John Wells Talks ‘Shameless’ Revival: ‘I Could Have Made That Show for Another 15 Years’

Multiple Emmy-winner John Wells, one of TV’s most prolific producer/writer/directors, has a new series The Pitt, which stars Noah Wyle (ER), as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch.

The Max series tells the tale of medical personnel working in real-time emergency department shifts in fictional Pittsburgh (hence the show’s title) Trauma Medical Hospital.

Wells is no stranger to medical dramas, having executive produced the hugely successful, long-running series ER as well as China Beach and Third Watch.

One of his longest-running series was the American adaptation of the British series Shameless, which ran for a decade starting in 2011.

Shameless told the story of the Gallagher clan, headed by patriarch Frank Gallagher (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee William H. Macy). His children were Fiona (Emmy Rossum), Phillip a.k.a “Lip” (Jeremy Allen White), Ian (Cameron Monaghan), Debbie (Emma Kenney), Carl (Ethan Cutkosky), and Liam (Christian Isaiah; Brenden Sims). The family lived in Chicago’s South Side.

Despite alcoholic Frank’s ineffectiveness – or perhaps because of it – the Gallagher kids navigated through life by doing whatever was necessary to stay alive and get ahead. They changed friends, careers, and partners so often you needed a scorecard to keep up with their lives!

The series concluded with (how else?) Frank’s passing given the years of abuse he’d put his body through. Could the rest of the Gallagher clan come together again in a revival?

“We’ve talked about it,” Wells tells TV Insider exclusively. “[The show] was a great experience. I could have made that show for another 15 years.”

Currently, the entire run of Shameless can be streamed on Netflix. While Frank’s gone, his children still have plenty of stories to tell.

“We’ll see,” Wells says. “We haven’t had any more conversations about it. There are a couple of more years where we have the licensing fee from Warner Bros. to Netflix. When that comes up again, often times, they’ll say, ‘Hey, can we do something else?’”

Is Wells proud of the actors who played the Gallagher kids, who’ve gone on to other roles? “Oh, of course,” he says. “Jeremy [Allen White, now star of The Bear on Hulu] was only 18 or 19 when we cast him,” Wells says. “The same with Noah [Wylie when he started on ER]. He was 21.”

Viewers of ER recall the sometimes-strained relationship between Wylie’s John Carter, whom we first met as a third-year medical student, and Dr. Peter Benton (Eriq La Salle), one of his teachers. Are there similarities between the dynamic that Wylie’s Robby shares with younger medical personnel on The Pitt?

“I think there’s a sense of responsibility when you’re at a teaching hospital to teach and to be a mentor to everyone,” says Wells, pointing out there are other instructors among the medical personnel. “They’re all teaching as well. Everybody who works in a medical setting and teaching university are responsible for mentoring the young doctors underneath them.”

The Pitt, Thursdays, 9/8c, Max

Shameless, streaming, Netflix