The actress, 59, tells PEOPLE that it was “deeply spiritual” to get the role as a cancer survivor

NEED TO KNOW

• Katherine LaNasa drew from her breast cancer experience to portray compassionate nurse Dana Evans on The Pitt
• Her diagnosis and treatment inspired her to advocate for early detection through Novartis’ “Your Attention, Please” campaign
• LaNasa earned her first Emmy in 2025 and a second nomination in 2026 for her role in the HBO Max medical drama

For Katherine LaNasa, making sure people stay on top of their health isn’t just exclusive to her beloved character on The Pitt. The 59-year-old actress admits that it was her own journey with breast cancer that shaped her approach to health both on and off screen.

LaNasa tells PEOPLE she “felt great” in early 2023. So she was completely stunned after receiving the results of her latest mammogram and being diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer.

But after the initial shock, she realized that her proactivity with her health is ultimately what saved her life.

“To be honest, I wasn’t a person that liked going to the doctor. But I found out that I had dense breasts in my 30s. So because I had found out about my own risk factors, that was the thing that made me keep getting my screening every year,” she explains. According to the National Cancer Institute, dense breasts mean mammograms are “more likely to miss cancer.”

“Because I was getting tested so regularly, I caught my cancer at stage one,” she shares. “I was just really so grateful that I caught it that fast. That was just such good news that it wasn’t something extreme that I had to work with.”

That’s why LaNasa partnered with Novartis for their “Your Attention, Please” campaign, an initiative encouraging women to understand their breast cancer risk and prioritize early detection. 

“I really understand how scary it can feel to go do that. It’s super scary. But when you realize that if it’s caught early, there’s a 99% survival rate, that’s really some of the messaging that we’re trying to get out there,” she says. “Early detection really can save lives.” 

After receiving her diagnosis, LaNasa tested negative for the BRCA gene, and learned that the cancer hadn’t progressed to her lymph nodes. In March of that year, she had surgery and underwent three weeks of radiation.

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But shortly after recovering from treatment, LaNasa found herself back in a hospital setting — this time in her new role as charge nurse Dana Evans in the HBO Max medical drama The Pitt.

“It was a little stunning to walk into this big emergency department, this incredibly immersive set, for the first time because I was only about a year since my diagnosis, maybe about six months out of treatment, when I started filming,” she says. “It felt very real.” 

“Luckily I got acclimated to it really quickly,” she adds, “but it also just felt really wonderful to have a platform like being on The Pitt to be able to share my story.”

Because of her breast cancer journey, LaNasa says she naturally started to channel her own experience into her portrayal of Dana.

“You go to the hospital quite often if you have cancer and if you need radiation,” she explains. “I know how scary it is to be a patient, and I know what it’s like to feel like that scared patient and to have a really compassionate nurse. The things that they did, the way that they spoke to me, all of those little kindnesses really mattered as a patient. So I was able to put that into Dana and play the nurse that a patient would want.”

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That devotion to the character is what led to LaNasa earning her first Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role in 2025. She also landed her second nomination in the category ahead of the 2026 Emmy Awards, which will air live on Sept. 14.

Reflecting on her journey, LaNasa held back tears thinking about the recognition she’s received after navigating cancer.

“To be honest with you, you just never know what life has in store for you,” she tells PEOPLE. “And just like the good times don’t last, the bad times don’t always last either.”

“Life can just turn on a dime and become incredibly beautiful,” she says. “It was really deeply spiritual to not only get this role after having been a cancer patient, but then to have it celebrated in the way that it is, it’s more good than I ever expected to come my way. It’s been incredibly beautiful and meaningful and none of it’s wasted on me. It’s really been an amazing experience.”

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