Meet Sepideh Moafi, Who Plays Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi in 'The Pitt' Season 2
The actress joins the HBO Max hit as an attending physician who shadows—and butts heads with—Noah Wyle's Dr. Robby.
After the events of season 1 of HBO Max’s The Pitt, no one would blame Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) for needing a little time away from the ER. And when the show returns for its second season on January 10, 2026—jumping 10 months forward to July 4th—he’s preparing to do just that with a planned three-month motorcycle sabbatical. Season 2 of the Emmy-winning medical drama, in which each episode operates as a real-time hour of the emergency room staff’s shift, follows Dr. Robby on his last shift as he prepares to hand off his duties to a new attending physician.
That’s where Sepideh Moafi’s newcomer Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi comes in. A confident physician who previously worked at the VA Hospital with Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) and Dr. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh), Dr. Al-Hashimi arrives earlier than expected to shadow Dr. Robby, armed with a long list of ideas she’d like to implement at the hospital. Moafi herself has described this quality in her character as “Promethian flair for innovation,” and it’s quickly clear that her approach is more clinical and tech-forward than Dr. Robby’s. So, inevitably, their opposing outlooks on the state of medicine make them (politely) butt heads immediately.
Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) is hired as a temporary attending physician to step in while Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) goes on sabbatical.
But don’t worry, their friction won’t turn into a steamy romance. “I can assure there will be no broom closets involved," Moafi told USA Today. “The way I pictured it when I read the scripts was that we're two animals in the wild sort of circling and sniffing each other out.”
Dr. Robby is insistent in the season 2 trailer that Dr. Al-Hashimi is “just covering while I go on my little sabbatical,” but with Moafi announced as a series regular, she’ll be sticking around long enough for us to get to know her. Read on to find out more about the actress who is set to face off with The Pitt’s beloved Dr. Robby.
Moafi is billed as a season 2 regular, so expect to see a lot of her this season.
Sepideh Moafi was born in a refugee camp in Germany.
Moafi, 40, is of Iranian descent, and her parents fled their native country during the Islamic Revolution in the 1970s and sought political asylum in Turkey and Germany before her birth. The family was granted visas to the United States, where she was predominantly raised, eventually gaining citizenship.
Her family’s experience as refugees has shaped her identity: In 2019, Moafi penned a first-person essay in PEOPLE highlighting her experience and her focus on helping other immigrants in similar situations. “Being a refugee has shaped my life and I feel fiercely moved to not only help destigmatize but also humanize our struggling brothers and sisters around the globe,” she wrote.
Moafi has historically been involved with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), hosting fundraisers on its behalf. Her Instagram bio lists her as an ambassador to the organization. In 2021, she also hosted a salon titled “Belonging: From Refugee to Hollywood with Sepideh Moafi” for the nonprofit Girls Write Now. According to USA Today, Moafi’s humanitarian work influenced Dr. Al-Hashimi’s back story as a member of Doctors Without Borders.
Moafi attends the L.A. premiere for The Pitt season 2.
Moafi is a trained singer.
Because of Moafi’s unique family history, she wasn’t “exposed to acting or singing until [she] was a teenager,” according to a 2018 interview. She began singing at the age of 15 and developed a passion for opera after singing Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” and, within a year, she received a full scholarship to San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
While her opera background was tapped into on the 2014 series Black Box, she probably won’t be showing off her pipes in her latest role. “I might be concerned if they start writing an opera moment in The Pitt,” she told USA Today. But the skill is an intrinsic part of her identity: During a The Pitt season 2 press junket with co-star and Dr. Jack Abbot actor Shawn Hatosy, Moafi joked that she’d prefer being caught singing half-naked than catching a friend in a lie because, “[she’s] a singer and [she] loves being naked.”
Dr. Robby and Dr. Al-Hashimi encourage Garcia (Alexandra Metz) and Samira (Supriya Ganesh) through a procedure in season 2.
'The Pitt' isn’t the first time she's played a doctor on TV.
Moafi’s first TV role was on the series Blue Bloods in 2013, but soon she donned a pair of scrubs to play Dr. Farrah Mahmoud on the ABC drama Black Box. She later played a doctor again in one episode of Limitless before stepping into two of her best-known roles: Loretta on HBO’s The Deuce and Gigi on Showtime’s The L Word sequel series, The L Word: Generation Q.
Even though she’s familiar with a doctor’s office set, the level of realism on The Pitt is something she had to get used to. “It's really hard with blood, I'm not a fan,” she told USA Today ahead of the season 2 premiere. “It's the level of detail. I was grappling with being Sepideh Moafi watching this outrageous prosthetic where somebody's entire torso is split in half while still playing a doctor who's seen much worse.”
