When Katherine LaNasa set out to build the voice of Dana Evans, the unflappable charge nurse on HBO Max’s hit medical drama “The Pitt,” she didn’t consult a dialect coach first. She started in the bathtub.
The reigning Emmy winner for supporting actress in a drama series immersed herself in prestige television while studying Dana’s unmistakable Pittsburgh accent, drawing inspiration from two acclaimed performances: Lisa Ann Walter’s Philadelphia schoolteacher in “Abbott Elementary” — which shares a makeup room hallway with “The Pitt” on the Warner Bros. lot — and Julianne Nicholson’s work in “Mare of Easttown.” “I was watching them, even though I knew it wasn’t exactly that [accent] for Pittsburgh,” LaNasa tells Variety. “I just wanted to get a sense of it, and I would listen to it when I was in the bathtub.”
LaNasa’s road to stardom was anything but conventional. After meeting and marrying actor Dennis Hopper when she was 22, professional dancer and choreographer LaNasa had taken only a single acting class — an experience she describes as “terrible” and one that left her intimidated by the profession. She remembers watching Hopper hold auditions in their home, where he had built a small theater. Years later, while pregnant with their son, Henry Lee Hopper, and living amid a home renovation, she discovered a documentary about legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. “I have to find that guy,” she remembers thinking. “That’s where I want to learn how to act.” She eventually tracked Meisner down and studied with him for nearly three years, an experience she considers the true beginning of her acting career.
