Tracker gives Justin Hartley the ability to play out a lot of different stories — but there are certain plot lines he isn’t interested in doing.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, executive producer Elwood Reid weighed in on Hartley’s recent comments about Colter possibly dying and how it relates to how the show portrays the main character, saying, “It is funny. He says it all the time. Going back to what I think makes the show is that he’s not Superman.”
Reid noted it was important to keep Colter a grounded character.
“There’s the physical element of it but then there’s also — which I think we’ve seen a few times during the season — there’s the emotional thing that gets to him. I continue to remind ourselves as the writers that he’s human, he can die and he can get hurt. It’s fun,” he added. “Justin is always pitching that we see a show where Colter is almost dead in the middle of the show and we go back.”
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He continued: “He’s got all kinds of crazy ideas but I think that’s what makes the show fun. Because the minute Colter becomes like Superman or a superhero, I’m out. That’s not what Justin wants to play and I don’t think that that’s what the character is.”
Hartley, 48, is the reason most CBS fans are tuning in on Sundays as they watch fictional survivalist Colter Shaw travel the country to help solve various missing persons cases. Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker has put Colter through the wringer two seasons in and has no plans to stop.
While speaking to Us, Reid broke down why he thought viewers were so invested in Hartley’s character.
“One thing I would say that I think is true about him — now this sounds old fashioned — is there’s something really pleasurable about a guy that says, ‘I’m going to help you.’ And Colter does. This is an old fashioned element to the show,” he explained. “On top of that, each week you get to go into a different world and you get to see how Coulter fits into that world or doesn’t fit into that world.”
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Tracker makes an effort to push boundaries week to week.
“We’ve done some weird stuff and Colter seems to adapt to those things. But I think it’s really important that he just has that universal appeal,” Reid noted. “Here’s a guy that if I’m in trouble, I want Colter Shaw to walk through that door and come tell him he’s going to help me find my loved one.”
He continued: “That’s what we want. That’s the fantasy. I think that that’s something we’re going to continue to lean into. That is one of the big motors of the show — plus a different setting and environment and story line every week. It’s constantly resetting itself.”
Tracker is currently streaming on Paramount+.
