On the day of The Rookie‘s Season 8 premiere on ABC Tuesday, its creator, executive producer and showrunner Alexi Hawley is traveling from Los Angeles, where the hit series starring Nathan Fillion films, to Vancouver, where the pilot for spinoff The Rookie: North will shoot.
Jay Ellis was cast as the lead in the ABC pilot, which was greenlighted in November. Hawley, who did some prep on the project last year, is heading back to Vancouver to restart prep. Currently casting, the pilot, written and directed by Hawley, will shoot at the end of February, Hawley told Deadline in an interview about the Season 8 premiere of The Rookie.
Per The Rookie: North’s official logline, the offshoot centers on Alex Holland (Ellis) who believed his mid-life wasn’t worthy of a crisis. But after a violent home invasion ignites a dormant purpose, Alex battles a lifetime of failed commitments by joining the Pierce County Police Department as its oldest rookie. Policing from the urban coast to the rural forest where backup isn’t just 5-minutes away, Alex must prove to his skeptical training officer, his fellow rookies, and himself, that he’s finally found something worthy of the fight.
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Hawley explained last year about the mothership Rookie series that “I don’t actually see us as a procedural, I see this as a patrol show.” The Rookie: North’s setting is setting it apart from other patrol shows.
“I think ultimately, what I got excited about was, I think every patrol cop show versus a procedural has really been big-city oriented, New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, so I like the idea that this place is a bigger slice of America, where people live,” Hawley said. “The county that they’re policing does include Tacoma, so there is some urban but at the same time, it’s also the suburbs and the exurbs, and it’s also the meth lab in the woods, and a National Park, and there’s a military base. That sort of county is really interesting.”
Tackling a smaller police force where it may take 15 minutes for backup to arrive vs. The Rookie‘s LA, where “if you need the world to show up, it shows up in a giant way,” also was interesting to Hawley.
“I thought it would just immediately set the show apart visually and then thematically; I think our lead, the character that Jay plays, is a guy who never really found something he’s passionate about before this,” Hawley said. “And part of that has to do with a tragedy in his past, which we get into a little bit. So that was a little bit of a different way in, it is a guy who’s a little more lost. I think Nathan’s character was a successful professional, obviously blue collar or whatever, he was just a little lost after his divorce and everything. But this is just a little different.”
Hawley revealed more clues about Alex Holland’s background.
“He’s been bouncing. He went the law school route, and then something happened, and he sort of abandoned that,” Hawley said.
As for that Alex Holland character name that sounds a lot like Alexi Hawley, was that intentional?
“No, it wasn’t. It’s not that don’t recognize it now but at the time, you just go, what sounds good together,” Hawley said. “So yes, that is my story. I mean, I don’t need to name a character after me, but it just ended up that way.”
After a long gestational period, The Rookie: North received a pilot green light after securing Ellis for the lead.
Hawley called his casting “a dream.”
“Tonally, with Rookie, because we do everything, you really want to find somebody who, like Nathan, can play comedy, but can also bring the emotion, and Jay is just so, so talented across the board,” Hawley said. “It’s another name that gets floated to you, and you’re like, is that possible? And then it all worked out. So I’m very excited about Jay, I think he really opens up the show to be its own thing in a great way.”
The Rookie: North is a standalone pilot; it will not be embedded into The Rookie the way spinoff The Rookie: Feds starring Niecy Nash was. And because The Rookie: North is targeting next season, there are no plans for Ellis to appear on the mothership series this season.
“But down the road, in success, definitely. It’s a little harder if it’s Vancouver and LA but it’s not impossible,” Hawley said.