Max Thieriot can’t give too much away about how long Jared Padalecki will stick around on Fire Country — but it sounds like fans are in for a wild ride amid those spinoff rumors.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Thieriot, 36, explained how his friendship with Padalecki, 42, turned into them working together on season 3 of Fire Country.
“Jared and I have been friends for a long time and have always just been friends in a personal way. We never had the opportunity to work together,” Thieriot noted. “So this was a big thing where he and I were just really excited to be able to finally get to work together. We really do have a lot of fun and our families have a great time together.”
The timing didn’t work out — until now. Not much is known about Padalecki’s role for now except that he plays a firefighter from Southern California in a three-episode arc who takes an interest in Bode’s (Thieriot) raw talent.
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“When I knew that Jared was a little bit of a free agent for five minutes, I was like, ‘All right, now’s the time. Let’s do something,’” Thieriot shared with Us. “For us, it was also just finding an impactful way to introduce him into the show. I know Jared’s a great actor and he has such a presence on screen.”
Thieriot was thrilled with what his CBS show was able to pull off, adding, “We get to meet him in a really fun way.”
Us confirmed in August 12 that Padalecki was set to appear on Fire Country and multiple outlets have since reported that the brief arc could set up for a spinoff. (Fire Country, which premiered in 2022, has already expanded with a series centered around Sharon’s [Diane Farr] stepsister Mickey [Morena Baccarin]. CBS greenlit Sheriff Country earlier this year, but the new drama isn’t expected to premiere until the 2025-2026 season.)
“Who knows where this character goes down the road? That’s all kind of just TBD [To Be Decided]. But in the meantime, we just wanted to create a really exciting and fun character arc for him on this show,” Thieriot told Us. “We also wanted to introduce him as somebody who’s a part of this world but feels different than our world. Somebody who comes from a different part of the state — a different part of California — and somebody who has a totally different vibe.”
Padalecki’s character will “open up the world” for viewers. “Not every firefighter is from small country towns, but they can be from all over,” Thieriot noted.
Fire Country has shifted the conversation around incarceration by following inmate Bode on his journey to shorten his prison sentence by volunteering for the California Conservation Camp Program. Bode gets assigned to his hometown — and after many ups and downs — is released early ahead of season 3.
“Three Rock is a big part of the show and the inmate firefighter program is a big part of the show. So we’ll continue to focus on that — whether Bode is incarcerated or not,” Thieriot clarified to Us. “We all believe in the value and understand the message and want to continue to have that be a real focus of the show moving forward. It’s just [about] finding different ways to utilize it and incorporate it into different character story lines.”
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Since its debut in 2022, Fire Country has gone on to become a major hit for CBS. This has offered Fire Country the opportunity to push limits with the show’s storytelling.
“It’s always a process of earning that trust. It’s a push and pull thing in a weird way. Because there’s times when we’re taking a big swing and we are now at a point where everybody over at the studio will hint at like, ‘Hey, take a bigger swing,’” Thieriot, who is an executive producer on Fire Country, recalled. “There’s such a mutual trust there where they allow us the opportunity to take a bigger swing, and they will tell us if we are swinging too big and then bring it back from there.”
Thieriot praised the freedom that this has allowed their creative team, saying, “There’s no fear in a good way. I feel like there’s always room to grow and to do better and just add different layers to the show through different characters. And we really try and push the envelope while maintaining the integrity of the show.”
Viewers will see some of those onscreen shifts when season 3 premieres on Friday, October 18.
“In a lot of ways, season 3 is so new for me because I’ve been able to act in all these spaces and interact with so many different characters on the show. It was fairly limited before [because of Bode’s incarceration],” he continued. “This season is really about Bode trying to accomplish [his legacy as a firefighter] and what the hurdles are that are in his way and what obstacles he might face along the way. There’s also just the dynamics of a lot of different relationships that he’s involved with now that he is outside. There are none of the restrictions of camp or prison, it is just what happens to this guy now that he’s free.”
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Thieriot isn’t just working hard in front of the camera. He is also busy directing — and using the platform for the show to highlight some important causes such as the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, which provides immediate and long term assistance to fallen and injured firefighters and their families.
“Obviously, we have a big platform where we can reach a lot of people. I took a little bit of a poll from a bunch of wildland firefighters that I know. I got back the same feedback from a lot of these people who are boots on the ground firefighters and they said this was an organization that really represented the community well and were really trying to make a difference for them,” Thieriot explained to Us. “Wildland firefighters — especially on the government side — really have been underpaid at a time where we really need the resources to fight these fires and need to have firefighters out there willing to make these sacrifices.”
He concluded: “There’s been a lot of people recently who have been reflecting on the job and the toll that it takes. They are asking, ‘Is this worth it for me to be doing this when I could basically make more money doing almost anything and my life is at risk?’ Those people just need to feel supported and their families need to feel supported. The money goes to help firefighters who are injured. It goes to help their families when they lose family members in the line of duty. To me, it just felt like a really important cause.”
Fire Country returns for season 3 on CBS Friday, October 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
