9-1-1 knows how to give the fans \u2014 or, in this case, the network \u2014 what they want.\n<\/p>\n
From the minute 9-1-1: Nashville<\/a> was greenlit, the team behind the first-responder franchise knew ABC was clamoring for a crossover<\/a> with the franchise’s flagship series. But when it finally came time to shoot the installment \u2014 which aired Thursday \u2014 there was an additional request.\n<\/p>\n “The network was like, ‘Hey, we’d love to see some shots of the guys maybe with their shirts off,'” 9-1-1: Nashville showrunner Rashad Raisani tells Entertainment Weekly.\n<\/p>\n So Raisani’s team wrote in a “hydration break” during the episode’s Firefighter Games, an annual competition that served as the impetus<\/a> for 9-1-1’s Buck (Oliver Stark<\/a>) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman<\/a>) to travel to Tennessee and interact with Blue (Hunter McVey) and the rest of the 113 firehouse.\n<\/p>\n There was just one concern Raisani had before taking the scene to Stark, Guzman, and McVey: the timing.\n<\/p>\n “Now I get to call them and go, ‘Hey guys, I know you all just had Thanksgiving, but there’s a craving for some shirtless stuff,'” he explains.\n<\/p>\n “He texted me,” recalls Stark. “He said, ‘Listen, there’s a possibility I might need you all to be shirtless. Sorry that this is a week or two after Thanksgiving,” he continues, confirming Raisani’s story. “I don\u2019t think it would\u2019ve made much difference. I would’ve had the same panic whether it was a week after Thanksgiving or in the middle of summer. But it is what it is, so we move forward.”\n<\/p>\n Guzman puts it more bluntly. \u201cThat was devious and diabolical,\u201d he says, laughing.\n<\/p>\n “It was grueling for sure,” Raisani says of filming the competition sequences, which were shot under tight time constraints while Stark and Guzman were on a production hiatus from 9-1-1<\/a>. “They’re athletes. They’re running, they’re hammering, they’re climbing, they’re doing all that stuff in a very compressed amount of time to give us enough footage to sell that the whole games happened over the course of many hours.”\n<\/p>\n But all that working out still wasn’t enough for the actors to feel prepared to strip down.\n<\/p>\n “We spent a good 25 minutes trying to prep,” Guzman shares. “But being amongst other people that we\u2019re competing with, it felt like camp. It felt like a summer camp.”\n<\/p>\n McVey echoes the summer camp sentiment, albeit one with a less outdoorsy setting.\n<\/p>\n