Shemar Moore reveals how and why S.W.A.T. features the fittest cast in TV cop drama history
Police dramas used to have one star who brought the muscle, but not S.W.A.T. Now, Shemar Moore reveals how and why the cast — including Aussie star Alex Russell — stay so ripped.
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Two things are immediately apparent about the cast of S.W.A.T., Foxtel’s hyper-dynamic drama about a special police operations unit in LA.
They’re racially diverse. And they are remarkably fit.
Mixed-race casts date all the way back to the original Star Trek, but gone are the days when one sole member of an action series would bring the muscle.
In S.W.A.T., they all do.
From 31-year-old Aussie breakout Alex Russell to 65-year-old team elder Patrick St Esprit, the entire squad is in phenomenal shape.
Series regular Jay Harrington, who at 48 combines a George Clooney-esque visage and voice with the body of a young athlete, puts the S.W.A.T. team’s fitness down to two factors: no days off, and a gym on set.
“We have an 18-wheeler trailer, and inside there’s a full gym, so we’ve got no excuse,” he says.
Helming this buff bunch both on-screen and off is Shemar Moore, well-known to Australian audiences after 11 years on Criminal Minds.
Asked about his motivation for staying fit at his age – 50 in April – Moore can’t contain a big Hollywood smile.
“If we’re being 100 per cent honest, we’re all vain. We’re actors, you know, we wanna look as best we can,” he says. “But it’s important to all of the cast that we pay homage to the men and women of real life S.W.A.T. We have to stay in shape so we look the part. When they’re not on a mission in real life they have to stay in a certain physical condition.”
Moore’s role as heroic team sergeant Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson brings him into occasional conflict with Russell’s hothead newbie Jim Street, but the American star speaks glowingly of his Aussie colleague.
“(Alex) admits when he was young he was a heavy-set kid, and now he’s very determined to get himself in the best shape possible, and he works hard,” Moore says. “He’s a diligent, hardworking actor. I watch him daily, he’s in that gym and he’s trying to finesse his physique and kudos to him, he actually made the cover of a couple of magazines last year. It’s just fun, watching him find himself, find his swag and grow as an actor.”
Moore has done much the same, having punched through from his first working decade on a daytime soap.
“I started on The Young and The Restless, and I understand the stigma that comes with a soap; I was very aware of it,” he says. “You’re not a movie star, you’re not prime time, but it’s gruelling, difficult work. I took it as a training ground.”
S.W.A.T. could not be further removed from the safe studio interiors, pedestrian pace and standard setups of a soap. Now in its third season, the series was conceived by some of the producers of the Fast and the Furious film franchise, and it brings those cinematic qualities – super-slick production, rapid-fire storytelling and ambitious stunts – to the TV screen.
“We are making a movie on television,” is how Moore describes it. “Criminal Minds was $2.5 million per episode, whereas S.W.A.T. is anywhere from $4 to $7.5 million, so more cameras, more angles, helicopters, car chases, motorcycle chases, explosions, drones … so yeah, it’s a big deal.”
The cast took two months to train with real-life S.W.A.T. operatives prior to filming, learning the protocols, codes and language they use in the field, Moore reveals.
They also had to learn how to fire guns, and a behind-the-scenes video of the cast at a shooting range posted online shows that Moore in particular has a pretty good aim.
“I’m not a huge fan of guns, just in the sense of having my own or any of that, but whatever I’m going to portray as an actor I don’t want to completely fake it. I want to learn whatever embodies my character,” he says.
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But the show has substance beyond the shootouts and stunts, with scripts that regularly hit hot-button issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement, human trafficking, racial profiling and PTSD among veterans. And the diversity on-screen is reflected in the writers’ room, Moore says.
“I just love how far we’ve come. What I do with Hondo, it’s a little bit of art imitates life. Here I am, getting an opportunity to be the leader of S.W.A.T., and here I am, Shemar Moore, being the leader of a TV show, creating more diversity on television.
“We have Jay Harrington, white, David Lim, Chinese, we had Stephanie Sigman who was Latina, Lina Esco, Latina … so you have a mosaic, you have a mixed group of individuals, but telling human stories. We have all these colours, but we all bleed red.
“I hope that (the show is) bridging minds, bridging gaps; that we’re OK with different but we’re also so much the same.”
Such a world view is unsurprising, given Moore’s peripatetic childhood. Born to an African-American father and an Anglo-American mother, with forebears in French Canada, the young Moore had lived with his mother in Denmark, Bahrain and California before the age of 10.
Moore was 27 when his mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was a pivotal moment for the young actor, propelling him towards becoming a champion fundraiser for the research effort to fight the disease.
“My dream is to be able to look my mother in the eyes and say there’s a cure for MS,” he says. “I’m not going to be able to cure it, but if I can bring awareness to it, and raise a debate and a conversation about it and put more eyes on it and raise some money … if I can make people feel like they have a voice and they have a chance, and give doctors the opportunity to keep experimenting to find a cure, that’s my dream.”
Spoken like a real-life hero.
* Season 3 of S.W.A.T. airs on Foxtel’s Fox One.
Originally published as Shemar Moore reveals how and why S.W.A.T. features the fittest cast in TV cop drama history