Bustle Exclusive
Did You Catch The Pitt Reunion Hiding In Off Campus?
From the ER to Briar U, the buzzy shows share a connection.
At first glance, the steamy, trope-filled halls of Briar University might not have much in common with the fluorescent reality of a Pittsburgh emergency room. But indeed, Prime Video’s highly anticipated #BookTok adaptation Off Campus (streaming now) reunites several familiar faces from The Pitt.
Jalen Thomas Brooks plays Nurse Mateo on The Pitt, and while many fans first got to know him in a pair of scrubs, he dons a different uniform as hockey player John Tucker in Off Campus. (Fans of Elle Kennedy’s novel series know that he gets his own love story in Book 4, The Goal.) And before taking on the role of Allie in Off Campus, Mika Abdalla played Jenna, a patient of The Pitt’s titular ER in Season 1. In fact, Mateo is the very nurse who helps wheel Jenna into the hospital after she’s had a drug overdose.
“I don’t think I talked to Jalen at all when we were filming The Pitt. I was very much just in my trailer, like, trying to stay out of the way,” Abdalla tells Bustle. But in the waiting room for Off Campus chemistry reads, they had a warm reunion. “I walked in, and he was so sweet and came right up to me and was like, ‘Oh my god, hi, it’s so good to see you!’”
As they got to working together, Abdalla says Brooks relayed quite the observation.
“He told me that I would just stare a lot on the set of The Pitt, which made me so insecure,” she recalls with a laugh.
Of course, given the high-stakes frenzy of the medical drama, taking a moment to tune out makes sense! After all, playing a patient on The Pitt is no small feat. As Brooks points out, “Last time when I saw her, she was locked in. She was doing a really good performance, and [her character] had just overdosed. It was really intense.”
That she could so seamlessly take on such a different role in Off Campus only highlighted her acting chops. “Ally being this happy-go-lucky person, you’re like, Wow, you are so talented. She’s amazing,” Brooks says. “It was lovely to be reunited with her.”
Brooks notes that The Pitt reunion extended behind the scenes, too, as Silver Tree directed the pair on The Pitt before joining Off Campus.
