‘Tracker’s’ Justin Hartley on His ‘Passions’ Soap Start, “They’d Have Me With No Shirt Walking Around a Hospital for Three Weeks. It Was Ridiculous, but I Loved It.”
While Justin Hartley’s freshman drama Tracker on CBS is a bonafide smash hit, the man who is now executive producing and the lead of the complex procedural drama, had his humble show biz TV beginnings on the cult favorite soap opera, Passions.
From 2002-2006, Hartley became beloved by young soap viewers everywhere for his performance of Nicholas Foxworth Crane, better known as “Fox.”
Throughout his run on the former NBC soap opera, Hartley’s co-stars now read as who’s who of the soaps including good friend, Eric Martsolf (ex-Ethan, Passions, now Brady, DAYS), former real-life wife, Lindsay Korman (ex-Theresa, Passions), Brook Kerr (ex-Whitney, Passions, now Portia, General Hospital) and even the late, great Andrea Evans (ex-Rebecca, Passions, and ex-Tina One Life to Live).
In a look-back at some of the memorable roles of his career at TV Insider including as Adam Newman on The Young and the Restless, the feature has some notable quotes from Justin.
The one that struck us the most was when Hartley was speaking about his time on Passions, which for anyone who knows the show, saw him most of the time shirtless in a scene for absolutely no apparent reason. Looks like Justin agrees with that assessment too, sharing, “They’d have me with no shirt walking around a hospital for three weeks. It was ridiculous, but I loved it.”
Meanwhile, tonight on an all-new episode of Tracker (9pm ET/PT) titled “Aurora”, when a widower offers a reward to find his only daughter who disappeared three years ago and is presumed dead, Colter (Hartley) agrees to help track her down. After the missing girl’s father shows Colter a newspaper photo from a recent county fair he’s convinced is her, Colter’s search leads him into the world of amateur ghost hunting and paranormal activity.
“Aurora” is directed by none other than Hartley’s former This Is Us co-star Jon Huertas (ex-Miquel). In fact, Huertas told TV Insider, he wouldn’t wait to direct Justin again, as he did on the former NBC drama in which they both appeared.
Huertas expressed: “I’ll be honest, Justin was one of my favorite actors on the show to watch, to work with, and to direct. I was able to do all of that on This Is Us. And so when the opportunity came up, Ken Olin was like, ‘Hey, you interested in directing on this show, Tracker?’ I was like, “Absolutely. I get to work with Justin again.”‘
