'Fire Country' Star Diane Farr Goes Behind the Scenes of Her Directorial Debut (Exclusive)

Fire Country star Diane Farr (Sharon Leone) is making her directorial debut with Season 3, Episode 3 of CBS’ hit firefighter drama, “Welcome to the Cult.” Ahead of the premiere on Nov. 1, she’s walking Parade through an exclusive clip, taking us behind the camera for the scene with a story about how guest star Leven Rambin’s professionalism and talent helped a hard day go smoothly.

In the clip, Bode Leone (Max Thieriot) and his fellow ex-con firefighter cadet Audrey James (Rambin) are preparing to perform a simulated rescue in a burning building as part of the training program. If they fail to complete the mission in the allotted time, they’ll get a “strike,” and if they get three strikes, they’re out of the program. Audrey doesn’t want that to happen, so she’s making sure that her partner for the exercise doesn’t let her down. “You get me cut from this program, I cut you,” she tells Bode. She’s joking, but she’s serious. And she also kinda likes Bode. She’s flirting with him a little bit. Her chemistry with Bode will make you go “hmm…”

Farr says that this day was her most “frightening” one on set. Everything inside and outside of the fire training building was shot that day, and she was “worried for months” about working with fire. But before she got to that, she had to shoot a couple of expository outdoor scenes, and she had to get through them quickly, before the sun moved out of position and so that there was enough time to shoot the fire scenes. And Rambin is new on the show, and Farr was worried about her having to wear all this heavy fire equipment for too long.

“Every shot that I designed inside was about how quickly can I get this woman out of this gear?” Farr says. “Max has shoulders bigger than my head. He can do it. I was very worried about protecting the female.”

“So we’re outside, and I have allotted so little time for that scene, because I’m desperate to get to the fire,” Farr recalls. “And as soon as they start, it was like the gift of all gifts. I was like, ‘Oh, she has it all.’ She knows how to bury the exposition in her swagger so quickly that he gets to shine. He gets to really take her in.”

The most interesting thing to Farr about the scene is Bode’s reaction to Audrey. Bode tends to give everyone the benefit of the doubt right from the beginning. But he’s a little bit guarded around Audrey. Something about her makes him a little uneasy. He’s not sure of her intentions. 

“This is the only person we’ve ever seen him like, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure if this person’s OK,” Farr says. She has a lot praise for Rambin’s performance. “She’s driving that scene. And she brought it. I didn’t say a word to her. She had it all when she walked in.”

To find out what happens next, tune in for the next episode of Fire Country on Friday, Nov. 1 at 9/8c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.