Max Thieriot created something special with Fire Country — and he doesn’t plan to stop there.
“I think there’s still a lot of room to explore,” Thieriot, 35, who plays Bode on the hit CBS series, exclusively told Us Weekly about his plans for the franchise. “There’s more room to explore in Edgewater and outside of Edgewater.”
In addition to starring on the show, Thieriot is also a cocreator, director and executive producer. He broke down his original vision for the show, which includes ideas for more spinoffs set in the same world as Fire Country. (CBS has already picked up the spinoff series Sheriff Country for a full season.)
“When I started, I was always putting the cart before the horse. In my head, I had probably at least three other versions outside of Fire Country,” he revealed to Us. “Whether any of those ever see the light of day — we’ll see. But I certainly have at least a couple more ideas for this world.”
Thieriot isn’t just thinking about the Fire Country though. He is focused on other projects as well, adding, “Outside of that, I’m trying to focus on other worlds as well. I’m trying to do as much as possible — but not totally overdo myself.”
The CBS series, which premiered in 2022, follows inmate Bode (Thieriot) as he gets a chance to shorten his prison sentence by volunteering for the California Conservation Camp Program. Bode gets assigned to his hometown, where he reconnects with his family and former friends and continues to make attempts to redeem himself.
While reflecting on the work that went into making Fire Country, Thieriot praised all the people involved with the project.
“I try not to think too much about how the show would’ve been or how the show is now compared to how I originally envisioned it. Like the journey for these characters in this series, it is obviously a collaborative thing with a massive team behind it,” he noted. “So for me, I also try not to do too much. I know I am doing a lot but there’s a lot of amazing people that we have behind it.”
Fire Country‘s continued success is in large part due to the cast and crew behind the scenes.
“I have to put a lot of my trust and faith in the team and allow everybody to have their own creative exploration,” Thieriot continued. “The thing that I always am trying to work on is the firefighting and authenticity.”
Since the show is based on Thieriot’s experience growing up in real fire country, the final product had to reflect real life.
“That’s probably the biggest thing that I’m always trying to do better. I have a lot of friends that do this job and so it’s always important to me to portray it in the best way possible. Obviously this is still a fictional story but that doesn’t fall short on me,” he explained to Us. “Obviously the bigger the world gets, the more my focus is sort of spread out across a lot of things. But it’s all about having trust in the whole team. And trusting that when everybody pitches their ideas and we all come together that we’re gonna find the best one for the series.”
The season 2 finale, which aired on Friday, May 17, left fans with tons of questions about what comes next for Bode, Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila), Manny (Kevin Alejandro) and the rest of the Fire Country crew. Luckily, the show has already been renewed for a third season, which Thieriot confirmed would have more episodes.
“Getting to have some more episodes allows us to arc out all those stories a little bit longer and really sort of play them out a little bit slower, which I like,” Thieriot told Us in reference to season 1 having more than 20 episodes while season 2 had only 10. “Nothing feels rushed that way. The nice thing is [in] season 3, we’ll get to get back into that.”
He concluded: “It’s the perfect time because we have so much to explore this season and going forward. So getting to have those extra episodes will be really helpful to get to map it out over a longer number of episodes.”
Fire Country has been renewed for season 3 on CBS. All episodes are streaming on Paramount+.
