Two Dourifs are better than one!
Fiona Dourif shared the screen with her dad Brad Dourif on the latest episode of the Max hit medical drama The Pitt. The veteran actor is known for his work in the Chucky and Lord of the Rings franchises, and 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the latter of which earned him an Oscar nomination.
Fiona, 43, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that she was “delighted” to work with her dad, 75, again after they had recently costarred in the Chucky television series.
“The producers came up and asked me, and I got a little emotional,” she says of his casting. “I had just worked with him for the first time ever on screen very briefly in the last season of Chucky, where I actually played him. I was in four and a half hours of prosthetics, but the scene was actually quite brief.”
Fiona Dourif/Instagram
The Pitt follows a group of healthcare workers in a Pittsburgh emergency room during a 15-hour shift. Fiona plays second year resident and loving mother Cassie McKay. After her ex suffers a fall while skateboarding with their school-aged son, they are both rushed to the hospital. As the dad is wheeled away for treatment, their son is taken to wait in the employee break room until the end of his mom’s shift.
However, a mass shooting occurs at a nearby music festival and the hospital is left dealing with the horrific fallout. Previous episodes teased that McKay’s parents were coming to pick up her son. And exactly who that would be is revealed in the April 3 episode, titled “8:00 P.M.,” as none other than Brad.
With the series admittedly being Fiona’s biggest role yet, she felt thrilled to have her dad by her side on set. “The whole thing was very exciting,” she says. “And in the scene, he says to me, ‘I’m proud of you.’ There was this moment where it was very clear that it was my dad saying that to me about the [acting] job. There were so many parallels. I think we were both a little emotional about it.”
Warner Bros.
“It was a really beautiful day for the Dourifs,” Fiona adds.
The actress shares that she is happy with the relationship her and her supportive dad have cultivated, especially in adulthood. “He’s proud of me and I’m very proud of him,” she says. “We have a close relationship, which doesn’t always happen as an adult. Because we are in the same career, we end up working together and spending time together in a way that adults don’t get to do with their parents. It’s a beautiful thing that I’m very grateful for.”
While the True Blood alum was nervous to costar with her dad in his legendary horror franchise, her experience on The Pitt felt completely different. “It was just pure pride. I had pride pumping through my body because he’s a very special person and a brilliant actor,” she explains. “We really trust each other. I could just look at him and the dynamic is there. I don’t think I was nervous. I was just delighted.”
After landing her role in the medical drama series, Fiona turned to Brad for advice, given that he once played a doctor on the HBO series Deadwood.
“I definitely asked for some advice about all of the medical jargon and how to get it to a place where it is effortless,” the actress says. “He told me to repeat the lines 40 times, which I did at the beginning of the season. I would get to know it so well that it was like a song I could sing.”
Fiona Dourif/Instagram
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In addition to having a personal connection to her character through their shared patriarch, she also feels that McKay is an extension of her own personality. “McKay is like me on my best day,” Fiona says, noting that it makes playing her “scarier and harder because you wonder, ‘Is it okay if I don’t feel like I’m doing anything?'”
“There’s also this fear I have,” she continues. “It’s like, if you guys don’t like McKay, you don’t like me. It feels very vulnerable. It feels much more vulnerable than playing a filthy monster, which has sort of been my career up until now.”
The show premiered to major success, quickly cementing itself as Max’s most-watched title globally, and has already been renewed for a second season. Who’s to say whether viewers will see more of Brad and the dynamic between McKay and her father in the future of the series? Fiona, however, wants “more wins” for her character.
“She tried a lot and didn’t succeed with as many patients as she wanted, so that would be nice. And then, yeah, I hope that she makes it through another very long day at the hospital,” she says.
The Pitt airs its season finale on April 10 at 9 p.m. ET on Max.