Through the early days of Noah Wyle’s time on ER, he and costar George Clooney additionally guest-starred in an episode of Associates, making for a really cheeky crossover for the 2 in style NBC reveals.
In 1995, throughout season 1 of Associates, each Wyle and Clooney, who had been additionally of their first season of taking part in medical doctors John Carter and Doug Ross, respectively, appeared on the episode, “The One with Two Elements.” The 2 portrayed enticing medical doctors who come throughout Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Monica (Courteney Cox), when the ladies change identities to allow them to share insurance coverage protection.
Whereas the 2 reveals do not exist in the identical TV universe, they do have an sudden connection that Wyle solely realized lately whereas reflecting on his time on ER with PEOPLE. It seems that each reveals have characters named Rachel Inexperienced(e), with the one on ER being Mark Greene’s daughter, Rachel, who was performed by Yvonne Zima and Hallee Hirsh throughout the first 10 seasons of the present.
“I’ve to say that till you simply stated that, I’ve by no means made that connection in my life,” Wyle says when requested if he was conscious of that overlap. “I am not kidding. Like, till you simply stated Rachel Inexperienced, I spotted that that, after all, was Dr. Greene’s daughter as nicely.”
He provides, “I by no means made that connection. That is loopy. I do not know that anyone ever did.”
Albert L. Ortega/Getty
Surprisingly, it isn’t the one connection the 2 reveals have, with Wyle revealing in a 2024 interview with the Television Academy that he knew each Aniston, 56, and Matthew Perry “socially” off-set. “Jennifer was roommates with my ex-girlfriend, and their different finest good friend was Matt’s girlfriend. So all of us used to pal round,” he stated, including that he and Perry, who died in 2023 at 54 years previous, each did display screen exams collectively.
“So it felt fairly pure and fairly natural to have all these people who I knew and appreciated, to see them be on these reveals that had been extremely popular. We had been all working laborious and promoting them laborious, and it was a good time,” he continued.
Wyle additionally stated that the concept for the crossover not solely got here from NBC, however from the truth that they had been already spending a lot time on the Associates set. “[George and I] would go over there and watch them tape. We’d wrap, after which we might go over there and watch them tape their present simply because we had been all buddies,” he stated. “And I believe the truth that we had been there hanging out put a bug in — put the concept in any person’s thoughts.”
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
Whereas speaking to PEOPLE, Wyle additionally dished on working with Clooney, revealing that the infamous prankster generally had difficulties along with his strains.
“I am definitely not the primary to report that to keep away from screwing up, George would write his strains on the pillowcase of the sufferers so he might simply take a look at them with these lovely brown eyes and skim them proper off,” he says.
The actor provides, “We had been a fairly devoted bunch. We used to have betting swimming pools on how few takes it could take to get an enormous difficult scene, and we’d actually pleasure ourselves on by no means being the one to make a mistake. It was very aggressive that means. Very wholesome although.”
By no means miss a narrative — join PEOPLE’s free every day e-newsletter to remain up-to-date on the perfect of what PEOPLE has to supply, from movie star information to forcing human curiosity tales.
In terms of returning to that style on TV with The Pitt, he says having to spout all these strains filled with medical jargon on the Max unique sequence was “like getting to return to highschool.” Wyle explains, “Realizing what I do know now, it was like selecting up an instrument that I have not performed in 15 years and discovering that my fingers nonetheless knew the place the notes had been. It was like remembering your highschool French.”
New episodes of The Pitt debut Thursdays on Max.
