After stealing hearts as Lt. Kelly Severide at the helm of Chicago Fire for 14 years and counting, it’s hard to imagine a time before Taylor Kinney played the valiant firefighter. But it’s far from Kinney’s first time playing a character who will go above and beyond to save civilians.
Case in point: Kinney’s starring role as an EMT in Trauma, a 2009 drama series that followed San Francisco paramedics. Kinney played EMT Glenn Morrison, a charming young paramedic who flexed his heroic dedication in all 18 episodes of the series.
In a throwback photo from Kinney’s Trauma era, he can be seen donning a mustache and goatee, a bit of a far cry from the shaved salt-and-pepper style he’s embraced at Firehouse 51 in recent seasons of Chicago Fire. After all, it is a snapshot from 2009, just a few years after Kinney broke into the entertainment industry and before he made his 2012 Chicago Fire debut.
Taylor Kinney reflects on his Chicago Fire audition: “I was excited”
Kinney’s role on Trauma came just a few years before he helped launch the One Chicago franchise in the mothership series, but Chicago Fire‘s Kelly Severide isn’t his only iconic role.
Aside from dynamite guest roles in hit series like Castle, CSI: NY, Shameless, and Bones, many audiences know Kinney for his recurring role as werewolf Mason Lockwood in the supernatural thriller The Vampire Diaries. Kinney has also appeared in big-screen projects like Zero Dark Thirty and Here and Now.
Kinney made his way to Dick Wolf’s Windy City-based drama after several years spent in the television circuit, giving him the know-how and experience to successfully nail his first-ever Chicago Fire audition. That quiet confidence and assurance no doubt helped Kinney score the leading role of Severide, a firefighter who boasts infallible confidence and unbridled determination.
“My first audition for Chicago Fire? I was in the circuit of auditioning a lot, so I was decent at it. I remember never having any anxiety. I was excited about it, and then you kind of leave it up to the powers that be,” Kinney revealed during a 2023 NBC interview. “It went well, and 10 years later I’m still here bugging you through your televisions while you fold laundry.”
Watch Chicago Fire on Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
