Chicago Fire Finale's Potential Death Would Cause 'A Huge Hole In My Life,' Says David Eigenberg
If the Grim Reaper makes a visit to Chicago Fire whenever the NBC drama returns for Season 12, it will be at a great cost to the cast, who have become like family.
As you'll recall, the Season 11 finale found Herrmann's buddy and colleague Mouch (played by longtime series regular Christian Stolte) wounded by shrapnel during a dangerous rescue call. Mouch was rushed to the hospital, where he was OK — until he suddenly began to bleed out and code as a distraught Herrmann frantically called for a doctor. Whether Mouch lives or dies remains to be seen, but if the cliffhanger should prove to be fatal, Stolte's costar David Eigenberg (aka Herrmann) will feel the loss just as much as his character will.
"I don't know what they're going to do, but I don't want to lose Christian because it'd be a huge hole in my life," Eigenberg told TVLine while helping to promote NBC's new Dick Wolf-produced docuseries LA Fire & Rescue.
"There's a lot of love on our show. When we come back from the strike, we'll be in our 12th season. We've been together a lot. When you look at pictures of us from 12 years ago, we were a lot younger," Eigenberg says with a laugh. "We've been through stuff. We've been through a lot on our show."
"I've watched Christian become a grandfather," Eigenberg adds. "Christian is one of the funniest guys on the show. He's a real sourpuss, but, man, is he funny. We laugh a lot every day. I don't want to lose anybody on the show. We've got a great group. We don't have any jerks."
During long and physically demanding days on set, Eigenberg makes sure to look out for his castmate. "I care about Christian. We have hard days, and we're not kids anymore. We get beat up," the actor says. "I've had days where I go to our paramedic on set like, 'Keep an eye out.' Christian's 61, I'm almost 60... Real life is stitched into our fictional [ones]."
For Eigenberg, filming the emotional and dramatic scene where Mouch bleeds out also proved to be a messy experience.
"At one point, the blood wasn't going, and I helped it go, and I ran around to save him... and the blood splattered across my face," Eigenberg shares.