Facinelli on two very different doctors
At a Big Lick Comic-Con event in Roanoke, Virginia, Peter Facinelli reflected on an unusual chapter of his career: playing two doctors at once. Before a post-screening Q&A for the original Twilight at the Historic Grandin Theater, Facinelli joined Collider’s Maggie Lovitt and fellow Twilight alumnus Kellan Lutz to talk about stepping between Carlisle Cullen — the compassionate, blood-abstaining patriarch of the Cullen family — and Dr. Fitch Cooper, the high-strung “Golden Boy” at All Saints Hospital on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie.
Facinelli played Carlisle across the five-film Twilight saga (2008–2012) and portrayed Fitch on Nurse Jackie intermittently over the show’s seven seasons, which ran through 2015. The contrast between the two roles — an almost saintly vampire physician and an often petulant, socially awkward emergency doctor — became a frequently asked question among fans and interviewers alike. At the Q&A, Facinelli described why the dual workload was creatively fulfilling and how he kept the characters distinct.
Switching gears: life on planes and sets
Facinelli recalled juggling production schedules between Vancouver and the Nurse Jackie shoot, often hopping flights multiple times a month. The back-and-forth life, he said, made him feel like he “lived on American Airlines.” Far from muddling the parts, the actor argued that the gulf between Carlisle and Fitch made it easier to keep them separate.
“So fun… I did a show called Nurse Jackie, and that character’s also a doctor. If you haven’t seen it, he’s like, socially awkward, and he has weird Tourette’s, physical Tourette’s that I won’t get into. And he’s kind of like a 13-year-old boy in a grown man’s body, so he’s very funny to watch. So, I just happened to always be filming both at the same time every year… People would be like ‘Don’t you get the characters mixed up or the lines?’ and I’d say no, because they’re so different,” he explained.
That difference, Facinelli said, made the period one of the best of his life: two high-profile, creatively rewarding jobs that let him explore contrasting facets of what it means to be a physician on screen.
Two doctors, two approaches to medicine
Facinelli’s Carlisle and Fitch occupy very different narrative spaces. Carlisle, as portrayed in the Twilight films, is an immortal who rejects human blood and centers his life on protecting and guiding his adoptive family — a model of calm professionalism and altruism. Fitch Cooper, by contrast, is the narcissistic, competitive young doctor on Nurse Jackie who can be impulsive, quirky and frequently ineffective — yet oddly endearing.
Both roles were popular with viewers and offered room to grow across multiple seasons and films. Facinelli noted that playing such divergent medical professionals underscores a broader point about character work: occupation does not define a person. He pointed to the variety of physician archetypes on TV — from renegade diagnosticians to heartfelt jokesters — and emphasized the actor’s job is to find the human being inside the role.
“It shows you that people often think that doctors are a certain way… but it’s not the occupation you play. It’s the person in the occupation you play,” he said. “A lot of times, early on, if you’re a young actor, you’re like ‘Oh, doctors act like this, lawyers act like this’ — it’s just their job to do, so you find the person and the character within the occupation.”
Would he reprise Fitch? Facinelli is open
Questions about a possible Nurse Jackie revival have circulated since 2023, when reports surfaced that Showtime’s hit might be eyed for a return alongside fellow series such as Weeds. The project later shifted to Prime Video and has reportedly gained some momentum, though Edie Falco — the show’s centerpiece — has previously said nothing concrete was in place.
Asked whether he’d come back if a reboot moved forward, Facinelli was enthusiastic but candid: he’d be “all-in” if asked, though no one had reached out to him yet. “I heard something about it! No one ever reached out to me, so maybe they’re doing it without me. [Laughs] No, I don’t think they ever did it, but I would love to again revisit the part, too.”
For Facinelli, the opportunity to revisit long-running characters carries emotional weight. He described the bittersweet feeling that comes when a role ends — a short period of sadness as the character recedes from day-to-day life but remains visible onscreen — and why returns can be meaningful both personally and artistically.
“The sad part is, you play these roles, then, when the job is over, that character kind of dies… there’s like a three-to-four-day, sometimes longer period where you kind of feel sad because this person that you’re playing no longer exists,” he said. “Being able to revisit that is always incredible.”
Why these roles mattered — for fans and for Facinelli
Both Carlisle and Fitch left distinct marks on popular culture: one as a moral center in a blockbuster fantasy franchise and the other as part of a critically acclaimed, award-winning series that skewered and humanized medical workplace drama. Facinelli’s ability to move between those worlds speaks to an actor’s craft — and to the flexibility of television and film to portray the same profession in wildly different lights.
Nurse Jackie is currently streaming on Netflix. Collider will continue to report on developments related to both the Twilight franchise and any potential Nurse Jackie revival.