Why He Can't Find Work Anymore

Posted by Merlyn Hunt on Wednesday, April 24, 2024

After the disappointing receptions of his movies both major and minor, and the quick cancellation of the ABC series, Big Shots, Michael Vartan moved to the then-burgeoning world of basic cable dramatic television in 2009, serving as the second lead on the TNT medical series, HawthoRNe. On this show, notable for its quirky title stylization that emphasized the "RN" to let viewers quickly know that this was series about a nurse, Jada Pinkett Smith played Christina Hawthorne, head of the nursing staff at a Virginia hospital. Vartan portrayed Dr. Tom Wakefield, the chief of surgery and Hawthorne's commitment-pushing boyfriend and later husband.

It didn't quite provide Vartan with the comeback he may have been after. Critics found HawthoRNe to be thoroughly okay, responsible for giving the first season a middling 45 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The first episode attracted nearly 4 million viewers — which was a lot for a cable drama at the time — but the numbers had dropped to just around 2.4 million by HawthoRNe's third season — which would also be its last.

At the time, Vartan was hopeful going into pilot season. Admitting he'd "been out of the loop" due to contractual obligations to HawthoRNe, he told MovieWeb, "It's an exciting time for an actor. It's a little scary being out of work, because you don't know what is going to happen from paycheck to paycheck. On a creative level, for the next month or two, the world is my oyster."

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