Chicago Med’s Louis Herthum celebrates his birthday
Chicago Med guest star Louis Herthum celebrates his birthday today, so we’re celebrating him and his character, the cantankerous Pat Halstead.
Today we’re saying happy birthday to Chicago Med‘s own Louis Herthum, who joined the One Chicago universe last season as Pat Halstead.
Pat made his first (and so far only) appearance near the end of Chicago Med season 2, in the episode “Generation Gap.” When his health took a turn for the worse, his son Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) found himself treating his father.
Along the way, we discovered that the elder Halstead was not the most warm and fuzzy dad in the world, and that there was tension between him and Will, as Pat wasn’t thrilled with Will’s choices in life. (Not something you’d expect to hear from someone whose son is a doctor!)
However, by the end of the episode, Pat finally admitted that he was proud of Will just as he was of Will’s brother Jay (Jesse Lee Soffer), and we had one of our most heartwarming moments of the second season.
We can thank Louis Herthum for being the major reason why “Generation Gap” worked. There’ve been fathers like Pat Halstead before—a little hardened, a lot problematic for their kids. In the One Chicago fandom alone, there are several. So what made Pat Halstead different? What made him stand out from the rest?
We got to see him go through that change in the episode, which isn’t easy to act out when many of your scenes are in a hospital bed. It was believable that he had a change of heart, and we got to know him and appreciate him, the way that Will and Jay do. Maybe he’s not the perfect dad, but we went from naturally disliking Pat for being standoffish with Will, to liking him and wanting to see him continuing to repair that relationship with his son.
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That’s an absolute perfect bit of casting, because Louis Herthum did a lot without needing a lot. Maybe that’s because he’s played some other great dads; he’s stunning on HBO‘s Westworld as Peter Abernathy, the father of Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), and he just appeared as Lauren German‘s father on FOX‘s Lucifer.
We were certainly lucky to get him for Chicago Med. If you want to get to know him better, don’t miss our recent interview. Here’s to a happy birthday for this talented and versatile actor who added something important and memorable to One Chicago!
Next: Ranking the fathers of One Chicago
Join us in wishing Louis Herthum a happy birthday in the comments and on Twitter! Let’s see if we see Pat Halstead again when Chicago Med season 4 begins this fall.
Chicago Med returns to NBC on Sept. 26.