THIS IS HARTLEY
Actor has found another TV megahit with Tracker, which takes up his `whole life'
After holding babies on This Is Us, Justin Hartley has had to bone up on his outdoor skills as the star of the hit CBS series Tracker.
Adapted from Jeffery Deaver's novel The Never Game, the show stars Hartley as Colter Shaw. He's a lone-wolf survivalist who roams America as a reward-seeker, using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement find missing persons.
Colter travels around in a truck, lugging an Airstream in back as he embarks on a new mystery each week.
“This is my whole life now,” Hartley, 47, laughs in a video call from Vancouver, where Tracker is filmed. “I work these, like, 16-, 17-hour days. I'm outside all the time. So it's like, you know, you better like it, bud ... (Former This Is Us executive producer) Ken Olin always says, instead of carrying babies (Colter is) carrying a gun, which is kind of the truth.”
After appearing on NBC'S Emmy-winning This Is Us, Hartley wasn't sure what he wanted to do next. But he knew he was interested in making compelling television and appearing on a show that would have people tuning in week after week.
“I think the opportunity of my life was This Is Us. I still cherish every moment of that show,” says Hartley, who played Kevin Pearson for six seasons. “Even when I was on it, I understood what it was. I was like, `I can't believe I'm part of this fantastic thing.'”
Following the series end in 2022, Hartley took a bit of a breather, but he was immediately hooked when he got the script for Tracker, which airs Sunday nights on CBS and CTV.
As Hartley puts it, Colter's troubled childhood “shaped the man that he is” and made for rich storytelling. His father moved his family off the grid, he's estranged from his siblings and he can't trust his mother. “I love the fact that he took all of that trauma from his childhood and is now using it to do good,” he says.
Colter's sister has appeared (played by Manifest's Melissa Roxburgh), and Colter's brother Russell will show up to seek his help tracking down an old U.S. army buddy. Jensen Ackles, who starred on Supernatural and The Winchesters, plays him.
“It's intense,” Hartley says of the episode. “We learn a lot of the backstory about their family and we have a lot of action, some buddy comedy stuff ... it's great. We had been wanting to work together for a long time and this was just a great opportunity.”
Hartley's wife, Sofia Pernas, whom he met when they starred together on The Young and the Restless, has also made an appearance this season as Colter's ex-wife. She'll turn up later this month, as well.
“She's going to be back by popular demand,” Hartley says, laughing. “We had this really great opportunity to work together. It was a really cool episode for her where she got to come in and be a badass like she is. That's what she is. That's what she does. And she crushed it. And I can't tell you how many times people have come up to me and said how much they liked the episode she was in, which makes me so happy.”
Hartley will also have a mini This Is Us reunion when Jennifer Morrison makes a cameo in the May 19 season finale.
“Guest stars are a huge part of our show,” Hartley says. “We have had a lot of people that have come on who helped us out in a really good way. I look at the cast now and I'm like, `Wow, we got a bunch of TV stars on our show.' It's incredible.”
Tracker scored an early season 2 renewal, and CBS said the primetime show is its most-watched new series since The Big Bang Theory prequel Young Sheldon debuted during the 2017-18 season. Tracker was the first series to be greenlit for the 2024-25 broadcast cycle.
Getting a chance to star in two back-to-back TV hits is like lightning striking twice, Hartley says.
“There are a lot of people in this business that work really hard and don't sniff this kind of opportunity that leads into this kind of success,” the Screen Actors Guild Award-nominee says. “With the combination of the people we have, we had a chance to make a successful show and we've done that with the show ... But you never know. I've seen really great shows with really great acting before that go four or five episodes and they're cancelled. For some reason, they never find an audience. So the fact that we found an audience feels good. It's a relief when you put in all that effort and people are actually enjoying what you're doing.”
It's not bad for a guy who packed his car and headed from his native Illinois to Los Angeles in the early 2000s with a dream to become an actor.
“I caught the acting bug that people talk about in college. And I thought, well, you don't have anything to lose right now. I didn't want to be the age that I am now and regretting things, but I've been lucky ... because time flies by when you're doing something that you love, it flies by ... It's hard to imagine.”
The fact that we found an audience feels good. It's a relief when you put in all that effort and people are actually enjoying what you're doing.