in one of his first big gigs as a guest spot on ER.
In an interview with Decider, Scott opened up about a scene that’s haunted him ever since, sharing how a rookie mistake nearly derailed a big moment on the hit medical drama’s first season. Scott explained:
“There was a long take of me being wheeled in through the entire ER as Noah Wyle and [Sherry Stringfield] have dialog above me. It’s this long take, right? And we went through the whole thing. They got their lines perfect. Everything was great. Except I had taken my breathing thing out of my nose and had forgotten to put it back in.”
The episode in question is “Full Moon, Saturday Night”, which aired during ER’s first season in 1995. It’s a wild hour of TV that involved werewolf delusions, frostbitten frat bros, and general chaos.
Scott plays a young man named David who ends up in the ER after being hit by a car. Noah Wyle’s Dr. John Carter is the one treating him, if you could call “hovering over his gurney while monologuing” treatment.
Scott, still green at the time, realized his on-camera flub too late.
“I raised my hand and said something about it. And I was brand new. It was one of my first jobs. And somebody told me that I really, really f–ked up. I was so scared. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to me. I thought I may get the death penalty, which is really scary.”
Obviously, there was no death penalty for nose-tube negligence, but it offers some insight into the anxiety that comes with starting out in Hollywood, even for someone who would later go on to star in one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the decade.
Wyle, of course, went on to become the face of ER for years and recently stepped back into the scrubs in The Pitt as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch. Scott, meanwhile, is currently killing it on Severance.