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1 month ago
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EXCLUSIVE: Max Thieriot, star, co-creator and executive producer of Fire Country and co-creator/executive producer of spinoff Sheriff Country, has signed a first-look deal with the studio behind the CBS drama franchise, CBS Studios.
Thieriot has been in the CBS/CBS Studios fold since he was cast as a series regular on the 2017 military drama SEAL Team, transitioning to Fire Country after the pilot was picked up to series that went on to become the most watched freshman of the 2022-23 season.
“I’ve been working now with CBS and CBS Studios for almost 10 years, and have come to love everybody over there,” Thieriot said. “At this point they really are like family, and that for me is one of the most important things in this business. From the beginning, they believed in me and supported me, helping me along the way of finding the best people to be involved with.”
That support included Thieriot’s expansion into directing on SEAL Team and subsequently into writing and producing with Fire Country, inspired by his personal experience growing up in Sonoma County, CA.
“I’ve always been a sort of a storyteller,” Thieriot said, recalling how he was running around the house as a little kid making videos of his friends with bulky VHS tape camcorders.
His first TV series was Bates Motel where he was a series regular and made his directorial debut, filming a co-starring role in the miniseries Texas Rising during a hiatus. He then transitioned straight into SEAL Team.
“Throughout my career, I’ve always wanted to learn and grow and find ways to express that creativity,” Thieriot said. “Directing for me was a big thing at first after acting for a period of time and then, having read so many scripts and seen so many different worlds, I thought, why not give this writing thing a shot and see what I can put together here.”
Thieriot co-created Fire Country with veteran showrunners Tony Phelan and Joan Rater (Grey’s Anatomy) through CBS Studios-based Jerry Bruckheimer Television, working closely with the company’s CEO KristieAnne Reed.
“Fire Country was a big turning point for me as far as producing and writing,” Thieriot said, revealing his lofty ambitions from the get-go. “I feel like I’m one of those people that was always putting the cart before the horse a little bit. I think before it’d even aired, I was trying to pitch four spinoff ideas.”
The horse has caught up with the cart by now — as Fire Country is headed into its third season, it already has a greenlighted spinoff series, Sheriff County starring Morena Baccarin, whose backdoor pilot episode of Fire Country Thieriot directed from a script he’d co-written with Phelan and Rater. A second potential spinoff, starring Jared Padalecki, is being introduced in a guest arc on Fire Country this season.
“Sheriff Country we’re very excited about, Morena is incredible,” Thieriot said of the series, which is set to debut in 2025-26 season. “We’ve been assembling a really incredible [writers] room, I spoke with Joan and Tony the other day, and they’ve been over there working with [showrunner] Matt Lopez. I couldn’t be more excited for that show to be coming out.”
It is unclear yet whether Thieriot will appear on Sheriff Country as Bode but both shows live in the same universe so crossovers are likely, the only obstacle being logistical since Fire Country films in Vancouver and Sheriff Country in Toronto.
As for the potential Padalecki offshoot, “we’ll see where all that stuff goes, I think it’s early to have any real update on that front,” Thieriot said. “But I think we all felt like Fire Country was something that could become a franchise. And the most important people who believe in that are George [Cheeks] and Amy [Reisenbach] and David [Stapf] and everybody over there.”
Season 2 of Fire Country ended with a cliffhanger as it cut off before Bode’s ex-girlfriend Gabriela was to say “I do” to someone else.
Thieriot would not reveal whether Gabriela and Diego get married but confirmed that “there will be a helicopter crash in the Season 3 premiere, which is going to cause a bit of turmoil in the community, the whole town. Everyone who’s there is going to have to get involved, roll up their sleeves and get muddy and bloody.”
He also teased the theme for the firefighter drama’s new season.
“In Season 1 and 2, we were really focused on Bode’s redemption and him mending these relationships and trying to build back,” he said. “Season 3 is a season that’s about legacy. We see Bode driven by this desire to be a firefighter and to continue that dream and follow the legacy of the Leone family. A major portion of that journey is, how does he accomplish that? How does he reach those goals and become a firefighter, and what hurdles will be in his way?”
Thieriot has been busy filming Fire Country since the SEAL Team series finale dropped on Paramount+ a week ago but is looking forward to watching it as soon as he has a chance.
“To see it end was tough. Also it was difficult leaving that show, it has such an incredible cast and crew and just really, really wonderful people,” he said. “There’s definitely a major case of FOMO where I really felt like, what are these people who I spent every day with, what are they doing?”
Thieriot, who remains in touch with the cast and crew, reflected on SEAL Team‘s outsized impact.
“The show was a really incredible experience, one because I got to know everybody over at CBS Paramount and join the CBS Paramount family, and obviously, where those relationships and those friendships have taken me now has changed my career forever.
“But, the show also left a huge impact on me. It was a really humbling experience to get to work with all these veterans and to get to tell these stories that, I think, were really important and needed to be told to support the military community. I think that show did an incredible job of bringing a lot of things to light and bringing awareness for people, and to be able to be a small part of that and to tell some of these really impactful stories was life-changing for me.
“My hope is that with Fire Country, we can continue to do the same thing for firefighters and first responders and focus on some of those same human stories about real struggles, about families and how families are impacted.”
While Thieriot admits that “Fire Country and the Fire Country universe is a huge priority of mine,” he also plans to steal a little time here and there to write new projects under his first-look deal with CBS Studios.
“I will be writing more and hopefully there will be more news to share on that and the growing of the franchise,” he said.
Thieriot is repped by Gersh and McKuin Frankel Whitehead.
