Justin Hartley: Get Ready for ‘Tracker’ to Get Even Bigger and Better
Colter Shaw himself, Justin Hartley, and the “Tracker” producers tell us how they turned “Tracker” into such a huge hit—and preview and even more intense new season.
Colter Shaw is back on the case. And things are only going to get more dramatic, more intense, and more fun now that Tracker, one of the biggest hits on TV, is back for Season 2 on CBS.
Last season, TV audiences were introduced to the private detective, who uses his keen observation skills to track down missing people for reward money. Author Jeffery Deaver created the character in his 2019 novel The Never Game, which executive producers Elwood Reid and Ken Olin adapted into Tracker and recruited This Is Us alum Justin Hartley to play the eponymous people finder.
While Deaver’s novel was the direct inspiration for the series, Tracker is taking Colter in their own direction. They’re using the vibes of the novel to inspire the TV chapters of Colter’s story, not necessarily as a blueprint.
“As a source material, I think what Jeffrey Deaver laid down was the factory setting. The ethos of the characters is in that book. We just keep going back and talking about that in the room,” Elwood Reid told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “This guy has all these skills that don’t normally have an application in everyday life but in his world, they’re a big deal.”
And that world is getting bigger. Both Reid and Olin, along with Justin Hartley, are excited to bring the audience along on an even wilder adventure in the show’s sophomore season.
Go Big or Go Home
Going bigger in Season 2 is not an easy task, considering how big Tracker started in the first place. CBS gave the series the coveted post-Super Bowl premiere time slot last February and was rewarded with 18 million viewers for the first episode. Numbers obviously dropped after the big game, but Tracker still rounded out the season with over 7 million viewers for the finale, which is a stellar showing and made scoring a second season a no-brainer for CBS.
“It feels great to put something out there and work so hard on something and know that other people also think that it’s really great,” Hartley said. “We’re entertainers, right? I feel really good about my job when I know that people who are busy and who have shit going on tune in for an hour to watch our show.”
Naturally, the creative team and Hartley want to reward fans with great TV every week and they feel more prepared to do so in Season 2 because they aren’t dealing with tight deadlines exacerbated by the 2023 Hollywood strikes.
“This year is going to get better. After the strike, we had to be in production. There was like a third of the prep time for Justin. Elwood had to get scripts in because, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to find suitable [filming] sites,” Olin explained. “Now this year, even in the first episode, there’s a quality to the breakage of the s–t that he’s doing and the integration of the emotional quality of his character.”
The show doesn‘t shy away from being a procedural, but Reid and Olin set out to create an “elevated” version of CBS’ tried and true drama format. It turns out that elevating a procedural is less about bells and whistles and more about infusing light into the proceedings.
“There’s an old-fashioned earnestness to this character, coupled with a personal ministry that he has about his personal life. I know we’re on CBS, and there’s a lot of procedurals where they are like, ‘Here’s a dead body, and we’re going to find the person that killed your husband or wife or kid or whatever.’ Our guy is like, ‘I’m going to go save this person.’ That means something. I think that makes a big difference,” Reid explained. “There’s just something about this guy pulling into a different place where he doesn’t know anybody, learning about the culture of a place, and then trying to solve a case.”
Olin adds that fresh air also helps. Instead of interrogating people in police stations or hanging out in the morgue, Colter is most often hiking in the woods or out in the world talking to people.
“I think people are probably a little bit tired of the traditional team and the same kind of lighting and darkness. There are multiple versions of the same kind of ensemble or shows that are streaming and more niche-oriented,” the director detailed. “There’s an optimism here. There’s a belief in decency and all those things.”
It helps that the audience has rallied behind a main character that they can root for and Elwood and Olin know exactly what they have in Justin Hartley as a leading man.
A Bonafide TV Star
Prior to 2016, Justin Hartley was most known for his days as a soap actor on Passions and The Young and the Restless (or superhero fans would argue, his stint as Oliver Queen on Smallville). Then a show called This Is Us changed everything and made the ensemble cast household names. Olin had a front-row seat to Hartley‘s multi-layered performance of the Pearsons’ eldest son Kevin as a directing producer of the NBC family drama. When it came time to choose who would play Colter, Olin knew exactly who to call.
“Justin Hartley is a really bonafide major television star…They are movie stars and then there are those really bonafide television stars, and that is its own unique breed,” he explained to Obsessed. “With all of this intimacy, he makes you feel very comfortable. He has this veil of mystery. It’s not the same thing as Leo [DiCaprio] or Brad [Pitt] or even Tom Cruise. There’s a different step to them. I don’t know that they could sustain 22 hours a year. They are different actors, and they do not do the same kind of work that we do.”
Hartley is also aware of the shift in his career. He felt like it was lightning in the bottle when This Is Us premiered with rave reviews and an instantly rabid fan base, but he was also aware that was the work of a big ensemble cast. Now that Tracker has proven to be a success, it feels even more surreal to have his name at the top of the call sheet and as an executive producer.
“When I was on This Is Us, I was old enough to realize how lucky I was with what we had. I remember thinking. ‘I’m going to savor this forever because it just doesn’t happen.’ It was lightning in a bottle,” Hartley said. “Now, here I am with this unicorn show and it’s kind of happening again, which is really amazing. My character is the focal point, which is a completely different thing.”
Kevin and Colter also couldn’t be more different. Kevin was a man of many words—a “blabbermouth,” according to Hartley, though said with affection—while Colter is much more observant. It requires a different acting muscle, and Hartley is glad to have Elwood Reid in his corner when it comes to those quiet moments.
“Acting is listening. I think it’s great when you can listen intensely to someone and the way the character listens to someone is so gripping that people will watch him listen to people. That’s awesome. It has to do with the writing and the story that he’s hearing,” Hartley said. “My co-stars, the [people] that I’m listening to, these are really great actors that we hired. It’s a lot easier to listen to someone when they are compelling than it is to fake it.”
The actor loves that while Colter is very good at what he does, he’s not an anomaly of a person. He’s still relatable while also being intriguing to watch because of how he uses his honed skills to find the people he’s been hired to find.
“He’s a smart, resourceful guy, but a human, not a superhuman. He’s actually listening. He’s listening to the inflection in your voice and watching your body language. And he asks questions, ‘Why did you say that twice? That’s not what you said before, so what is the truth? What’s going on here? Why did you and why are you? Why is your upper lip sweating?’ He watches things like that. He’s an active listener, which I think is very compelling,” the actor said.
A new challenge for Colter in Season 2 is going to be slowing down and listening to his own gut when it comes to his own mystery.
