Patrick Ball on Classic Style, Important Stories, and The Pitt Season 3

Jojo Korsh

The first time he went to the Emmys, Patrick Ball says, “it felt like I was in a fever dream.” The actor, who plays Dr. Frank Langdon on The Pitt, was there with his castmates after the HBO Max medical drama became one of the year’s biggest sensations. People were incredibly excited about this new show that felt kind of like an old show (but not exactly) and had, almost overnight, become part of the entertainment zeitgeist.

But this was Ball’s first ongoing TV gig. (He was a guest on Law & Order in 2023.) And the sheer speed of The Pitt’s ascent left everyone, within the cast and without, feeling slightly shaken. “We were so new and so out of left field,” Ball says, “that nobody quite knew what to do with us.”

This time around, things were a little less jarring. Ball was nominated, as was the show itself. His girlfriend, Elysia Roorbach, flew down from Canada, where she was filming, to attend with him. And though Ball didn’t walk away with a trophy, “it was just really amazing to move through the evening of the Emmys—through the whole weekend—and have so many people who I have looked up to my entire life come up and make me feel like I belong.”

Jojo Korsh

Ball in his full Louis Vuitton look at Soho Warehouse.

It probably didn’t hurt that Ball looked every part the TV star. Dressed in a double-breasted velvet dinner jacket, satin-stripe trousers, and tassel loafers from Louis Vuitton—not to mention the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch on his wrist—he was channeling Old Hollywood but keeping the vibe very 2026. Blending the classic and the contemporary is, as it turns out, a specialty of Ball’s—both in how he dresses and in his acting.

Not long after the weekend wrapped, and with Ball already back at work filming the third season of The Pitt, he and I caught up over the phone to talk about his sartorial and professional balancing act, why he still loves the theater, what’s next for Dr. Langdon, and more. Read on for a few highlights from our conversation.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Jojo Korsh

“Pharrell came up with this amazing look with a velvet jacket that’s a little camp, a little dandy, but also very Rat Pack, very Old Hollywood.”

On Balancing Classic and Contemporary

“A house like Louis Vuitton, especially since it’s been taken over by Pharrell, seems to really be the epitome of taking a classic legacy and keeping it in conversation with the times. That’s something that I try to do with my work. The Pitt traffics in this very classic genre, but the idea is to make it feel contemporary. It’s also what I did when I played Hamlet here in L.A. with Robert O’Hara. So going into Emmys weekend knowing this was my first-ever nomination for my first-ever TV job, we wanted to acknowledge the timelessness of this moment but in a way that didn’t feel like it was stuck in a museum. Pharrell came up with this amazing look with a velvet jacket that’s a little camp, a little dandy, but also very Rat Pack, very Old Hollywood. It felt very much in the vibe of my overall philosophy for life.”

Jojo Korsh

Ball with his girlfriend, Elysia Roorbach.

On Dressing for the Occasion

“I spend a lot of my life in boots and blue jeans. But when you go to church on Sunday, you wear your good shirt. When you go to the office, you put on a tie. And when you go to a red carpet, you dress for that occasion. It’s about being true to who you are but also being true to the moment that you’re stepping into and not being afraid to have fun with that. I’m really appreciative of my stylist, Fabio Mediato, and my girlfriend, Elysia Roorbach, for encouraging me to have fun.”

On Learning the Language of Fashion

“I’ve spent most of my life not feeling like I had access to fashion. I was a big thrift-shop hunter; I’ve tried to find my own sense of fashion at whatever scale I’m living at. And over the last couple years—as I’ve been brought into this new chapter of my life where I’m going to red carpets and stepping into Hollywood in the way that I am—it’s been really fun learning the language of fashion and where my authentic personality can meet that.”

Jojo Korsh

Look closely and you can see the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar on Ball’s wrist.

On Living the Pitt Lifestyle

“We shoot eight months out of the year—we’re shooting episode 38 right now—and when we’re not shooting, the show is coming out. So I’ve been living pretty much nonstop in The Pitt for two and a half years, but it feels like we’ve been doing it for a lot longer. Stage 22, here at Warner Brothers, has become our home, and it’s like there was never a time before it and there will never be a time after it. But then you zoom out for a second—this spring, I came back to New York for my Broadway debut with Becky Shaw, and I was staying at my old apartment in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, with the same roommate I used to live with—and it really puts it in perspective. Like, ‘Whoa! This happened way faster than I realize on the day-to-day.’ ”

Jojo Korsh

“I’ve been living pretty much nonstop in The Pitt for two and a half years, but it feels like we’ve been doing it for a lot longer.”

On the Theater

“It just feels like honest work. You’re going out and giving a piece of yourself to the audience every night, and you get to have a direct line of communication with them, go through an experience with them, and then come out of the stage door later and talk with them face to face. It’s an incredibly important, intimate, and democratic institution that I have believed in my entire life and I hope to continue to participate in for my entire life. You get to experience community directly, in an unmediated way, and I think that’s going to be an even more essential part of culture moving forward, as we get further hidden behind our phones and sorted by the algorithm. I love the theater, and long may it live.”

On The Pitt Season 3

“All I can say is that I’m loving season 3 and the story we’re telling. I think that we’re hitting our stride right now. I’m really stoked for this season and I’m very amped for audiences to experience it in January.”

Jojo Korsh

“All I can say is that I’m loving season 3 and the story we’re telling. I think that we’re hitting our stride right now.”

On Returning to Work Right After the Emmys

“That is the Pitt philosophy to a T. It’s nice to be able to celebrate, to be part of the greater Hollywood community and dress up and go to the ball with our friends, but it’s all about keeping first things first, and the first thing is the work. The work is the reward. It’s not the trophies, it’s not the outfits, it’s telling the story. My mom’s an ER nurse and my dad’s a paramedic, and I got a call from my parents a couple weeks ago telling me a colleague of theirs—a longtime doctor in the ER community back in North Carolina—lost the battle to depression. And it was a reminder that we’re telling a real story about real people, and we’re in the room at the Emmys because that story is important. We’re not here to celebrate ourselves. We’re here to celebrate real heroes doing real work. Showing back up to work the morning after the Emmys to dive back into telling that story felt right.”

Photographer: Jojo Korsh
Stylist: Fabio Immediato
Look: Custom Louis Vuitton
Grooming: Mira Chai Hyde
Shoot location: Soho Warehouse

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