The instinct to help others in distress that Taylor Dearden depicts as Dr. Melissa “Mel” King on “The Pitt” doesn’t go away when the cameras turn off.
Dearden, 33, shared on TODAY April 15 that, after all the medical boot camp training she has undergone to accurately portray a doctor on the HBO Max drama set in a Pittsburgh emergency room, she nearly put some of it into practice in real life.
Dearden was with her father, “Malcolm In the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” star Bryan Cranston, on a family vacation recently when she sprung into action.
In a taped question that aired on TODAY on April 15, Cranston asked his daughter if she ever had to put her newfound medical knowledge to work in a real-life situation.
“It was over the holidays, and there was a man choking in the restaurant we were in,” Dearden told Carson Daly. “It’s also very much an ADHD thing to be very good in emergencies, but we end up running towards it and not really knowing why we’re there now.
“There was a man choking, and I just sprinted towards him. I just kind of stood there like this and I had nothing to do. He was fine, but it was close, so close. I just stood waiting for my line that never came.”
Cranston initially shared the story on an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on April 9. He and his wife, actor Robin Dearden, marveled as their daughter didn’t hesitate when the man was struggling to breathe.
“She was running toward him and just as she’s getting to him, he caught his breath and started breathing,” Cranston said. “He was OK, and she told him, ‘Just take your time, take it slow.’ And we’re going, ‘Oh my God, we finally have a doctor in the family!’”
Dearden’s character on the Emmy-winning drama is good-natured and calm under pressure for a young doctor. She also is neurodivergent, which Dearden is in real life.
“I think as someone who’s neurodivergent myself, I feel very proud to represent something that feels true, real,” Dearden said.
Season 2 of the medical drama is about to wrap up with the finale on April 16, as the future of several characters in the ensemble remains up in the air in the final hour of an exhausting shift on July 4. The hit show will return for a third season with at least one change in the cast.
“I was curious, and I just saw it recently,” Dearden said about the finale. “I think it will hopefully satisfy a lot of questions and also ask a lot of new ones because I think ‘The Pitt’ does a great job with cliffhangers and constantly wanting more.”
