Nick Gehlfuss is going back to Chicago Med.
The actor, who played Dr. Will Halstead in the show’s first eight seasons, from 2015 until 2023, will return as a guest star in upcoming season 11, EW has learned. The NBC medical drama is scheduled to return to TV with new episodes in October, though it’s unclear when or for how many episodes Gehlfuss will appear.
Gehlfuss’ character left the hospital for Seattle, where he reunited with and married Torrey DeVitto’s earlier departed character, Dr. Natalie Manning, and became a stepfather to her son, Owen, who is played by child actor Ari Morgan.
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As Halstead, Gehlfuss has appeared on over 160 episodes of Chicago Med and more than a dozen episodes each of the other Chicago universe shows, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Fire.
Showrunner Allen McDonald told TVLine in May that he planned to bring back “an original cast member or two” in the episodes.
When Gehlfuss left the series in May 2023, he told Variety that it had been a “difficult decision.”
“Ultimately, I felt I’d taken Dr. Halstead as far as I can go with him. I think that comes down to a creative part of you, or the energy or spirit you have that you’re either built for a very long time with one person or not,” he said. “I am attracted to the profession for the variety in it, and eight years is a long time. It’s two college degrees! I’m joking now that I basically have a doctorate in television.”
Gehlfuss said then that he and DeVitto, who had herself left the show in the seventh season, had stayed in touch. So he had hoped that she would be part of his send-off.
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To the actor, Halstead was a character to be respected.
“He protected his patients as if they were his family. The way in which he was so committed to his work and what he was called to do in this life, the passion he had with all of that, I will never forget,” Gehlfuss explained. “He would take risks for people. Now, there could be conversation about was he putting his personal stuff in the way of his work sometimes — did that muddy situations? Yes. I will never forget to remind myself that the lesson I learned that Will Halstead may not have learned, which is to leave your personal stuff out of your work! I’ll never forget how he’s also a fighter. He just fought for whatever he felt was necessary for himself or his patients.”
Chicago Med premieres Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
