Justin Hartley is ‘Banking’ on More Success in Season 2 of TRACKER
Special to The Lede
Justin Hartley of CTV’s TRACKER has been a TV staple for close to 20 years now, on many different shows. But when it was suggested to him that he has clearly reached the stage where he can be considered a “bankable TV star,” his eyes lit up playfully.
“You see, THIS is why I came into this room,” Hartley said excitedly, gesturing comedically to the handful of people who were present. “Do you hear what this man is saying? I’ve been trying to tell people this! Start writing this down!”
When the laughter subsided, Hartley absorbed the compliment of being “bankable” more seriously, and offered a genuine “thank you.” Then he reflected on his career path heading into the second season of TRACKER, which premieres Monday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app.
Hartley first made a name for himself in daytime soap operas, and with recurring roles on several primetime shows, before his fame really kicked up with his role as Kevin Pearson in THIS IS US from 2016 to 2022. The massive success of that series catapulted Hartley into the lead role in TRACKER, in which he stars as a skilled survivalist named Colter Shaw who earns his living by assisting private citizens (and sometimes law enforcement) in finding things – particularly missing people – in exchange for reward money.
“I guess it has been a long time for me on TV, but I feel as if I’ve never worked a day in my life, because I love it so much,” Hartley said. “I know that I had the great, great fortune of having wonderful parents, and a mother specifically who told me to be a lifelong learner. I’ve surrounded myself with incredibly talented people, and I’m just constantly trying to, you know, learn from them, still to this day. So I don’t know, I think I’ve just had the great fortune of having the right attitude. We’re all human, and we have our good days and our bad days, but it’s about being around really wonderful people and learning from them. You don’t do it alone, right?”
Hartley pointed out that there were some bumps along the way, too.
“Every project I’ve ever taken has not been a winner, but people just talk about the winners, right?” he said with a smile. “They don’t talk about the losers. But you learn from all of it.”
So how quickly did Hartley sense that TRACKER was going to be a winner?
“I didn’t know, and I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there are some people out there who say, ‘well, I knew that was going to be a hit.’ The truth is, I feel like I have good taste, and I felt like we had something really good, but I didn’t know if we had a hit. Those two things are not necessarily the same. You don’t have a hit until people watch. It was the same thing for me with THIS IS US. When I watched the pilot, I thought, ‘this is the best episode of television I think I’ve ever seen in my life.’ I knew it was great. But that doesn’t mean that anyone else is going to watch it. The stars have to align.”
Hartley said his early confidence in TRACKER was bolstered further when it was decided that the series would premiere in the coveted post-SUPER BOWL slot last February.
“You don’t get that slot unless the network thinks it’s great – but again, you know that people are going to see it right after the SUPER BOWL, because their TVs are on, but you don’t know if they’re going to tune in the next week,” he said. “That’s the key, week two, week three, week four. That’s what you look at. And we’ve been very fortunate that the things that we really love about the show seem to be the same things that the audience really loves about the show. So it’s a good marriage.”
In addition to Hartley, returning cast members peppered throughout Season 2 of TRACKER include Abby McEnany as Velma Bruin, Eric Graise as Bob Exley, Fiona Rene as Reenie Greene, Jensen Ackles as Colter’s brother Russell, and Sofia Pernas – Hartley’s real-life wife – as Billie Matalon.
Also unchanged in Season 2 is Colter’s philosophy of not taking any payment until a job is successfully completed. Wouldn’t Colter’s accountant have dissuaded him from such a risky business model by now?
“You would think so,” Hartley agreed. “But the thing about Colter is, if somebody stiffed him, he would probably be able to find them.”
