NEW YORK — Starring in “The Pitt” enabled actor Patrick Ball to pay off his $80,000 student loan debt with earnings from the hit HBO medical drama, he said.

“I paid off my student loans like three months into The Pitt, and that was a really profound moment ’cause I thought I was gonna die with it,” he tearfully told Cultured Magazine. “It’s a huge burden to carry, and a lot of people carry it.”

The financial insecurity of being $80,000 in debt dragged down relationships and caused several breakups, he said.

“I had just thought that was going to be my life forever, and that is a really heavy thing to live with,” Ball said. “Paying off those student loans and getting back to zero, I remember being like, man, if this show works, great. If it doesn’t work, they can’t take that away from me. I am out of debt. No take-backsies on that.”

Luckily, “The Pitt” did work out and is now streaming its second season. Ball has returned to his theatrical roots, debuting on Broadway last week in the dark comedy “Becky Shaw” at the Helen Hayes Theatre. He started out in regional theater, and “The Pitt” was his first major TV role.

In fact, Ball snagged the part just as he was on the verge of abandoning Hollywood and getting a more traditional job to replace the four he was working in New York City at the time.

“I was working at a coffee shop, I was working at a restaurant, I was working as a wardrobe assistant for ‘And Just Like That,’ I was doing these corporate coaching seminars,” he told Cultured.

Corporations such as Blackrock, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs “would bring me in as an actor so that these administrators could get practice firing someone,” Ball said. “So I have been fired more than anyone you’ve ever met, I promise you. I’ve been fired thousands of times. And then the call for ‘The Pitt’ came in, and everything was different.”

Ball’s fellow cast members were on hand to support him on opening night, including Isa Briones, who is playing Connie Frances in “Just in Time.” Also onstage, starring in “New Born” at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, is Sepideh Moafi, who joined “The Pitt” in its second season as Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi.

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