If you’ve noticed an extra layer of grit on the faces of Lieutenant Stella Kidd or Kelly Severide this year, it’s not just clever makeup. In recent year-end interviews for December 2025, the stars of Chicago Fire have pulled back the curtain on a production cycle that many are calling the most difficult in the franchise’s history.
1. The “Physical Tax” of the 2025 crossover
The biggest hurdle of the year was undoubtedly the January 2025 One Chicago Crossover. While fans saw a seamless three-night event involving a massive skyscraper explosion, the cast saw a logistical nightmare.
Miranda Rae Mayo (Stella Kidd) revealed that she spent nearly 72 hours in “full turnouts” (heavy firefighting gear) while filming in a smoke-filled, cramped stairwell set. “There were moments where you forget you’re acting,” Mayo admitted. “The exhaustion is real, the sweat is real, and the claustrophobia starts to set in.”
Taylor Kinney (Kelly Severide) echoed this sentiment, noting that the stunts this year were “pushed to the absolute limit” to compete with big-budget action films, leaving the cast with more real-world bruises than usual.
2. The mental toll of “Stellaride” drama
It’s not just the fire that burns; it’s the drama. This season, the writers put Stella Kidd and Kelly Severide through an emotional ringer that the actors found surprisingly draining.
Mayo and Kinney have both spoken about the difficulty of maintaining that “high-voltage” tension on set for months on end.
“When you have to walk onto a set and be in a state of marital crisis for 12 hours a day, you don’t just ‘turn that off’ when you drive home,” Mayo shared. The cast admits that the emotional weight of this season’s scripts required a level of vulnerability that left the ensemble feeling “raw.”
3. Fighting the “Real” Chicago elements
As always, the Chicago weather remains the show’s most unpredictable antagonist. However, late 2025 saw a series of brutal early-winter storms that coincided with several major outdoor night shoots.
David Eigenberg (Christopher Herrmann) jokingly complained about the “youthful energy” required to run through knee-deep slush at 3:00 AM.
The cast revealed that filming the mid-season finale involved real sub-zero temperatures that caused equipment to freeze and forced the actors to use “warm-up tents” every 15 minutes, stretching 8-hour shoots into 16-hour marathons.
4. The “New Blood” integration
With several veteran characters having moved on or taken reduced roles over the last two years, the pressure on the remaining original cast to “carry the legacy” has been immense.
Joe Miñoso (Joe Cruz) mentioned that the responsibility of training new cast members while maintaining the high standards of the show added an extra layer of “mental fatigue.”
The cast had to work double-time to ensure the “Firehouse 51 chemistry” didn’t falter during the transition, a task that required extra rehearsals and late-night chemistry reads.
5. Looking ahead to 2026
Despite the admission that this season was “not easy,” the cast remains fiercely loyal to the firehouse. The consensus among the stars is that the difficulty of the shoot is exactly what makes the final product so authentic. They aren’t just playing heroes; they are enduring a professional gauntlet to honor the real-life first responders they represent.
