‘Tracker’ Star Justin Hartley Teases Final Season 2 Episodes and Looks Ahead to Season 3

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Just Over A Year Ago, Tracker Star Justin Hartley Took A Break from Super Bowl Festivities in Las Vegas to Share The Vision for His New Show, Launching That Same Eventful Night, About Loner Colt Shaw, Who Offers His Miss. Country.

In 2024, Hartley was betting on Tracker EDEARING ITSELF to AUDIENCE THAT MISSED THE THRWBACKSSKSTSTS The Rockford Files. Hartley Wanted to Introduce a Show that was less political or controversial; Something that Could Offer Good Old Fashion Entertainment.

Now Nearing the End of Its Season Season, Hartley and His Former This is us Executive Producer Ken Olin’s Gamble is Paying Off. Tracker Instantly Became Most-watched Show on TV in ITS FIRST SEASON, The FIRST NEW SERIES TO ACHIEVE SUCH A RANKING SINCE Survivor Premiered in 2000. And Season Two Is Holding that Audence.

Thr Recently Caunght Up with Hartley As He Was Finishing Production for The Final Episodes of the Second Season, and Could Finally Get on a Flight Home to Relax with his: Family And. But the actor, Still Pumped Over the episodes that have yet to air this season – as Well As the Ones to Come, and the Possibilites of his hopes and expertations.

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WHAT DIRECTION DID YOU TAKE SEASON TWO THAT’S DIFFERENT FROM The FIRST SEASON?

I Talked About this with The Other Producers and Writers… What I Really Enjoy About Our Show, and Something that’s Really Important To Make ITPICE As the Character Does Tees Jobs and As the Beople Enter and Leave His Life, I Wanted to Make Sure that He’s Affected by Them, and that this Character Evolves. So if you’re watching episode 10 of season One, and You Watch Episode 10 of Season Two, It’s Important To Me that We Showed That This Character Grows; That’s Evolved and Has Learned.

His core values ​​aren’t changing. SO WHEN YOU Watch the Show, You’re Still Going to See It’s The Same Man. But he definitely gets affed by thesee things. I MEAN THESE Are Big Events That Happy to HIM IN HIS LIFE. I Didn’t Just Want to Be this Thing WHERE WHEN YOU WATCH IT YOU GO, “I KNOW HOW this is Going to Happen,” “Oh, I Know How How Hund React Here.” I Wanted The Character to Be Forever Evolving. I THINK OUR AUDIENCE DesERVES THAT. Hopefully That’s What We Did.

The First Time We Spoke, There Was Nothing But Positive Vibrations from You About this Show. Looking Back, DID YOU HAVE Any COLUE THAT The Series would be received like it have?

No, i think i was hopeful. I wouldn’t have done it if i thorough no one was going watch it or that it wasn’t good. SO I WAS VERY HOPEFUL THAT PEOPLE Wuld See What I SAW, AND WHAT I LOved in the Character and the Format. I was hopeful that i would have that in common with our audience, and it wasn’t just me by myself Thinking that It Was Cool and Great. But The Truth is you never Know. You Never Ever Know.

The Same Thing Happy on This is us. I Watched The Pilot and I Really Felt Like We Did Something Great, and that It Was The Type of Show That Could CAPTURE A HUGE AUDIENCE. I Never Know. ODDLY ENUGH, WHAT HELPS IS WHEN YOU DO SOMETING, Every Project That You Do Pretty Much, Especialy Nowadays, I Think It’s Great. That’s whoh i get into it it. I am not doing a project to pay the bills. You’re Doing the Project Because You Think Is Great and Wonderful, and People Are Going to Love It. But I don’t’thnk you Really Know Until You Know.

In Our First Conversation, Before Season One Started, You Were Excited and Hopeful About Various Actors You Wanted to Invite Onto the Series. Are you now invidated with people asking, “Hey Justin, How Do I Get On Your Show?”

(Laughs) Yeah, isa real the Cool Show Now, Right? SO, we actualally got Really lucky. I Feel Like I Blinked, All of a Sudden Woke Up and It’s Been 20 Years. But i’ve been in this Business Long Enough to have Developed Tese Relationships. WHEN YOU SEEPLE ON OUR SHOW THAT FAMILIAR FAZES AND ACTORS YOU KNOW, LIKE Jensen Ackles and My Wife [Sofia Pernas]These Are Relationships i’ve Had for a Long Time. I was Really Grateful i was aw to do that. I Think They Trusted Me Knowing I’M Not Going to Call Them and Ask Them To Do Something, or Invite Them To Do Something Unless I Think Is Really Cool And Fun and Weld.

So we start off on that foot, and then this show became what it is. It’s Huge. People Think It’s Cool and Want to be A Part of of It, WHICH IS ALSO NICE BECAUSE IT ALLOWS YOU TO GET A BIGGGer Pool of Talent. And THEN YOU END UP with A BETTER SHOW, RIGHT? That goes for writers and de directors and actors, all accounts the board. We’re Really Lucky in that Regard.

I’ve noticed in season two that some of the episodes took surprising Directions. Episodes 14 (“Exodus”) and 16 (“Mercy Seat”) Gave the audience a more Spiritual, Supernatural or Horror Element. Episode 16 Reminded Me of Deliverance [the 1972 thriller starring the late Burt Reynolds]. WAS this intental?

I don’t know about the supernatural but i THINK IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP UPPING The STAKES. I LIKE Being Colter As A Hero, Finding People and All that. I Also Really Like Seeing Him in A Suspenseful Thriller and A Dangerous Situation. I don’t want our audience to form that this man is mortal, he’s not a superhero. HE Can DIE! The Things He Is Doing Are Very Very Dangerous. So, [in episode] 16, We Wanted to Put Him in A Really Dangerous Situation that Was Almost Too Strange to Explain. Now that he’s in there, how does he get out? And Who Can He Pull Out with Him? So that was the idea behind that story.

For the Other Ones, I Think Our Show Has Something for Everyone. That’s who’s our audience is so wide-ranging. We Want to Make Suree’s Something for Everyone, Without Lozing Sight of Who The Character is and What Our Show is. We have an Oblagation to Tell Compelling Stories, and this season we have like 20 of them. That’s a Lot. But There’s A Lot to Pull from Because there’s a Lot of Untppled Things We Haven’t Even Discovered Yet As Well.

DID YOU INCREASE YOUR PHYSICALITY MORE FOR THIS SEASON? Are you doing more stunts?

I Definitely Tried to Bulk Up A Little Bit. WHEN I STARTED THE SHOW, TO DO Totally Honest With You, I Read the Source Material, Obviously, and THEN WEN WE Got The Show and Started Developing [the character]I had this idea. I was like ”Well, this guy is a rock climber.” That camp from the book. And One Thing I Noticed About A Lot of Climbers Is They’re Very Slight. They’re thinning people because they’re pulling their body weight all the way up, right? They’re not like what you saw in CliffhangerWHEN YOU HAD SYLVESTER STALLONE CAUNING THAT INCREDIBLE PHYSYQUE.

I didn’t want to get skinny but i wanted to stand on the Thinner Side to Support that Idea of ​​the Character. THEN AS Soon as We Started to Get Into The Show, and the Show Started to Change A Little Bit, I Was Like, “Oh No, This Guy Is Not A Slight Man Strong. ” So that is what got me going the Other Way as i was was on This is us. As the Character Has Gotten A Little Bit More Physical, I have Gotten A Little Bit More Physical Myseld.

WAS IT DIFFICULT Shooting Episode 16 Being Out in the Elements with All of that Cold and Snow?

Anytime You Get Elements like that that’s werth it. We shot in whistler [Ontario, Canada]. I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I WAS WALKING AND ALL OF A SUDDEN – I’M 6’3 ”and Boom, i’m 2 Feet Tall (Laughs). That Happy Quite A Bit. I Think There Are A Couple of Falls in the Episode You See; TOSE Are Not Stunts, that’s ME Falling and We Decides to Keep It In. I Took A Couple of Really Nasty Spills, and to Be Totally Honest with You, I’M Still Healing Up A Little Bit. But that was months agO; It Was Worth It.

One of the Hardest Parts of that Episode was they have all of these huge fans, it was like eight of theme. I THINK EIGHT FANS WERE AROUND ME AT One Point. We Were Outside and they’re Shoveling Snow in the Front of Them Bloowing Snow and Ice in My Face for the Blizzard that We’re Supped to Be In. But there was no war, just thee eight fans that bigger than you and i put together.

The Problem with Those Fans is that were so loud that almost every saline Single line said outtside was was adr. IT WAS LIKE 120 SentenCes and I HAD TO DUB EVERY WORD. IT WAS INCREDIBLE! Not Fun, But It Was Worth It.

As we Approach the end of season two, what can you tease about the Final Five Episodes?

You are going to get the last five episodes in a row. So, you’re getting file separeate sort of movies. We Call Them Little Movies. As we’re inching closer to the end of the Season, we creep Closer and Closer to the Mystery of What the Hell Happy to Colter’s Father. How did he die? Was there in fact another man in the woods? DID HE Get PUSHED; DID HE Get KILLED? Was it an account? WHAT The hell is going on with that? I end up with this box that’s been talked about and dory, My Sister (Melissa Roxburgh), Brings It to Me. And now that i have it, does he go throug with it? Does he go through with it and open up that box? Does hest to go down that rabbit hole? He Gets A Lot of Clues and A Lot of Details About What What Happy to His Father, and Who Was Actually Involved. And to see the Damage I Think is an incredible payoff.

And What can your audience expect in season Three?

Of Course, We Have Many More Stories to Tell. Now We’re in New Territory. We have a couple of ideas. One of these is that Colter have all of these skills; he’s a survivalist and he Knows How to be Alone, and He Knows How To Find People and He’s Gifted in that Regard. He’s a great listener. But it would be interesting, i thinkk, to see him be set up. In Other Words, to see him using all thoss skills to ryun from the authorities, because you’ve been set up for for any. I’d love to have all that tie into the family background, the government. So, we’ll see. We’ve been kicking that idea around. We have a Lot of Different Stuff that We’re Talking about. We have the underlying theme of What We’re Going to do Next Year, While Not Really Changing the Direction of Where Our Story Is Going.

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Tracker Airs sundays at 8 pm on cbs.