Chicago Fire: Taylor Kinney recalls filming the pilot

It may seem difficult to even imagine Taylor Kinney feeling “silly” in his fireman’s gear on Chicago Fire, but that was certainly the case in the pilot.

With the show hitting its milestone 100th episode Tuesday night, we asked Kinney during a Facebook Live interview this week if there was a particular scene from the show’s pilot that stands out in his memory.

“There was a scene that we shot where I was repelling into the lake,” he recalls. “I remember not having a clue what the hell I was doing, and I’m repelling off of this bridge into the river off of Lake Michigan, and I have this goofy harness, this drysuit on, and all this gear, and I’m running my dialogue, and it just felt so bizarre and silly. I remember talking to one of the advisors and I’m like, ‘All I had to do was get down to the water — wouldn’t it be quicker to run down? Would you do this?’ It was one of those things that when we first started, you just kind of went with it.”

He continues, “The scene ended up turning out great because I was coming back up before I get to the water, but it was kind of one of those instances where all I had was questions. I really didn’t know too much about everything that we were doing, the technical aspect of the job and what we were doing. It just felt really, really bizarre and silly.”

With 99 episodes under his belt, the uncertainty is no longer an issue. “I’ve been around it for so long and a lot of our friends are firefighters,” he says. “We have people there that if we don’t know how to do something, we’ll find out before we put it on camera.”

Even though he knows how to do them, there are two types of rescues Kinney doesn’t exactly enjoy filming. “A rescue in Lake Michigan in January stands out as something that I don’t think I would do again. I think I would find some weird ailment,” he says.

“When the truck has the ladder going up to like a fifth story and you see someone carrying someone down the ladder, that can be a pain in the ass,” he adds. “You have to realize we’re doing that maybe 20 times. … That can be exhausting — carrying someone with all your gear up and down, hucking yourself for half the day.”

Sorry, Taylor, but we’re hoping we get to see Severide in hero moments just like those for many more episodes to come.

The 100th episode of Chicago Fire airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC. Watch our full interview with Kinney below.

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