9-1-1: Lone Star actors Ronen Rubinstein and Brian Michael Smith are sharing how they really feel about how the show ended — and giving some insight into whether they’d ever return for the franchise’s upcoming Nashville spinoff.
“Personally, I was happy. Yeah, I was happy,” Rubinstein, 31, exclusively told Us Weekly at the 36th Annual GLAAD Media Awards on Thursday, March 27. “TK has been through so much, especially so much despair. I’m glad they gave him a proper happy ending. I think he deserves it.”
Rubinstein portrayed TK Strand on all five seasons of the Ryan Murphy–cocreated series. After Station 126 all survived a near-nuclear explosion after an asteroid hit Austin during the February finale, TK ultimately chose to leave the station and become a stay-at-home dad to his half-brother, while his husband, Carlos (Rafael Silva), remained a Texas Ranger.
Smith, meanwhile — who played Paul Strickland — ended his run by becoming a doting friend to Marjan (Natacha Karam), who announced she was pregnant during the last season. He also found solace in mentoring a teen named Max, who viewers met during one of the 126’s rescues.
Echoing Rubinstein’s sentiment about being satisfied with the show’s finale, Smith told Us, “[It] had everything you wanted in there. A beautiful bow on it. You got to see what happened with the characters, and then you got a chance to have two disasters and we had a nuclear reaction.”
While both men are satisfied with how their characters said goodbye to Lone Star, there’s certainly more potential story to tell — especially with the franchise’s flagship show still running over on ABC and the upcoming Nashville spinoff currently in the works.
So would they reprise their roles? “Nashville sounds fun,” Rubinstein teased, while Smith said: “If they want to call us back to do something else, we’re there.”
“[Nashville] does sound fun, and what’s great is making these characters really beautiful, enduring characters that had these wonderful stories that broke ground,” he continued. “Being able to play a Black trans firefighter who finds his family and is able to kind of heal within his own family. I mean, these are once in a lifetime opportunities that hopefully can lead to more opportunities moving forward. I’m always going to be grateful for that.”
Rubinstein’s TK is certainly a character viewers will be wondering about, as his and Silva’s onscreen romance became a fan favorite pairing popularly known as “Tarlos.” Rubinstein told us the “juggernaut” that Tarlos has become still “feels so surreal,” and he’s proud of the story they told.
“It’s still kind of hard to believe we’re now going around the world meeting people with Tarlos merchandise and Tarlos artwork, and it’s like, ‘How did we get here?’ But again, I think it’s because we pushed certain story lines that a lot of people were either afraid to show or wouldn’t dare to show, and we showed that we can do it in a genuine, authentic and loving way,” he explained. “And I think that’s why people have been attracted to it and gravitate towards it, because we’ve always led with love, and not just trying to do [anything] for shock factor.”
Rubinstein noted that everything between TK and Carlos was always rooted “in love,” which is why attending the GLAAD Awards has been such an honor over the years.
“This is our fifth year in a row here. We’ve been nominated five times in a row. We won two years ago, which was so freaking cool,” he gushed. “It just shows that people are seeing what our show was trying to do — and mission accomplished.”
Rubinstein pointed out that between himself and Smith, Lone Star was able to tell “some incredible stories that have never been shown before” — and ones they might not have been able to tell on such a “giant scale” otherwise.
“It’s a true testament to Ryan Murphy and [cocreator] Tim [Minear] and [showrunner] Rashad [Raisani] for telling these stories and for hiring authentic representation and not sugarcoating these stories either, because they can’t be sugarcoated,” he added. It’s pretty surreal, man, and to be acknowledged by GLAAD is everything.”
The GLAAD Awards air on Hulu Saturday, April 12.
With reporting by Mike Vulpo
