Justin Hartley will return to television with another post-Super Bowl premiere.
Following Super Bowl LVIII, viewers will be introduced to Colter Shaw in CBS’ Tracker. Colter is a lone survivor who roams the country as a bounty hunter, using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all sorts of mysteries while struggling with his own broken family.
Based on the book The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, Hartley revealed to Deadline that the series will largely diverge from the source material but still retain the “sensibility” of the characters.
Additionally, the series will operate as a procedural, with Colter taking on new missing person cases each week as he also struggles with his past trauma… which is now coming back to haunt him.
Below, Hartley talks more with Deadline about pitching the series to CBS, navigating a difficult few years to get it to the small screen, and where he sees it going from here.
DEADLINE: I heard you were involved in pitching the show. How did you get involved?
JUSTIN HARTLEY: [Ken] Olin and I had worked together on This Is Us. We had talked about doing something together. We wanted to continue working together after the show ended. So a year before we shot the last season, or right before we shot the last season of This Is Us, we got this book and fell in love with this character and brought it to 20th, which is my studio, where my production company is. We pitched them the idea of me playing Colter Shaw and Ken directing and producing with me, and they loved it. So they were like, ‘Okay, let’s go ahead with it.’ We pitched it to CBS, and they loved the idea, and Ken and I sold it to them on the phone… Like, be careful what you wish for, because then all of a sudden we’re like, ‘Okay, now we have to do it.’ But I feel like we’re here. We’re almost done with the sixth episode of the first season. I think we have something that’s really unique and wonderful and fun, and I think it has a lot of heart, and it has a lot of places. It has a story behind it, and it’s just something I’m really, really proud of. I think it’s special.
Yeah, I just love acting. I love This Is Us, and I love working all the time. I’ve loved every acting job I’ve ever had, I think. So I knew I wanted to keep acting. The show gives me the opportunity to not only do that, but also wear another hat as executive producer and have creative input and control. So it’s like the best of both worlds. I’m always interested in learning new things. What better way to do that than to learn from the best? I mean, I’m in Ken’s class, and it’s pretty awesome.
It’s absolutely amazing. I mean, I’ve loved every second, every frame that I’ve seen on This Is Us. It’s amazing. What a journey. That character has gone from, if you think about where we found him and where we left him — talk about full circle. From a childish man to a mature, responsible man. It’s just been a really amazing journey with that character. First of all, just selfishly, it’s been great to be able to play another character. Even though I love Kevin so much… I just think it’s great as an actor to be able to take on a character that’s so different. I mean, you’re taking away a lot of things that you’re used to and you’re wearing a lot of things that you’re not used to wearing. I didn’t even think those two would be friends. You know what I mean? They’re so different. But luckily for me, I got to play both of them. So it’s great. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to play a character that’s very similar to Kevin again in the future, but certainly right after leaving that show, taking on a character that’s so different is really an actor’s dream.
Yeah, we tell our own story. We don’t really tell the story of the book. We take the character for the most part. And then you have to adjust the character… you have to add and subtract a little bit from the character that’s in the book. For example, in the book, Colter talks to himself a lot in his brain. He has a lot of brain power. And it’s like, okay, you have to figure out a way logistically to make that look like on camera. I mean, do you want people to see Colter thinking? Then do you want the internal dialogue to be a voiceover? Or do you want it to be typed out on screen? Or do you want it to be assumed? Or do you want to see it in his eyes? How do you want to do it creatively? But he still has the same backstory and he still has the same sensibility. [He] goes about his business the same way, but you just… enhance it in different ways to
