Jenna Dewan is currently portraying firefighter lieutenant Bailey Nune on ABC’s procedural The Rookie. However, as of late, the lieutenant has been worrying about something much bigger than fires, such as getting away from her psychotic husband, who was portrayed by the actress' real-life fiancé in the role of a lifetime. To be expected, perhaps, Dewan was a pretty big fan of the experience.
Steve Kazee, who is engaged to the Step Up actress, was introduced as Bailey’s surprise estranged husband, Jason, at the end of The Rookie’s midseason finale. Jason is not a good guy, as he was in jail and framed Bailey for drugs, abusing her in their relationship, and much more. Jenna Dewan reflected on what it’s been like working with her fiancé on Live with Kelly & Ryan and it’s more fun than you think:
That’s Steve! That’s my fiancé in real life and they asked him to come on and to play my real life husband who is a narcissistic, abusive, psychopath, basically. And it was interesting, it was fun, we had never worked together before and obviously super intense. It was such a cool experience because you get to do that, come home and you’re like, ‘Oh well, I got to yell at you all day. Got that out of my system.’ And now here we are. But it was wonderful.
Watching Jenna Dewan and Steve Kazee on screen and fighting, you would not think that they are actually together in real life. But, it just what makes their chemistry even better. While Jason is psychotic and abusive, Kazee is definitely not, so Dewan knows that she can trust him to really go at it. Plus, it does seem fun yelling at your significant other at work all day.
Jenna Dewan also discussed her portrayal of a woman in an abusive relationship and the responses she’s been getting from it:
I heard from so many people about that portrayal and women in abusive relationships and how you unravel from that. They give me so much wonderful, deep stuff to do on this show.
Not much was known about Bailey when we first met her as John Nolan’s next door neighbor, but as the two started to hang out more and move on from being more than just friends, her past slowly unfolded. Now, she is trying to get away from her husband, with the help of John and the LAPD, but it hasn’t been easy because Jason is good at what he does.
Hopefully the Jason storyline wraps up soon, because while it’s been fun seeing the engaged partners be at each other’s throats, Bailey has gone through quite a lot and she deserves to be free from him and happy with John. At least Jenna Dewan and Steve Kazee can still go home to each other and be happy, since their relationship is nothing like it is on television.
New episodes of The Rookie air on Sundays at 10 p.m. EST on ABC!
