Shawn Hatosy is having a career moment equivalent to pulling the lever on a slot machine only to watch as the characters start to line up, lights flare, and bells ring. At 50, he’s worked consistently in Hollywood for three decades. But it was landing the part of Jack Abbot—a grizzled night-shift emergency doctor and war veteran—on The Pitt that earned him his first Emmy last year and sent fans trawling through his filmography. Jackpot. 

Last year, when his crime drama Animal Kingdom fortuitously dropped on Netflix in the midst of Pitt-mania, Hatosy watched along with fans on TikTok as it climbed into the top 10. “Checking in on my new oomfs,” he quipped to his 700,000 viewers, while filming himself on the way to the Gotham Awards. “I’m really happy that shows like Animal Kingdom and Southland, which were such a big part of my life, are finding new audiences. I’m proud of those shows,” he tells me. On Twitter, he’s declared himself the “unc peepaw people’s princess” and regularly enjoys the virality of new and old posts alike, saying things like Miss Piggy “seems DTF.” 

Hatosy’s outsize popularity on The Pitt—a show where he is technically a guest star despite gleefully partaking in every press appearance—seems in part due to the stable of sympathetic, slightly unstable, salt-and-pepper characters he’s embodied over the years and partly due to his entirely unpredictable online presence. These days, he’s looking ahead to his character’s return to The Pitt, his directorial debut on the show (episode nine), his first boldface theatrical release (Ready or Not 2), and a new limited series, Cry Wolf, in which he stars alongside Olivia Colman and Brie Larson. 

Ahead of all that, we sat down with the actor for a trip through the ’70s tomes, classic films, and avant-garde directors that helped shape his one-of-a-kind output. 

I’m excited to talk to you about your offline reading habits, because I feel like you’re a very online person. Does that feel fair? 

I’ve been around long enough to have been through the early days of MySpace, to then Facebook, to what we’re dealing with now. I would say, probably I am. I’m tuned into what’s happening on social media, but it’s so messy these days. I see it with my kids too, like, is this the best thing? I’m starting to have these bigger, existential questions about social media. [More at Source]