Fire Country‘s Diane Farr was just as caught off guard about her onscreen husband Billy Burke‘s exit as the rest of Us.
“I found out over the summer. None of us knew what was happening,” Farr, 56, exclusively told Us Weekly about Burke’s leaving the show ahead of season 4. “Billy, Jeff [Fahey] and I went into the fire and we didn’t have any more information.”
The actress, who plays Sharon, recalled multiple character exits could have been possible since Jake (Jordan Calloway) “was possibly transferring” and Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) did end up leaving the series as well.
“I think now we’re always going to have the OG cast — the original seven. The hope for all of it is I would love to see Gabriela and Bode have a more adult version at some point,” Farr teased. “I would love to see Sharon start to have dreams where she sees Vince. This is the risk we take when we let these amazing actors go out and be free. They may be unavailable [to come back].”
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The hardest exit for Farr to deal with was Burke, 58, who played her onscreen husband.
“It was very clear that the producers or writers were going to make some kind of change. It was Billy who told us all. He told the cast in a group note saying that he wasn’t coming back — it was pretty devastating,” she recalled. “Everyone was sad and I felt like I was coming back in with only half my character because they’re so tied.”
Farr was “very nervous” to return without Burke by her side, adding, “I definitely had time to wrap my head around it. We get to have one meeting a year with our showrunner to suggest what we would like to see our character do. There was one year where I asked to show menopause on TV because it was truly happening in my own life. I thought it would be good for America to address that.”
After season 3, Farr asked to properly highlight “what happens if someone dies” in the line of duty.
“[I wanted us to show] how big that is for the community and to please allow me to grieve for a really long time,” she added. “It’s hard on TV. It’s such a common journey for all of us but you can’t do grief week after week after week. It’s too hard. So I was like, we have to find a balance and our showrunner and I spent a lot of time going over the five stages of grief so that it could look different.”
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She continued: “Anger is really active. There’s a lot of anger coming for Sharon and the other the most moving one is Sharon is always bartering with God because it’s a little bit of madness. You’re negotiating with something you can’t see about things that only matter to you. So we have a bit of both of those.”
Earlier this year, Fire Country’s third season ended on a cliffhanger with Vince, Sharon and Walter’s (Fahey) lives left in the balance. News broke hours after the finale aired in April that Burke and Arcila were departing the show.
Fans have since held out hope that Fire Country would wait a beat before teasing any more possible exits — or onscreen deaths.
“I’m still worried. I don’t know if that’s PTSD from last season or just looking at the finances of all of TV but I’m nervous,” Farr admitted to Us. “I’m very happy that [our spinoff] Sheriff Country is doing so well. It feels like the entire night is really going somewhere so that there’s fluidity. But we’re on a fire show. Any of us can die at any time and maybe that keeps us a little more honest.”
Fire Country airs on CBS Fridays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes will be streaming the next day on Paramount+.
