Performing, at times, can mirror the energy of a busy emergency room in Pittsburgh’s North Side, making endurance and stamina key. Both are something The Pitt actress Sepideh Moafi says she picked up early as a stage performer before she became a fixture of the popular HBO series as attending physician Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. “I think whenever you train in theater and opera, you know how to explore and express in a much more athletic, muscular way,” she says. “With television and film, it’s all distilled for the size of the camera.”
In the days before her TV career took off, her stage work — which she recently returned to for a monthlong run in the off-Broadway production of New Born at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre — was a defining experience. “It immediately gave me a sense of belonging that was not attached to what I looked like. It was linked to my work ethic and natural talent,” Moafi says. “But natural talent is not enough. You have to train, and I loved the training. I loved the falling and getting up and being humbled by this thing.”
At the time, Moafi didn’t realize how that training would lay the groundwork for a career mainly in TV and film. Shortly after getting her MFA from UC Irvine, she booked her first onscreen credit, a guest stint on CBS’ Blue Bloods. Other roles steadily followed, first a string of broadcast procedurals (Elementary, The Good Wife) and later streaming dramas (Black Bird, The L Word: Generation Q, Class of ’09). It was booking David Simon and George Pelecanos’ HBO drama The Deuce that gave Moafi her first sense of visibility on a set.
