In 2024, little-known Aussie actor Shabana Azeez scored the role of medical intern Victoria Javadi on the HBO mega-hit, The Pitt.

She’d managed to get the attention of a US-based manager after they saw her breakout performance in the 2023 Australian psychological thriller Birdeater — she recorded a tape, sent it in, and the role was hers.

It’s the kind of good-luck story young actors can only dream about, “and it’s been wild”, Azeez admits.

She is speaking with STM from Sydney, where she had been taking a break before heading back to the US to begin filming the third season of the Emmy award-winning series.

The Pitt has a record 38 Emmy nominations at this year’s awards, which will air on September 15.

It’s a huge achievement.

But when we speak, all that buzz is still to come, and Azeez is soaking up her last few weeks of relative freedom before her arduous 12-hour days on set begin again.

She’s enjoying a rare moment of pause in a life that hasn’t stood still for more than two years.

“I am trying to do as many fun little side-quests as I can right now,” she says of her return home.

“I have worked a lot these last few years, and when you work that much, you become a bit less interesting as a person. I work really long days, so it’s really hard to learn to turn off. It’s hard to take a pottery class when you are on set!

“You have to really devote yourself to your craft, and whatever project you are on at the time. There is only room for that, and maybe your friends and family. So I am really determined to remain an interesting person.”

As well as spending time in Adelaide, catching up with family and friends, Azeez has been filming a role alongside Hugo Weaving and Claudia Karvan in the upcoming SBS drama The Airport Chaplain. It provided an opportunity to work back in Australia, and the show’s strong script and the topnotch creatives involved were enough to convince Azeez she needed to be a part of it.

“I wrapped The Pitt and came straight (to Melbourne) a few days later,” she says.

“I’ve never worked so much in my life!

“It’s been a great challenge, though it did mean jumping accents, and going from playing a 20-year-old (in The Pitt) to being 34 in the space of three days — it was a lot. Hopefully I pulled it off.”

For the record, she did.

Azeez, who is 29, is co-lead of the show, starring alongside Weaving who, over four decades, has carved a name for himself as one of Australia’s most esteemed acting talents. She more than holds her own.

The story, which centres on Weaving’s character, a chaplain at a busy Australian airport, is delicately told, full of heart, and has beautifully drawn characters. In that respect, it shares a lot of similarities with The Pitt.

“It’s about Hugo’s character, the airport chaplain — which is a real job that I had no idea existed!” Azeez laughs.

“I mean, what a job. It’s about him navigating the airport, and then my character comes in and I am the new terminal manager, and it’s my job to make the airport financially viable again, so that means cutting jobs.”

The chaplain is in her crosshairs.

“I am an antagonistic force for him,” Azeez says. “And that creates a lot of tension in the airport.

“But I think over the course of the show we see both sides to the story, and we learn what it is like to be there — it’s a high-stakes, high-stress environment.”

It’s one Azeez has spent a lot of time traversing in the past few years.

It’s given her a new appreciation for those who work within its weird little world.

“It’s a very complex place, the airport,” she muses.

“I think we all think about airports from our perspective. Nobody goes to the airport to go to the airport.

“You go to the airport to get family, or to leave to see somewhere new.

“It’s a transient space for most people, but there are these people (who work there) who have made it their home, and it’s beautiful to have empathy for those airport staff.”

Once the show wrapped, Azeez had a few extra weeks in Australia. She spent them at home in Adelaide with family, and visiting friends split between Melbourne and Sydney.

Her “side quests” included a trip away to a retreat with a friend where they practised breathwork and shivered in ice baths, which Azeez admits was “not my jam, but my friend wanted to do it, and actually it was really fun”.

The break was just what she needed.

“I think it’s a really important thing to go back home,” she says.

“I think there’s a real perception of the experience I am having, in terms of the fact (my latest role on The Pitt) is very publicised, so I think there is an element of people thinking they know what is happening for me, but actually the experience is incredibly different to the glossy narrative.”

For example, she’s desperately missed her friends and family. Reuniting with them — and giving them an in-person hug — was exactly what she needed after months living on the other side of the world.

“I think people don’t think about the minutiae of the day-to-day of being away from the people you know, on the other side of the world,” Azeez says.

“I remember being in LA for season one, and everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s huge — life is changing for you,’ which it was, of course.

“But I remember a few weeks into being there, I realised I won’t get to have a hug from somebody that I already felt familiar with until six months from then. I remember counting down to Christmas break to have a hug; to feel safe, and comfortable.”

When Azeez landed in Melbourne to film, one of her friends swept in to provide some much-needed normality.

“I landed there, and said to my friend, ‘Hey, I am in town again, it’s been eight months!’ And she called me and said, ‘Hey, I have been thinking about you. And I feel like you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a long time’,” she says.

“And I hadn’t!

“It’s a lot like, ‘Oh, your life is so exciting, and so glamorous and go-go-go’, which it is, but she was right — I hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in a long time. So she cooked me dinner, and it meant the world to be seen so clearly for a part of my life that isn’t visible on the internet — friends like that you have got to hold close.”

Azeez admits she has had to catch up with her fame, to come to terms with just how quickly her life changed back in 2024, and what that meant.

“There is something really interesting about being in the public eye now,” she muses.

“The moment my life changed was very different to the moment other people decided my life changed. My life changed for real in the middle of 2024, but people only really noticed in 2025 (when the show began to air).

“I think it’s really important to not let all the press and the awards, all that stuff, cannibalise (my) experience, because, actually, what I love is my job.”

It’s a job that’s consuming her life, but Azeez is squeezing the positives from it.

Exhausted? Sure. But she’s not complaining, throwing herself into every aspect of her on-set life, shadowing different departments on The Pitt, and immersing herself in the world.

She has spoken about how much she values working alongside the show’s producer and co-creator Noah Wyle, who plays her mentor Dr Robby on-screen.

“It is a real gift, and I think it’s very rare that people give actors that kind of access, or give people that kind of opportunity to grow outside of their role,” she explains.

“Every single department on the set has been so giving. I have shadowed basically everyone now: all the directors, all the departments, props, video people, playback, and lighting, techs . . . it’s been amazing.”

Azeez was hungry to see how the sausage was made. “And sometimes the sausage is really disappointing, but everything about The Pitt is so immersive and realistic … it’s been very aligned for me,” she says.

“Because I really want everything I do to have a positive impact on the world, or to have a really strong ‘Why’. Why are we making this? Why are we telling this story? And why now?

“I think that there is something really timely and really urgent about the current healthcare crisis in America, and to be addressing that via the story is, I think, really meaningful and very impactful.”

That’s also how she felt about The Airport Chaplain, and why she signed on to star in it despite her busy schedule, shape-shifting into her role seamlessly.

“(It’s been) so good,” she says.

“I am very grateful that people had trust in me, and gave me the opportunity to do it.”

The Airport Chaplain premieres on Wednesday, August 26 on SBS on Demand