How Chicago Fire's Director Used All 10 Seasons To Prepare For The 'Exciting' New Episode

Well, first, I watched all the seasons. [laughs] I had been a big Dick Wolf fan. I've watched his shows my whole life, even growing up. I grew up in Peru, and I used to watch Law & Order: SVU and I would probably say I learned a lot of English with Mariska Hargitay. But I would say for this specific episode as a first time TV director, I also am someone who over prepares. I watched all the seasons. The beginning of [Season] 10, when I started shadowing, I would study it basically on types of shots that they use, the tone in the acting. The tone specifically in all the types of things they do, meaning the tone in the comedy, the tone in the drama, and the tone in the action.

So once I have all of those sort of paint brushes, so to say, when I was shadowing, I would prepare in a way as if I was directing. I would have a shot list for each day, I would do my overheads, I just would prep in a way of, like, 'You're doing this.' And then I would compare with what Reza [Tabrizi], the executive producer who I was shadowing, would end up doing. He was very generous and I would ask him, like, 'Would this blocking have worked? Would this have worked? Why did you do it this way?' I feel like other than that, for me, it's all about preparation and knowing the characters as much as you can when you have not worked on it for ten years, as everyone else that is on that set that you're walking onto is. Also just out of respect for them. You can't tell people what to do if you don't know at least, hopefully, as much as they do.

It's a great ensemble cast. I was very excited to get to work with Miranda Rae Mayo. I think she is just such an interesting actor. She's someone who can do a lot of different things in a very grounded way, and she does them so seamlessly. So it was exciting for me to see also Kidd's character in this in-between space that I think is very real for a lot of people during the pandemic... I'm gonna have trouble answering this question just because I was genuinely excited to work with every single one of these actors, like Christian Stolte, David Eigenberg. Taylor Kinney is incredible. Eamonn Walker. I mean, Joe Minoso is so funny. They're all just so special, which is why I think the show has lasted so long and why it has such a following.

Absolutely. I think that's why I love television, and that's why I wanted to become a television director, because I think television has the power to change minds, right? It's a friend that is in your living room, or in your room, that you watch with family, during a breakup, during bad times, during good times. And I think storylines like these, on shows that are as popular and as widely-watched as Chicago Fire, have the ability to inspire young girls to go, 'Oh, I can do that.' It doesn't even have to be firefighting, but it can be something that traditionally girls thought isn't for them. And so I think that, to answer your question, that's what was exciting about it, is to show the storyline and to talk about this thing, specifically Girls on Fire, but that has much more of a universal meaning once you really deconstruct it.