Kevin Alejandro shifts into his “player/manager” mode for Friday night’s fall finale of “Fire Country” on CBS.
The veteran actor (“Lucifer,” “True Blood,” “Southland”) — who co-stars on the hit freshman series about convicts training as firefighters — also directed the episode (9 p.m.), in which his character, Cal Fire Captain Manny Perez, is confronted with a life-or-death decision when a car is struck by a hit-and-run driver and wedged precariously between a guardrail. It’s one wrong move away from plunging into the river below with its two occupants, one of whom is unconscious, as Bode (Max Thieriot), Vince (Billy Burke) and the “Fire Country” crew clash over how to avoid casualties.
“It’s a lot of pressure knowing it’s the [midseason] finale but it’s also a great honor because there are people who trust you enough to say, ‘You know what, I think you can do this, let’s move forward,'” Alejandro, 46, told The Post. “I knew I was going to direct an episode this season, I just didn’t know which one.”
This isn’t Alejandro’s first rodeo behind the camera. He directed five episodes of the Fox/Netflix series “Lucifer,” in which he played Det. Dan Espinoza, including the penultimate episode (“Goodbye, Lucifer”) of its sixth and final season.
And, after shooting the “Fire Country” pilot, Alejandro was hired to direct Episode 6 of the upcoming Disney+ series “National Treasure,” starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
“I cut my teeth as a director at this level on ‘Lucifer,'” he said. “[Creator] Joe Henderson and the showrunner, Ildy Modrovich … said ‘You want to [direct]? We’re going to make sure that by the end of this show you’re going to have no problems getting a job as a director afterward.’ They threw some of their biggest episodes at me and … and when I stepped off that show were people went, ‘OK, he’s been trusted with some pretty big responsibilities. Let’s not overlook that.'”
Part of Alejandro’s challenge in directing “Fire Country” was balancing its different tones in in context and pacing (action vs. a supernatural dramedy) vis-á-vis “Lucifer.”
“‘Lucifer’ was about composing the perfect pictures and moving the camera elegantly,” he said. “It was about the emotions of the characters. Both shows are similar in a lot of aspects, but [‘Fire Country’] is grittier and we’re running with the actors [with a camera] and passing from actor to actor. It’s not so much composing, as we did with how beautiful ‘Lucifer’ turned out — this is raw and gritty and it leans into that handheld style. It’s almost like documentary-style filmmaking sometimes.
“I got seven full episodes to watch [before directing Friday night’s episode],” he said. “I had an ‘on-set class’ of how to run the show, so by the time I was in the [director’s] chair I knew what I was doing. You can’t fake your way through it.”
Alejandro said that, as in the cases of both “Lucifer” and “National Treasure,” the “Fire Country” producers made sure he was up to speed on the show — although he didn’t need much help in that department.
“One of the advantages of being an actor/director on a series is that you do have the opportunity, from Day One, to read every single script, which I did up until Episode 8,” he said. “I know everyone’s journey. I had the opportunity to not only read the scripts but to see what the other directors had done and see the pace of the show as they were editing everything together, so that was tremendously helpful.
“I’m also the type of actor who tries to say on-set as much as I can,” he said. “I spend very little time in my trailer and I stand-in for myself, as well. I never went to film school so this is my film school; I’m on the set talking with the camera crew and learning the technical aspects, so when I’m in the director’s chair I understand the verbiage and I know what they’re talking about. It’s a giant puzzle as you go through the episode but I love puzzles, thank goodness.”
CBS renewed “Fire Country” for the entire season, so viewers will see much more of Manny when the series returns Jan. 6 following Friday night’s episode.
“One of the first things that attracted me to the character in the first place was knowing he his a human being who has a lot of responsibilities taking firefighters and letting them know there’s light at the end of the tunnel, [that] there’s a chance at redemption,” he said. “I love that Manny went through that same system.
“One of the most important things about his journey up to this point is that you see him with this strength … but you also see him falter, you see him shake and sometimes not make the right decision,” he said, “But he has the ability to pull himself back out so he can maintain the right track on life.”
