Like many 9-1-1 fans, Kenneth Choi wept watching Thursday’s episode.
“I was sobbing,” the actor, who stars as Chimney on the ABC first responder drama, tells Entertainment Weekly just hours before viewers would see fire captain Bobby Nash (Peter Krause) sacrifice himself so Chimney could receive the one existing dose of cure for a mutated version of CCHF, or Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.
“I mean, I f—ing filmed it and I was still sobbing uncontrollably with my friend for like three or four minutes,” Choi continues, “to the point where I started to laugh at myself, because it was uncontrollable sobbing. I was laughing at myself saying, “I don’t know what is happening! I know this isn’t real! Why am I acting like this? But it was devastating to me.”
Choi is holding back (or at least attempting to hold back) tears even answering this question, something he continues to do throughout EW’s exclusive interview, which covers how 9-1-1 showrunner Tim Minear broke the news to the cast, what Krause thinks of being killed off, and what’s next for the remaining members of the 118.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It may not be a real death, but the tears make sense. You’re grieving an ending.
KENNETH CHOI: The weird thing is, I was actually just hanging out with Peter. And I’m gonna work with him again, we actually have this project we’re doing. So I’m like, “I don’t get this.” But Gavin [Stenhouse] — who is a good friend and plays the extra-hot priest on our show — he said, “You’re mourning the loss of eight years of Chimney. You’re crying because Chimney is losing Bobby,” and I really think that’s what it was.
Because I just saw Peter today. We’re going to see each other every day, we’re thick as thieves. But I won’t be with Bobby, and I didn’t know that would affect me so much. I’ve been dealing with this for a few weeks and it’s been surreal.
What was your conversation with Tim Minear like when he told you he was killing Bobby?
As soon as he said the words, I just waited and waited, because Tim has a very rye sense of humor, and I was just waiting for him to say “I’m just f—ing with you, just kidding,” and those words never came. There was this long period of silence and I said, “Are you serious?” And he said, “I’m serious, yeah.”
And then I just kind of went into those stages of grief. Denial, mostly: This doesn’t make any sense. Why would you do that? You’re kind of killing off our father figure…. And he explained creatively why he thought it was the right choice, and I fought him on it. And I continued to fight him on it. I fought him on it up until we kind of did the funeral stuff, because I was thinking, Maybe they’ll pull it back. Maybe they’ll change their minds. Maybe they’ll reverse course. But…yeah.
Bobby (Peter Krause) helps Chimney (Kenneth Choi) on ‘9-1-1’. Disney/Christopher Willard
And how is Chimney processing Bobby’s death?
[more tears, then laughter] I still can’t believe it. I’m laughing at myself, really. I don’t know why it’s so hard…. Chimney is devastated. It’s not just the loss of his captain. It’s not just the loss of a colleague. It’s not just the loss of a friend. He has taken on the burden of incredible guilt because he knows that Bobby sacrificed himself to give Chimney the one dose of the vaccine.
So Chimney is completely reeling, and I think that’s going to manifest itself in many ways. I think most people, when they feel sadness, it doesn’t register as sadness. Sometimes it can register as anger. A lot of times when people are angry at one another, they are really disappointed in each other and it comes out as anger. So I think Chimney…. Man, it’s so hard to keep myself together. [pause] He’s going to feel a multitude of emotions, and he and the rest of the 118 are going to be spiraling about this event for quite a while.
What have your conversations with Peter been like about all this?
He’s the most gracious human that I know, the most gracious actor that I know. So he shoulders everything. Peter is great, he’s making it easy. He’s saying, “I get it. I understand it creatively.” The way he puts it…. It’s even the dialogue where he says Bobby is on borrowed time. He came to L.A. on a mission and then he was going to kind of close the book on himself, and he had one dinner with Athena Grant and that kind of changed…. Oh my God, I can’t believe…. [laughing through tears] I’m so sorry….
I don’t think Peter imagined this ending right now. But I think, as it was presented to him, he understood creatively what it could do for everyone else. But it also followed his storyline: He’s captain of a very close-knit firefighter family. He’s the father figure, and the job of each firefighter is to save lives and sacrifice — and he gave the ultimate sacrifice. As he says in the episode, he did what he was supposed to do. That’s his job. He had to look out for his team and his family… [more tears] I can’t f—ing believe this! [laughs] Y
You have to understand, so I kind of made my peace with Peter. I talked with him personally and got my closure. I told him “This is what you’ve meant to me over the past eight years, getting to act with you and watch you…” He’s taught me lessons every day: how to be a leader, how to be a great actor, how to be a gracious actor on set. And then we’ve filmed all these scenes of mourning, so I’m just kind of shocked that it’s still affecting me like this! Okay, I’m done crying, go ahead.
Hen (Aisha Hinds), Chimney (Kenneth Choi), Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody), Eddie (Ryan Guzman), and Buck (Oliver Stark) at Bobby’s funeral on ‘9-1-1’. ABC
Grief is not a linear experience, for you or your character. How will the 118 operate without its captain?
The 118 is now fractured. It’s splintered. You’re cutting the head off the snake, and the rest of us don’t know what to do. We’re going to go to our jobs and do them dutifully, but we’re obviously going to have this weight on us every time we go out on a call, every time we enter the firehouse. Basically, every moment it will still be with us, and the loss will be with us.
It’s going to be very compelling to see how each character handles this loss — how they handle their grief, their anger, their sadness, and their frustration. And I think it’s going to be a lot harder for Chimney than for me, because I get to see Peter.
But for Chimney, this is going to be a tough one, definitely. He’s been through a lot of rough things in his life, but I think this will trump all of them. He’s been on death’s door maybe 1,000 times, but emotional and mental scars are sometimes worse than physical, so the burden for the 118 is going to be tough.
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The final three episodes of season 8 begin in two weeks on ABC, Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.
