Peter Krause’s 9-1-1 moment

Who are your heroes?

My dad grew up on a farm in the Midwest and he didn’t have running water or electricity in his home until he was 16. He served in World War II and the Korean War. And then when I was a little kid, he was not doing well and checked himself into a mental hospital for a while. His first job when he got out was bagging groceries and he found a way of continuing to work and stay at home and be a good dad. Knowing what he went through in his life and how he persevered, he was the most heroic person I have known in my life.

What are you like in an emergency?

I have never really been in a 9-1-1 situation myself, but I was once choking in a hotel and managed to solve that on my own [laughs]. It was a green chilli cheeseburger you can only get in Albuquerque. I flew in for work and was hungry so I got two. When I got back to my hotel I started wolfing them down and began choking. I went over to the sink and started to selfHeimlich, basically. I guess that means I was my own first responder.

Are you calm in a crisis?

I am calm, generally speaking, and I even was as a kid. I am generally pretty calm in the face of an emergency, which is interesting sometimes, because I will get notes from directors saying, ‘‘We need some more stakes’’ or ‘‘It needs to be more urgent’’. I’m like, ‘‘But Bobby has seen this stuff before. He stays calm with the people around him.’’ It’s interesting having met some first responders now. They tell stories about things that they have done and I do think over time they must have become calmer in facing these emergencies.

Did you want to be a firefighter as a kid?

My mother kept these books for my siblings and me, and there were boxes where you could check off what you wanted to be. Almost every year I checked off firefighter in that book. Some years I would write in other things but, interestingly, I never wrote down ‘‘actor’’.

What have you learned being on the show?

I continue to learn a lot about what first responders go through and what they encounter and also, just recently with all the fires in California, talking about wild fires versus a building fire. I also have a greater appreciation for the people who are involved in first response. Someone like Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, who works at the 9-1-1 call centre, or a police officer, or a firefighter, I just have a tremendous amount of respect for them, more so than I ever did before the show.

What attracted you to the show after a long

run on Parenthood?

I have tried not to repeat myself in my career to the best of my ability and continue to do different things, like the shows Sports Night, Six Feet Under and 9-1-1. The one element of 9-1-1 that I will say does remind me of Parenthood is that it’s essentially pretty hopeful and we know that with most of the emergencies we encounter, we are going to solve the problem.