Joe Minoso on CHICAGO FIRE and what comes next

October 2, 2019 Amrie

Photo Credit: Brant Brogan

In the season 8 premiere of NBC’s CHICAGO FIRE, the unthinkable happened. One of the show’s original characters, Brian “Otis” Zvonecek, took his last breaths on screen. Long time fans have obviously been sad to see Otis and his portrayer, Yuri Sardarov, go; long time best friend (on and off screen) Joe Minoso feels our pain. “Yuri is my best friend on the show, so to lose him was definitely, exactly like losing a brother, and it was hard for the entire episode.”

Still recovering from the loss, Joe and I talked a little bit this week ahead of tonight’s all new episode about how Otis’ death impacts 51, and Cruz specifically.

Man, that premiere really kind of was a gut punch, huh?
It sure was, yes, that it is.

Knowing you both a little bit, I have to imagine for both you, as an actor and, Cruz, as a character, losing Yuri/Otis, is kind of a big deal.
A huge deal, yes. I mean Yuri, is my best friend on the show and so to lose him was definitely, exactly like losing a brother, and it was hard for the entire episode. Shooting the whole thing was difficult. Re-watching it was difficult. Reading it the first time was difficult. It still gets you when you read it on the page; they really did an incredible job.

Was it something where they told you ahead of time or did you get to that page and learned that this was going to happen?
Derek [Haas] contacted Yuri, I believe it was May 26th or 27th or something like that. It was definitely somewhere in that week, and he called me right after; I was the first person he called after he found out, just because he kind of, they told him the trajectory that they were going with Cruz, and what they were sort of planning on doing. Just because they thought that it was kind of time to put a bit of teeth back into the show. It’s been a while since we’d lost a major character, they just really wanted to kind of emphasize how dangerous what we really do, as firefighters on the show, can be.

And when they kind of came to that conclusion and they told Yuri about it, I think… Yuri was a tremendous professional about it and he was eager to kind of be able to jump into new things and stuff like that. So I think it was just kind of the right timing for everybody. But we knew about it for quite some time before I got the script, that it was going to happen. We didn’t know, to what effect and how exactly it would play out until we saw the script for the first time about a week before we started filming.

And that’s the thing about a character like Otis! He doesn’t just impact Cruz; he touches everybody. So it is kind of this thing that I think will push the season forward. What can we expect in the loss of Otis for Cruz, specifically?
Well, in general, I think, the relationship that Cruz and Otis had was so kind of born out of a youthful brotherhood, that they had kind of this sort of juvenilistic quality to their relationship. And I think that outlet no longer exists for Cruz. I think in a lot of ways, Cruz was always kind of held onto his youthful energy in a lot of ways because of Otis.

Photo Credit: Brant Brogan

And I think that you’re going to see kind of a switch and kind of a more grown, or grown up, or adult kind of version of Cruz going forward. There’s just… and Brett’s gone, Otis has gone. The only thing he knows that he has in his life right now, that’s in any way stable, is Chloe and being a firefighter. And I think you’re going to see kind of a laser focused approach to both of those things.

What is that like as an actor, to have to kind of switch gears a little bit and kind of lose that fun side a bit for a while?
Tough. Especially when the character was kind of born that way. You know, I think in a lot of ways when you’re creating a character, especially on episodic television, it’s sort of an episode by episode journey, and you’re finding it almost just as much in the moment as the audiences is. And when we kind of got through the first season, it sort of became apparent that everybody sort of had a person, right? Casey had Severide, Mouch has Herrmann, Cruz has Otis, Shay had Dawson, everyone, there was always a team up of sorts, and that doesn’t really necessarily exist anymore in this universe for Cruz.

And when the character was created or when we kind of developed what we have now, it ended up being one that for the most part was used for comedic purposes alongside his foil, which was Otis. And so I think that’s going to result in a lot of reshaping of the dynamic of the show. I think you’ll find that the humor will start to translate in different ways to different characters. And I think you’ll also see just kind of a shift in how Cruz approaches things in life in general.

It’s interesting that you say that we’ll kind of see a shift in maybe where the humor comes from. That’s what I like a lot about this show is that there is that humor. So as long as we’re not losing that just because we’re losing the character that kind of helped provide that, that’s a relief for I think viewers as well.
Yes, I agree. I think we have a really great balance on our show of being able to do, really some very kind of almost sit com-y stuff on our show that I don’t know that the other Chicago universe shows really have the luxury of doing.

I think just because of the fact that we happen to be firefighters, and they tend to be such goofballs with each other. That really gives us an opportunity to explore that part of their world. You don’t get to see that so much on MED or PD. So yeah, I agree. I think we’re one of the lucky ones in that aspect, and I hope that they still work with that, and they still play in that arena. And I think that they’re definitely, given what we’ve done so far, there’s still a lot of that. There’s still a lot of that levity and fun that we can have with other people. So I think they’ll find a good mix.

And I think it’s interesting too, having spent some time with all of you guys, knowing that the FIRE cast are so goofy and so fun and so free. I think that that translates onto screen too, which is important.
100%. Yeah, I know. I think in a lot of ways the past has helped kind of guide where the characters go. I think if you have any good casts, I think that’s sort of what happens. But when we first, when we all came in on the pilot, the pilot felt kind of different to what we, who we are and what we know now, as CHICAGO FIRE. The pilot was a little bit more hyper-sexualized, a little bit more cool, I guess would be the word. And I think they started to realize that maybe they might have more bang for their buck in some of the goofball aspects of things just because the actors themselves that they cast happened to be a bunch of goofballs. And so I think, once they realized who they really had there, they started to kind of write to the wheelhouse and I think that was a really smart move on their part, and it’s developed kind of an aesthetic that I think really sets itself apart from a lot of other dramas on TV.

Obviously the loss of Otis will carry through at least the beginning of this season. What can you tease about how else it impacts 51?
Well, in general, right? I think a lot of this is going to be a big journey for every character at 51, right? So I think there’s, for example, Otis was part owner of Molly’s, right?

Right.
So that’s going to set Herrmann off on a whole other journey of his own, because now he has to figure out what it means for him in terms of finding a new partner, or if he’s going to just buy out his shares. And that unfolds in its own way. Obviously Brett’s… Whether or not she will be coming back. I think Otis, the influence of Otis being gone, I think in general was a push for her to leave as much as the engagement, so it’s like… And you’ll see it across Boden, and whether or not he can trust the judgment of his men, and whether or not it’s worth exploring somebody new coming into the firehouse after losing someone. So it’s like, yes, I think in a lot of ways this is going to affect everyone and it’s going to affect everyone throughout the season. It’s going to even, I think in ways affect the people who are new to the show. You will see the effects of how people treat a new person who’s filling in very big shoes.

And how people will take that on given whoever this new firefighter may be. So it’s impossible that you won’t see a lot of things happen because of Otis’s death, but in general, yeah, more of what we do on a huge scale. I can tell you that our crossover is going to be this giant… There’s a big infectious disease that has kind of overtaken the entire city, and it’s this big kind of flesh eating bacteria thing, and it’s just really gross right around Halloween time. Perfect timing.

Photo Credit: Brant Brogan

Perfect.
Yeah, exactly. And like always, I think in general so far, we’re in about episode seven right now, and I’m pretty sure that at least one of us has gone to, or someone has come from one of the other shows in every episode.

Which is actually one of my favorite things. I love that it’s so interchangeable, that you’re all on one night now you’re kind of in and out. I love that aspect of it.
Oh, likewise. And I think that the writers have really finally found the sweet spot and the fact that NBC put us all on the same night was, I think it was Dick Wolf’s plan all along, has really kind of given us the opportunity to do more of that crossover potential. Because now that we’re all filming concurrently, right? Now that we’re all filming at the same time, same episodes, it gives us a chance to kind of just feed people in and out of different shows, with real ease frankly.

The crossovers are a whole other beast. That is an animal that I would never want you to try and control, and they do an incredible job doing it. But I say that this crossover has taken us the better part of two months to film.

Wow.
Just between how many pieces there are, and rewrites, and how we filmed our episode as the fifth episode and then PD filmed it as their sixth and then MED filmed it as their seventh. But they all air as their fourth, so we’ve been at this crossover for the better part of two months now. And keeping all that in track when we’re like, “Well, we did our cross over part,” so we’re two episodes in already beyond that, but they’re still doing theirs on PD. I’m going tomorrow, I go into film, the PD version, another section of the PD crossover. It’s a big giant beast of a thing. But it’s so exciting to be a part of something like that. It’s so rare, to a) be working as an actor, and b) to be able to say I showed up on three hours of television on three different shows in one night. That’s absurd. No one gets to say that.

It kind of keeps it fresh for you as an actor, too, where you get to flex some muscles across the different shows and interact with different faces.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Last year for example, when I got a chance to be a part of a big… it was kind of a smaller crossover where I had to go over to PD to help them investigate this firefighter in another house. That was amazing. That was such a different storyline, and it proved that Cruz is a terrible investigator, and is not good at going under cover, because he got caught six times. But at the same time it was such a different thing and I got to work with all these new wonderful actors, just lovely people who are all very talented. One of them, Dan Cantor, who was in that episode is a guy that I worked with like 12 years ago in a play that we did at Chicago Shakespeare Theater for a children’s thing. It is, it’s fantastic to be able, especially doing this for as long as we have, to kind of open things up and just play different worlds. Yeah.