We’re only two episodes into Sheriff Country, but the Fire Country spinoff has already hit us with a lot. Of course, there have been plenty of cameos to keep fans of the hit CBS series at bay, including Bode (Max Thieriot) and Sharon (Diane Farr). But the new series threw a lot at fans to contend with early on.
But they’re not the only ones. Christopher Gorham had the unenviable task of making a new relationship with viewers seem old to him. Gorham plays Travis, the ex-husband of Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin). As he tells Parade, he and showrunner Matt Lopez comprehensively broke down the long-time relationship between Travis and Mickey, and how it all broke down.
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“In these first few episodes, Travis isn’t around all that much,” he explains. “Most of the time she’s working with Matt, with Boone and with Cassidy. And so I was popping in once a week, and then we would have to create this decades-long chemistry and relationship within a couple of hours, and that can be very difficult to do if you’re working with a partner who isn’t as open as Miranda. And so I feel like we were able to find kind of a sweet spot.”
Read on for our full interview with Christopher Gorham. New episodes of Sheriff Country air Fridays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
Related: ‘Fire Country’ Star Makes His Way to ‘Sheriff Country’ in an Entirely Different Role
What was your history with Fire Country before getting the role? And what was your reaction to entering this universe?
I’d never heard of Fire Country before. I had no idea. So when I got this script, that’s what sent me to go watch Fire Country to see what the tone of this world was going to be. And then I became a fan. I started watching it, and then just kept watching. And I watched all three seasons, so I’m all caught up. Then I became really excited about joining this community, because I think one of the things that all the Fire Country fans can agree on is that we all like to live in Edgewater. We all want to be friends with the Leones. And we all want to hang out with these people. And now that’s my job! I get to go and hang out in Edgewater and be a part of that community. And so I’m really excited for the fans of Fire Country to be able to see another side of that town.
Were you given any specifics as to the backstory between Travis and Mickey? Is that something we’ll find out more about as the season goes on?
I had a long conversation with Matt Lopez, who’s our showrunner, about Mickey and Travis, just to kind of wrap my head around where they’ve been, how things ended, what’s been going on since they split up, which is about five years before the show starts. And one of the things that he and I agreed upon right from the jump, was that this is one of those relationships that I think a lot of people, if you’re lucky, you have at least one of these relationships in your life where you’re just connected to a person. And no matter what your relationship status is, you’re always going to be connected to that person, and you’re always going to love that person. And that’s a person that you will always be there for, rain or shine.
Mickey and Travis, they fell in love in high school, and they were together. And they had a kid, and they stayed together for 20 years, and it was not easy. His family was dead set against their relationship from the beginning. Frankly, so was hers. Wes has never been a big fan of Travis from the very beginning. But Travis completely cut his family out of the picture for years because they couldn’t get on board with his relationship. And Travis is the one who walked away. And when we pick them up in the first episode, they’re dealing with Skye, their daughter. Skye’s troubles with addiction, and I think Travis harbors a lot of guilt for that, deserved or not. I think as a dad and as the dad who broke up the family, I think he holds on to that, and it’s really hard for him.
What was it like to work out that dynamic with Mickey both on and off screen?
Well, to Miranda’s credit, she makes it very easy. She’s just a wonderful actress, and just very open and generous. We’ve been able to just to discover this relationship and build this relationship in not a lot of time. In these first few episodes, Travis isn’t around all that much. Most of the time she’s working with Matt, with Boone and with Cassidy. And so I was popping in once a week, and then we would have to create this decades-long chemistry and relationship within a couple of hours, and that can be very difficult to do if you’re working with a partner who isn’t as open as Miranda. And so I feel like we were able to find kind of a sweet spot.
And both of us have been in long-term relationships. She’s married. I’ve been married for 27 years. And I think a lot of the fights that these characters have, and I love the fights that we have, they’re so rich, and they feel so real to me. So I think we’re both able to bring just our life experience into these characters. I mean, there’s a scene we’re shooting on Friday that I’m just so excited about. I can’t say anything about it yet. But I’m so excited to shoot this scene on Friday, and I feel like that every episode essentially.
Darren Goldstein/CBS
Even though Travis isn’t in much of the first couple of episodes, he certainly complicates things with his relationship with Cassidy. You mentioned before about being inextricably tied to Mickey. Dating one of her co-workers certainly is an example of that.
Yeah, it’s not a great look for Travis at the beginning. And it’s a fine line, because it could be very easy to really hate him as a character for doing that to Mickey. And so also don’t want to be anti-Cassidy from the beginning because of what she’s doing to Mickey. But I think between the writing and then how we just work together, Michelle and I found a place.
Travis and Mickey’s been broken up for five years, and they didn’t intend to start dating. It’s one of those things that just kind of happened. And I think it part of the reason is they started dating each other as a way maybe to feel closer to Mickey, because they both love her for different reasons. Cassidy looks up to her as a mentor and wants to be like her, and Travis misses her; that’s his partner. So I think that relation, I think they both kind of fell into that relationship, and then are trying to make it work with good intentions. But it’s a rough go for those two.
And what makes it an even rougher go is the fact that Travis goes from representing his daughter’s boyfriend to her becoming the prime suspect in his murder.
Yeah, I love how we tackle that. Because right at the beginning, Mickey is is faced with the fact that she is maybe doing a great job at being the sheriff, but she’s falling down on her duties as just being mom. And so much of her ethos, her mantra is, “We have to keep a firewall between work and home.” And right from the beginning of this show that is challenged in the biggest way possible. Because when your daughter is the suspect, it becomes really impossible to keep work and home separate, and all those things keep bleeding together.
And I think that’s going to be a big theme throughout the show. How do you keep those two things separate? Should you keep those two things separate? Because they’re often at odds. And it takes someone close enough to her like Travis to kind of shake her and wake her up and say, “Hey, dude, you need to wake up, because our daughter is in big, big trouble.” Travis sees it right from the beginning. Because he’s a defense lawyer, he doesn’t look at the sheriff’s department the same way that Mickey does. I think it’s a really interesting dynamic in the show where you have Mickey at the center, and you’ve got Wes the outlaw on one side, who is suspect of the sheriff’s department for his own reasons. And then you’ve got her ex husband, who is a defense attorney on the other side, who is also a suspect of the sheriff’s department for very different reasons. And she has to navigate those two relationships, but they’re both very valuable, and I think both of those perspectives help make her a better sheriff.
Sheriff Country sets up a mystery to solve right from the beginning. What can we expect to come in the rest of the season?
Well, when you’ve seen the first couple of episodes, we’re not afraid to hit close to home. I think it’s going to be a balance between cases of the week that will get wrapped up episode to episode, and then a few cases that are going to take a few more episodes to wrap up. Some that go on for just two episodes. LIke the Skye case will go on for three or four. But within that there’s always something going on every episode, there’s a mystery to solve.
Every episode that I think fits right into the mold of kind of a traditional cop show. I think what sets us apart from those traditional cop shows is that this show is set in a small town where everybody kind of knows everybody. It’s like policing your own family, in a sense. And I think when you’re forced to do that, you have to handle things differently than you might when you’re dealing with people that are strangers, right? And some ways, it might make some things easier, because you can just call up somebody’s mom and say, “Hey, get your kid in line.” But often, it makes it more complicated, because you don’t want to throw your brother or cousin behind bars. So I think that’s the thing that sets us apart, and then set in this world of Edgewater that the Fire Country fans are already familiar with and love.
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