The hit FOX procedural drama 9-1-1 has carved out a niche in the crowded TV landscape for five seasons, balancing melodramatic, outlandish emergencies with deeply emotional stories about first responders who form multi-ethnic, multi-generational families. And while the show’s main characters—which include firefighters, paramedics, police officers, and call-center operators—have long divided fans on social media, there has been one character (and actor) who has won the hearts of audiences from around the world.
11-year-old actor Gavin McHugh plays Christopher Diaz, the beloved son of Army-medic-turned-firefighter Eddie Diaz (Ryan Guzman). The child actor, who lives with cerebral palsy, is part of a new wave of talent looking to advance onscreen disability representation in Hollywood.
For Gavin, who was adopted from Riga, Latvia, at two-and-a-half years old, acting has always been a family affair. After tagging along with some of his older siblings for a few of their auditions in Los Angeles, Gavin, who is the youngest of five children, decided to ask his parents for his own. He appeared in national commercials for Honda, Walmart, Adventist Health and Lincoln Financial before he received an audition for 9-1-1 in the summer of 2018, when the producers were looking to cast a wider net for child actors with disabilities.
“By the time the selections got to me, Gavin was already a favorite of our casting director,” says Tim Minear, the co-creator and showrunner of 9-1-1. “For me, it was seeing his audition one time, and I knew he was the one. He just came across as so genuine and sweet and special … He was the perfect kid for the part.”
A few weeks later, Gavin was pleasantly “surprised” to discover that he had landed the role—his first on a major TV show. Within a matter of weeks, he found himself on set for the first time, meeting Guzman and co-star Oliver Stark (who plays Evan “Buck” Buckley) in the make-up trailer. “I just felt like I wanted to do acting. I just felt like it was the right role for me, and I’m happy that I got to do it, and I’m happy that they picked me,” he tells Teen Vogue in an exclusive Zoom interview alongside his mother, Lisa.
Since making his debut in the second season, Gavin’s Christopher has emerged as an immediate fan favorite, providing a welcome respite on a show that is known for its outrageous catastrophes. In addition to amassing over 88,000 followers on Instagram, the 11-year-old actor has been recognized in public by overjoyed fans who, he says, “want to take pictures with me” and “love me so much that they start to cry.”
“The type of fan that Gavin has is extremely special,” Lisa McHugh says. “We just read his Instagram comments and want to cry. They’re like, ‘you changed my life,’ or ‘you made me realize that I could do things that I didn’t realize I could do.’ It’s really incredible to not just have fans or have a show or a job, but [also] to be able to move people the way he is. It’s been really exciting to watch.”
The experience “has changed his life and his confidence, even his self-worth,” she adds. “When you go to school and you’re the kid who can’t see or can’t read or can’t play on the playground, but then you’ve got this thing that nobody else has, it makes you feel special.”
When he first conceptualized Guzman’s character, Minear always knew that he wanted Eddie to be the single father of a child living with a disability — and it was vital to cast the child as responsibly and as authentically as possible. In doing so, the writers and producers of 9-1-1 have highlighted the importance of setting high expectations for children with disabilities, according to the non-profit organization RespectAbility.
A 2016 study by Ruderman White Paper found that 95 percent of characters with disabilities in top-10 TV shows were played by able-bodied actors. But as Hollywood continues to work towards more diverse and equitable representation of all identities on both sides of the camera, a new study published last year found that 22 percent of all characters with disabilities on network television and 20 percent of such characters on streaming services are played by an actor with the same disability — a noticeable shift that RJ Mitte, an actor with cerebral palsy, has noticed since ending his run on the hit AMC series Breaking Bad in 2013.
“What Gavin’s been able to accomplish is incredible to see,” Mitte says. “Since Breaking Bad ended, I’ve had so many people reach out and share how important it is to see themselves in my role or have their child with CP see me as ‘normal’; it’s what motivates me to want to advocate for this next generation of kids with dreams or families with CP. For us, these roles tell the world: ‘You matter. You exist.’
“Able-bodied actors can play any role, but for the disability community, we’re pigeonholed at times or underestimated in what our actual abilities are,” he continues. “All we’re saying is: just consider us, let us audition, see what’s beyond just wanting to cast a ‘male, early 20s, brown hair, athletic.’ Maybe there’s someone who is all those things and has CP or is in a wheelchair, maybe it brings more depth to the story. Just being open to the possibility is the first step.”
Lisa McHugh says that she has received numerous messages of support from other parents who have children living with disabilities. But it has been particularly refreshing to hear from the 9-1-1 writers, “who want to know more about Gavin and his life, his problems and what he struggles with and incorporate that as [part of] Christopher’s life.”
Gavin has spastic diplegia (which affects his legs), cortical visual impairment (which affects his vision), and mild hip displaysia (which causes some weakness on his left side). Those are things, she notes, that an able-bodied actor or writer would never be able to fully understand.
“It’s also really special, for the kids or the people that have more disability than others, that they have somebody that gives them hope or something more to strive for,” she says. “When you see Christopher on TV, you see that there’s a lot of value to him. You just don’t see what he isn’t able to do. You see his sweet comments and the love he shares with his friends and his family, and you see the positives. In life, it’s hard to not get caught up in the negatives, [but] I think 9-1-1 gives a lot of positivity, excitement, hope and love.”
The excitement to work with Gavin on a regular basis doesn’t end with only the writers and producers — it also extends to Guzman and Stark, who have shared the most screen time with the young actor and have consistently sung his praises in the last few years. (And in case you were wondering, Gavin refused to pick sides when I jokingly asked him who he liked working with more.)
When he first joined the show, Guzman was expecting his first child and said in a promotional video that “working with that kid is probably one of my favorite things of all time,” because he was envisioning his own son when acting opposite him. “Gavin is a light that you can’t shut off. He brightens everybody’s day just by walking into a room, and his laugh is so infectious … I feel very privileged that my character gets to spend time with him,” Guzman told TVLine in 2018.
Last year, after a pivotal episode that revealed the origin story of Eddie (and Christopher), Guzman noted in an interview with the New York Post that Gavin had “grown about five or six inches since the first season I worked with him. And grown, not just height-wise but in the way he acts.”
The close bond that they share as onscreen father and son, it seems, also translates off the screen. In conversation, Gavin naturally calls Guzman “Eddie” and “my dad” and reveals that they hang out often between takes. “When I see Ryan, I give him hugs because I really actually do love him and it fills my heart with love — just the way that he loves me,” he says.
“Ryan spends a lot of time with Gavin,” Lisa McHugh adds with a smile. “He reads books with him, and he’s genuinely happy to see him. I’m always like, ‘Gavin! Don’t bother him. He’s on break!’ But Ryan comes over.”
Since their introduction in the second season, Eddie and Christopher have become inextricably linked with Buck, who has become Eddie’s best friend and a de facto second father to Christopher. (For what it’s worth, Gavin is open to the idea of Eddie, Buck, and Christopher potentially becoming a family in the future. “I think living in the same house together, like having dinner together, is awesome,” he says.)
Gavin and Stark have shared many scenes together in the last few years, but the former says that he loved shooting the first three episodes of the third season, in which Buck tries to save (and find) Christopher in the wake of a massive tsunami that engulfs the Santa Monica Pier. Those episodes were mostly shot in Mexico, in the same water tank James Cameron built for Titanic.
“I was standing out in the tank watching some tests of the moving water,” recalls Brad Buecker, an executive producer and director of 9-1-1. “I turned around, and there was Gavin floating on a raft next to me. He was so excited to be there that he’d come out into the water to see for himself. Over the course of the next week, Gavin clung to a pole in rushing rapids, floated down [a] river, sat on a submerged fire truck… He is fearless and an absolute rock star on set.”
The young actor says that his favorite memory from those episodes is redoing the sequence where Buck is carrying Christopher and running away from the incoming tide, because he couldn’t stop laughing when he was supposed to act scared. “They had to say, ‘Cut! Redo it! Cut! Redo it!’ Oliver was probably exhausted by carrying me!” he says with a laugh.
It’s that realness, Stark has said, that makes Gavin a joy to work with. “There’s something that happens when you film with him,” he told TVLine in 2019. “He just draws the emotion out of you. He’s so aware of the scene we’re doing, he totally gets what we’re making and it’s just really lovely to work with him. Every scene takes on a different shape once I actually get to read it with him.”
“And he never complained,” Stark later added in the same interview. “I even hit his head on the firetruck once, and when they yelled ‘cut,’ I was like, ‘Gavin, are you OK? I hit your head.’ And he just tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s OK, Buck.’ I just melted. He’s the sweetest, bravest kid when it comes to the stunts.”
As 9-1-1 continues into its fifth season, Gavin would like to have “lots of scenes with Eddie and Buck” and is looking forward to “being with my friends on set” and doing more things that he would never do in his regular life, such as breaking a salad bowl and sliding down a firefighter’s pole. But at the end of the day, he hopes to continue inspiring other children with disabilities like cerebral palsy, showing them that their dreams are not only valid but possible.
