“My favorite thing about [Buck] is that he is tough and brave,” he continued. “Yet he has a little bit of charm to him and as you go on you will see that he's really emotional, vulnerable and he's okay with that [too]. It's nice to get to play someone who is tough and cool, but then cries even though he still tough and cool. Those things aren't often mutually exclusive.”
According to the actor, Buck’s evolution from cad to responsible first responder began in the pilot. “I think in more standard procedurals it may take about seven or eight episodes before you started to see it,” he suggested. “But here things move very quickly. I think when Buck told [Connie Britton’s character] Abby she did a good job in that first episode, that was the first time you saw him humble.
“There was a line [Buck has] in the pilot, it was kind of throwaway, but it said, ‘As far as I'm concerned the world began the day I was born,’” he added. “Toward the end of the pilot you got to see him acknowledge other people and realize that he can't do things by himself and can't do things without his captain or the other members of his team, or even without the 9-1-1 responders. He realizes he's just a cog in a much bigger machine and it's quite grounding for him and just what he needed. It was fun to get to do that early on and have that light and dark immediately.”