‘Chicago Fire’ Actor Shares Thoughts on Firing

Chicago Fire fans will never forget the life of firefighter-turned-paramedic Peter Mills. The character, brought to life by Charlie Barnett, ended up written out of the series in 2015. The major reason being Barnett was fired from the NBC hit series. And it was not an event that was easy to grasp for Barnett, who now admits being let go took its toll on the actor. “I really was sad to be let go,” he told Digital Spy in a recent interview. “It broke me for quite a long time.” Mills was written off the show near the conclusion of Season 3. 

The show’s executive producer, Matt Olmstead, told TVLine at the time that the decision to let Barnett go was storyline-driven. “In the writers’ room… we’re pretty vigilant here about making sure that storytelling is fresh,” Olmstead explained. “Especially with a relationship-based show, you never want to get stagnant, and you have to be tough-minded sometimes… It was time to shake things up. It came solely from a storytelling standpoint.

Olmstead insisted the decision had nothing to do with Barnett as an actor or colleague, noting he was a joy on set. “[Charlie] is an amazing individual and a fantastic actor and gave us so many different things,” he added. “But… the departure of [Mills] is going to affect other people. So it’s invigorating storytelling-wise.”

Barnett didn’t let the firing get him down. He’s since starred in projects including Arrow, YOU, Ordinary Joe, and Russian Doll. He now sees the silver lining in his exit from the series. “It was a blessing in disguise,” he told Digital Spy. “You never really see that in life, in general. You never see the bad moments becoming the good. It wouldn’t be what it was, I think, if you did recognize it for what it is in the moment.”

Barnett is also doing well personally. He recently announced his engagement to set designer, Drew Binder. Barnett gushed about his hopes for their wedding in a chat with Page Six, noting that he and Binder want their wedding to have a western touch. “I worked on a ranch for many summers while I was at school at Juilliard,” he said. “It was a nice outlet from doing all this mental work, and I just needed to do something physical — build a fence, wrangle. I’m from Florida, so I learned a lot. I got really educated on black cowboys, specifically female black cowboys, cowpeople? I don’t know how to say it,” he added. “There’s a deep, rich history, especially in Wyoming and Montana, lot of runaway slaves, but we don’t talk about them.”