Buck, Eddie, and Blue enjoyed a “hydration break” during the Firefighter Games on the crossover episode that aired Thursday.

9-1-1’s Oliver Stark and Ryan Guzman on ‘diabolical’ timing of shirtless Nashville scene with Hunter McVey

Buck, Eddie, and Blue enjoyed a "hydration break" during the Firefighter Games on the crossover episode that aired Thursday.

By Patrick Gomez

Patrick Gomez is an Executive Editor at . Formerly at People magazine and The A.V. Club, the Critics Choice and Television Critics Association member has appeared on 'Today,' 'Extra!,' 'Access Hollywood,' 'E! News,' 'CNN,' and 'Nightline,' and can be seen frequently on 'Good Morning America.' Follow the Texas Native at @PatrickGomezLA wherever your media is social for all things 'For All Mankind' 'Top Chef,' and puppy related.

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March 6, 2026 7:26 p.m. ET

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Eddie (Ryan Guzman), Blue (Hunter McVey), and Buck (Oliver Stark) on their '9-1-1' shows. Credit:

Disney/Jake Giles Netter (2); Disney/Christopher Willard

*9-1-1* knows how to give the fans — or, in this case, the network — what they want.

From the minute *9-1-1: Nashville* was greenlit, the team behind the first-responder franchise knew ABC was clamoring for a crossover with the franchise's flagship series. But when it finally came time to shoot the installment — which aired Thursday — there was an additional request.

"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 **.

So Raisani's team wrote in a "hydration break" during the episode's Firefighter Games, an annual competition that served as the impetus for *9-1-1*'s Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) to travel to Tennessee and interact with Blue (Hunter McVey) and the rest of the 113 firehouse.

There was just one concern Raisani had before taking the scene to Stark, Guzman, and McVey: the timing.

"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.

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"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’t think it would’ve 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."

Guzman puts it more bluntly. “That was devious and diabolical,” he says, laughing.

"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*. "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."

But all that working out still wasn't enough for the actors to feel prepared to strip down.

"We spent a good 25 minutes trying to prep," Guzman shares. "But being amongst other people that we’re competing with, it felt like camp. It felt like a summer camp."

McVey echoes the summer camp sentiment, albeit one with a less outdoorsy setting.

"The kind of *American Gladiators* arena was probably the most overwhelming part, just because of the lights above," he says. "I think they were just huge, beaming LED lights, and sometimes we were in there for 12 to 15 hours. Those lights were a lot on the eyes."

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The actor also reveals that hydration breaks were taken off-camera, too.

"You have to be in good shape, you have to be physically ready for these type of challenges," McVey says. "There were some IVs involved through that week."

No word on if he was shirtless for those moments as well.

*9-1-1* and *9-1-1: Nashville* air Thursdays on ABC at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, respectively.

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