Why Kelly Severide From Chicago Fire Looks So Familiar
Some people are just a perfect fit for their job.
Kelly Severide has been a fixture at Firehouse 51 for nearly a decade. He worked with his close friends Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Leslie Shay (Lauren German) until Shay's death. He dated a steady stream of women connected to the firehouse before finally becoming engaged to fellow firefighter Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo). Heck, even his estranged father (Treat Williams) was a firefighter and eventual chief.
So it was quite a shock in the Season 9 finale when it looked possible that he might not survive his latest brush with danger, a cliffhanger that had some fans worried about his future on the show. Those fans no doubt breathed a sigh of relief when Season 10 kicked off, as it looks as though Severide will be remaining in the firehouse fold for now.
Since joining the show, Severide actor Taylor Kinney's time in the "One Chicago" universe has been a full-time job and then some. He's appeared in nearly 200 episodes of his home base series "Chicago Fire," but also approximately 10 of each of "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med." But that doesn't mean you've never seen him anywhere else. Here are some other places you might have noticed the actor.
Taylor Kinney tried to escape his mother's Fashion House
After first gaining notice as a model, Kinney took a running leap into his acting career, starting not with bit parts in an episode of "ER" or "Law & Order," but rather as a main character on the MyNetworkTV nighttime soap opera "Fashion House."
Kinney played Luke Gianni, son of Maria Gianni (Bo Derek), the conniving owner of the House of Gianni fashion design firm. Luke is an artist who becomes involved with a new designer at his mother's firm, Michelle Miller (Natalie Martinez). When it becomes clear that his mother doesn't approve of the relationship, he has to choose between his loyalty to his mother and to his new paramour. Twists ensue: Michelle is targeted by the mob; Luke's mother nearly marries his half brother; murder, mayhem, you get the idea.
Kinney's acting start happened so fast it even caught his mother off-guard, as he explained in an interview hosted by Deepest Dream. The show's soap format also led to some unique challenges, as the crew tried to shoot a huge volume of episodes in only a few months. "You'd shoot episode 22, 36, 40, 42, and so you're rifling through thousands of pages [of scripts] and you'd shoot it all," he said. With that kind of schedule, it's amazing Kinney had time to find new work, but find it he did.
Taylor Kinney played the new guy on Trauma
Joining up with "One Chicago" wasn't Kinney's first time playing a first responder for NBC. In 2009, he landed a part on the network's medical drama "Trauma," which followed a group of first responders in San Francisco dealing with their work in the aftermath of a rescue helicopter crash that killed a member of their team.
Kinney played EMT Glenn Morrison, a rookie EMT transferred into the unit after the crash. This sets him apart from many of the rest of them –– he doesn't share their grief in the same way –– and also makes him the target of hazing, jokes, and the occasional stern rebuke as he's initiated into the crew.
Kinney told Hollywood Outbreak that he could empathize with the character because of his own relative inexperience as an actor; he had only been working onscreen for about three years at that point. "I look up to all these people," he said, naming castmates like Anastasia Griffith, Derek Luke, and Cliff Curtis. "It transcends into the role, because Glenn is so new and he's very green."
Taylor Kinney played a hairy-handed gent on The Vampire Diaries
In 2010, Kinney jumped from a canceled "Trauma" to a recurring part on the second season of the long-running CW supernatural drama "The Vampire Diaries."
Kinney's role was to play the werewolf Mason Lockwood, brother of Richard Lockwood (Robert Pralgo) and uncle of Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino), who returns to Mystic Falls after the death of his brother. But Mason has another goal for coming home: He's out to retrieve Tyler's moonstone for his lover, the witch Katherine Pierce (Nina Dobrev). While he succeeds in getting it, soon after he is killed by Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder), who rips his heart out.
Despite the sudden, brutal ending, Kinney had a good time working on the series. "As an actor, some of my favorite things to work on are night exterior scenes," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2010. "Any time that we're on location and shooting at night, it's just magic. I got to do that so many times working on 'Vampire Diaries' that it filled my hat."
And though he only appeared in a handful of episodes, Kinney told Glamour that the show was a big part of raising his profile as an actor. "People still fan out on [my character] Mason Lockwood. That show did a lot for me," he said.
Taylor Kinney played the other man in The Other Woman
Though his workload on "Chicago Fire" and the rest of its sister series have kept him busy for much of this decade, Kinney has found time to sprinkle in film work. He played a member of SEAL Team Six in "Zero Dark Thirty" (he's the one who comforts the kids with the glowstick); a reporter and suspected kidnapper in the Natalie Dormer-starring horror film "The Forest;" and a romantic interest in the 2014 comedy "The Other Woman."
That film's plot featured a trio of women who realize they're all seeing the same man (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and that he's lying to them all about his relationship status. His wife and the two oblivious girlfriends team up in order to enact their revenge upon him. In contrast to Coster-Waldau's Mark, Kinney got to play the good guy, Phil, the brother of Kate (Leslie Mann), who develops a romantic interest in Carly (Cameron Diaz).
The film was a box office success that didn't impress the critics, but according to Kinney the shoot was a blast, one he left it with a new appreciation for the talents of his co-stars. "Working with Leslie Mann was like a master class in comedy," Kinney told Glamour in 2014. "It's so hard to keep it together around her."