Beyond ‘The Pitt’: Noah Wyle’s Best TV Roles Outside the ER

In a sense, Noah Wyle’s Emmy-winning role in The Pitt — which returns for a second season on Thursday, January 8, 2025, at 9/8c on HBO Max — is familiar territory for the actor. Here he is playing another emergency room doctor, this time Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, after more than a decade of portraying Dr. John Carter of Cook County General Hospital on NBC’s ER.

In fact, Wyle and former ER executive producers John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill considered making a Carter-centric ER spinoff to spotlight the ravages of the modern-day healthcare system — but a disagreement with the estate of ER creator Michael Crichton shut down that idea. So Wyle, Gemmill, and Wells instead made The Pitt. (As it happened, Crichton’s widow sued the trio and Warner Bros. Television for breach of contract anyway, in a legal case that is ongoing.)

But before Wyle found a reason to return to a fictional emergency room, he resisted playing any character similar to Dr. John Carter. “I wouldn’t take a script if it was to play a doctor, even if it was a veterinarian,” he told Variety in April. “The idea of putting a stethoscope around my neck just seemed like a really bad idea.”

So while he may be best known for his work in medical dramas, Wyle has appeared on the small screen as a tech mastermind, a swashbuckling librarian, an alien-fighting professor, a grieving teacher, and a redemption-seeking attorney. Here is a chronology of all those roles — and insights on each from Wyle himself.

Steve Jobs, Pirates of Silicon Valley

For this 1999 TNT movie about the innovators of the personal computer, Wyle starred as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs opposite Anthony Michael Hall as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Wyle told Fortune in 2009 he was apprehensive about playing Jobs until seeing the tech businessman in the documentary Triumph of the Nerds. “I was so taken by his presence, his confidence, smugness, smartness, ego, and his story’s trajectory,” Wyle said. “He seemed to be the most Shakespearean figure in American culture in the last 50 years I could think of — the rise of, the fall of, and the return of.”

Where to watch: The Emmy-nominated film is currently only available on DVD.

Flynn Carsen, The Librarian franchise

Across three TNT movies between 2004 and 2008 and a follow-up TNT television series between 2014 and 2018, Wyle plays Flynn Carsen, a librarian in charge of protecting and recovering mythical and magical artifacts.

“The thing I like best about [the story] is that it just sort of fills a void that exists in TV,” Wyle told Variety in 2014. “There are shows that are adventure shows, and there are shows that are comedies, and there are relic hunter shows, but there’s not anything that quite strikes this tone of Scooby-Doo scary — enough for a kid to be on the edge of their seat — but the jokes are really funny, too, and then it’s got a really good emotional impact.”

Where to watch: The first three Librarian made-for-TV movies are streaming for free on Tubi, Pluto, The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime, The CW, and other platforms. The series is streaming for free on The CW, Amazon Prime, and other platforms.

Tom Mason, Falling Skies

Wyle was a three-time Saturn Award nominee for his lead role as Tom Mason, a history professor who becomes a militia leader in mankind’s fight against alien invaders, in this TNT sci-fi drama, which ran from 2011 to 2015. The actor told Paranormal Pop Culture in 2012 that he enjoyed playing the arc of an unlikely action hero realizing his knowledge of history is actually a tactical advantage.

And Falling Skies marked the first time Wyle was at the top of a call sheet for a TV show. “I was excited to tackle that challenge to see if I could carry an ensemble — and a young ensemble, at that — and how I want to do it, and who I thought did it really well, in my experience, and who I could pull and draw from to make that an easier experience for everybody,” he said.

Where to watch: The series is streaming on Netflix.

Daniel Calder, The Red Line

The actor scored a Critics Choice Award nominee for his performance in this 2019 CBS limited series. In his role as Daniel Calder, Wyle played another teacher, this one husband of a Black man killed by a white cop.

Wyle told The Hollywood Reporter the part made him fall in love with acting again. “If you ask me, honestly it’s going to sound so trite, because my name is Noah, but I look for arcs,” he added. “When I read the pilot script for ER, I thought, ‘Of all these characters, this guy has got the biggest story. Because he started on the job today, which means he’s got the most to learn.’ … And then [with] Daniel Calder, how do you rebuild your life when everything you defined yourself by is taken away? It’s a leap of faith.”

Where to watch: The series is available for purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and other platforms.

Harry Wilson, Leverage: Redemption

In the IMDb TV-turned-Freevee-turned-Prime Video 2021 revival of the TNT action drama Leverage, Wyle starred as fixer Harry Wilson, a corporate lawyer atoning for his past work with amoral clients. The job reunited Wyle with Librarian franchise producer Dean Devlin, an EP on both Leverage shows. And Wyle was a replacement, of sorts, for original Leverage star Timothy Hutton.

“Dean called me and said, ‘I’ve got kind of a hole in my ensemble and need to fill it fast. Would you be willing to come down and play?’” Wyle recalled to Screen Rant. “We didn’t really have a character designed; it was more sort of a triage situation. But the idea was this sort of ‘Michael Clayton high-priced corporate fixer lawyer’ who was looking to change his karma.”

Where to watch: The series is streaming on Amazon Prime.