‘9-1-1’ Star Recalls “Lying Through My Teeth” About a Fake-Out Script

Getting away with a major twist in television and film is an impressive feat — especially when everyone has a tiny camera attached to their person 24/7. We’ve seen productions push the boundaries when it comes to keeping their secrets under lock and key, even going so far as to stage fake scenes or redirect with a red herring. Such was the case during the most recent eighth season of ABC’s 9-1-1 when the creative team made the difficult decision to kill off Peter Krause’s beloved Captain Bobby Nash. Bobby’s death was certainly the biggest twist and heartbreak to hit the series during its almost decade on the air, so keeping it under wraps proved to be a daunting task — so much so, that a fake script was initially drawn up to throw the cast off the scent.

Recently speaking with Decider, Anirudh Pisharody opened up about that faux draft that fooled his fellow co-stars into believing that it was his character, Ravi, who would pay the ultimate price in the episode titled “Lab Rats.” Revealing that it was showrunner Tim Minear who first approached him about the decision, Pisharody admitted that keeping the secret was a performance all to itself, revealing,

“I was definitely having to keep my cool and my composure. But at the same time, I had to pretend, like, ‘Oh man, it’s gonna be rough!’ Because some people would come up to me and they’d be like, ‘Oh, hey. I’m so sorry you’re leaving the show.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s rough. It’s been a great time,’ just lying through my teeth… There was a funny situation where somebody had come up to me and they had already known the truth, but they didn’t know if I knew the truth — that I wasn’t actually dying. So the two of us were going back and forth with this veneer of lies.”

Even Leading Cast Members Were Left in the Dark

After the fallout of Bobby’s death, Krause’s co-star and on-screen wife, Angela Bassett, was the first to tell fans about the almost switcheroo that could have seen Pisharody’s Ravi knocked off the series. But, even her comments to Deadline, during which she said the script “may have been just a misdirect,” revealed that she wasn’t fully in on the big secret, which just goes to show how tight-lipped the team was about the shocking twist.

9-1-1 will never be the same without Krause’s Bobby Nash, but the series nevertheless marches onward to its ninth season, which is due out this fall. Get caught up with the first eight installments now streaming on Hulu.