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Jennifer Stone, the former Wizards of Waverly Place star and current nurse, says she previously auditioned to be part of The Pitt.

The actress appeared on the CHEERS! with Avery podcast (hosted by upcoming Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County star Avery Woods), where she reflected on the audition process for the Emmy-winning medical drama. She explained that she even studied her lines while she was working a shift as a nurse.

“I auditioned for one of the series regulars for The Pitt when that first came out. And I remember, because at the end of the pilot episode, the Noah Wyle character, he’s having COVID flashbacks,” she said. “And as I often do, I was reading the script and working on lines while we were waiting for a patient to get admitted, kind of in those brief little pockets of time that you have, so I was working on the lines and reading the script at work.”

Stone began working as an emergency room nurse in 2022; she also began a separate role as a disaster relief registered nurse in 2023, according to her LinkedIn. On the podcast, she said that The Pitt was so similar to her own work as a nurse that she nearly had a “panic attack” reading the lines.

She continued, “And it got to those last few pages, and I started having a panic attack, just even hearing about that. I started having, like, the heavy breathing and I started having to do the, OK, this is the floor, that’s a table. Like, I started having to like talk myself down.”

“I have a hard time watching it ’cause it’s too close to home a little bit,” Stone added of The Pitt.

Stone starred on the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place from 2007-2012, and recently reprised her role as Harper Finkle for the final season of the reboot series, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.