CHICAGO — New episodes of “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Med” will continue to air through early April, but like so many other people across various professions, the actors on these shows have been self-quarantining at home for the last couple of weeks with unexpected free time on their hands.
What are their days like? How are they keeping themselves occupied and fulfilling their creative sides? I checked in last week. Here’s an edited transcript of what they told me.
— Joe Minoso (Joe Cruz on “Chicago Fire”)
Q: Where are you?
A: Chicago.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: I live with my wife, my sister-in-law and our two dogs.
Q: What is your daily routine?
A: Well, it’s been a lot of establishing a daily routine and then not doing it. So (laughs) I’ll make a plan and then I’ll end up watching an episode of “The Tiger King” on Netflix, and the next thing I know it’s eight hours later and I completely wasted the day. Or I’ll do a really great workout one day and be like, “I’m going to do this every morning!” And then … I don’t.
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: My wife’s a stir-fry expert, and we usually use frozen vegetables and those have been impossible to find. I’m a bigger guy, so I keep telling myself I’m going to take this opportunity to do a cleanse or something, but I’ve been saying that for four days now, so we’ll see.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: I’ll sit down with my writing partner, and we’ll Skype for three or four hours on this pilot we’re trying to put together.
Me and Christian Stolte (Mouch on “Chicago Fire”) have actually been working on another project, turning a play by Brett Neveu called “Do the Hustle” into a film that I was going to direct and he was going to star in this summer. … This situation obviously not only makes it more difficult to get a crew in place, but it definitely doesn’t ease the minds of people who were interested in putting money into it and are perhaps now more on the fence now — because who wouldn’t be in these times? So right now we’re just in waiting mode to get a sense of where the world is in a few weeks and how long it is before (Illinois) Gov. Pritzker tells us we can start to gather in groups again. The goal is to solely hire Chicago talent, with the exception of Eamonn Walker (who plays Chief Boden on the show), but I feel like he’s been adopted by this city so I can get away with that.
Q: We could all use his calming baritone right now telling us everything will be OK.
A: Oh my God, yes. You should try one of his hugs; it’s the best thing you’ll experience. Especially as a big guy myself, to feel kind of small in someone’s arms? I feel like a 6-year-old boy when I’m in Eamonn’s arms.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: We try to order in at least once a day in an effort to help support the restaurants and the people who work there.
I was someone who came up through the Chicago theater scene and I know what it is to book a storefront theater show where you’re making $75 or $150 a week and usually the only way you can survive off that is by also working as a server or being someone in the hospitality industry, which is really nonexistent right now. I’m worried for people, and it’s all I can think about.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: I’m obsessed with YouTube, so I’ve been watching a ton of Cinefix and the other is Cooke Optics — a lot of how-to videos and great moments in filming and editing and blocking — just to bone up on ideas. If you’re a cinephile, you could get lost in that for hours. I also signed up for the website MasterClass.
My wife isn’t so easily entertained by television, so we’ve tried to entertain ourselves in other ways. We have a lot of board games. We pulled out Parcheesi the other day and kind of read the rules for the first time and realized that we had been missing like 15 different rules. And once you play it with all the rules it’s like, this is insanity! It’s a far more interesting game when you actually play by the rules. And we recently (laughs) spent six hours putting together this puzzle until 2 in the morning. It’s not like we had to get up early for anything. She loves getting up early when she can and I usually do too, but lately it’s been like, well, who cares?
— Daniel Kyri (Darren Ritter on “Chicago Fire”)
Q: Where are you?
A: Chicago.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: My partner.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: I do. The first few days after filming ended, I was just catching up on sleep. But there was a sense after that of: OK, I don’t want to let these days get away from me. So that’s been enough of a motivator for me to just get up and do something. I have a friend who does live meditation on Instagram, so I usually do that. Her name is Kristen Gutoskie and she’s a guest star on the show — she plays Joe Cruz’s fiancee — and she’ll have different people come on and lead the meditation. She usually goes live around 1 p.m. Chicago time.
Then I’ll journal a little bit. Then I’ll cook. Then I’ll work out with my trainer online pretty much every day.
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: It’s a mix of both. Lunch is kind of every man for himself and then dinners we do try to plan out. The other night we made our own pizza from scratch. That was really fun. It was slightly a disaster — I don’t mind telling you that — but it was fun.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: I’ve been writing a lot, and that’s been helpful in keeping my sanity. I’ve been working with my writing partner Bea Cordelia on scripts for season two of my web series (“The T,” in which they also star as best friends — one a white trans woman from the North Side, the other a black queer man from the South Side), and that’s really exciting for me.
I signed up online for MasterClass where you can watch Helen Mirren talk about acting, or whoever for directing and so forth. Thank God for technology at the time like this, because it’s a window to the outside world, even if you can’t be there physically. So that’s been really helpful.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: For me, there’s a huge community here in Chicago that I want to support any way that I can, and that includes all my theater friends who have had shows shut down. I contacted some theaters just to be, like, what are you guys doing to support your artists? And I’ve gotten some really positive responses. And some theaters haven’t responded at all. For me, it’s just reaching out to people and making sure there’s a community where, if there’s something that someone needs, we can all come together to make sure that that person has it.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: I’ll watch “Avatar: The Last Airbender” or whatever at the end of the day. If I’m being totally honest, I’m watching TikTok and I also do a lot of TikTok (laughs) so if I want to be silly, I’ll learn a quick dance. I know it’s ridiculous.
— Marina Squerciati (Kim Burgess on “Chicago P.D.”)
Q: Where are you?
A: Chicago.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: My husband, my daughter and my mom — my mom doesn’t normally live here.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: What is it called when you look at Instagram and see everybody’s lives looking better than your own? Insta-envy? I see all these parents or influencers who are like, “Make a plan! Wake up at 6! Work out! Make a healthy shake! Do arts and crafts with your kid!” I have not found that possible. In the beginning of the quarantine I was like, absolutely! And I made a schedule — and my kid was like, “What’s happening? No.” (Laughs)
I’m so grateful because before the season ended, I had a big episode coming up, and my mom flew in to help me out with my kid, so luckily she’s here at the moment and not in New York.
We have a neighbor kid who is close to my kid, and it was his birthday yesterday and I just love the ingenuity of parents: His mom took the luggage cart in our building and made it into a little train and then gave him a train ride around the block with everybody yelling “happy birthday” from their balconies. My daughter turns 3 next month, so I’m just trying to think of something cool like that to do for her birthday, although if I give her a pink cake she’ll probably be happy.
My husband has been working from home. And he takes his briefcase everyday and we say goodbye to him at the door and he goes upstairs and goes to work. “Where’s Dada?” “He’s at work.” “No, he’s upstairs.” “No, he’s at work.”
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: I feel like right now my main joy is cooking and baking. Even though the government says we’re not going to run out of food, I think it’s very hard as a human under quarantine not to have that underlying fear. So we’re not as callous about wasting food and we compost.
We’re trying to be supportive of restaurants in order to keep their employees working, so we’ll make it like a night out and get dressed up. Last night we got food from Shaw’s Crab House. It was an amazing meal: Four pieces of fish, clam chowder, mac and cheese, Caesar salad, key lime pie, chocolate cake — and it was only $50. We felt like we were treating ourselves.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: I don’t want to brag, but if you know the book “Should I Share My Ice Cream?” by Mo Willems, I do an excellent Gerald and Piggie voice and I’ve been recording them and sending them to friends that have kids. So I have to say, that’s been a hit with those four friends.
I’m also writing a Hallmark script. And with my comedy partner, we’re writing a sitcom. I’m trying to stay busy, but it’s really hard with the kid.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: The people that I’m most concerned about are the first responders who are putting themselves on the front lines. When I was pregnant three years ago, my mom came to help me and she had a cold, so she brought face masks, and at the time I put the extras away. I remembered that I had them in storage, so I had them delivered to Rush (University Medical Center). It’s a small thing, but I think it helps to find the little things you can do, whether you chip into GoFundMe or finding an errant face mask in your garage that you can donate.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: We’ve been watching “Babylon Berlin” on Netflix, but to be honest I don’t have a lot of time to watch TV. Am I stir crazy? Yes. Do I feel like I want to put crayon marks on the wall for every day that I’ve been in quarantine? Yes. But there’s always something to do with the kid or read or write. And I’ve been using a workout app called obe fitness; that’s my one thing that I’ve been doing for myself.
— LaRoyce Hawkins (Kevin Atwater “Chicago P.D.”)
Q: Where are you?
A: Chicago.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: I live by myself, but right now, under these special circumstances, I’m with a little homie of mine that I met on my first comedy tour last year. His name is Tommy Yola, and he’s a musician from West Philadelphia, and we’ve kind of found ourselves a little stuck with each other for this quarantine.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: Yeah, I am one that definitely needs a regime. I have an apparatus at the crib called the Iron Chest Master 5000, so I’ll do pushup and sit-up supersets. I do increments of 12, and that number is important to me because my son, Roman, is named after the Bible verse Romans 12 and he was born with 12 fingers. So for me, one of the best ways to keep a dad bod is to think about my son while I do my workout. So if I wake up, and I do 60 pushups straight, that means I really knocked out five Romans.
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: In the morning I make some tea and I put in turmeric, ginger and sea moss. I stocked up on a lot of meals that we would eat back at the job, like vegan lasagna, eggplant, macaroni and cheese.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: Very recently I became the voice of the White Sox, and they called me up and said they want to do a video that would show compassion during this crisis, so I’m at home completing the voiceover for that video.
I’m also running an independent music label from my company, Be Powerful, and me and Tommy Yola are working on a project for that.
I’ve also been sneaking out here and there to see my son. I’ve got to be able to see him; he’s going to be 3 in April. He caught me in a moment when we were playing with Nerf guns and I saw him framed up, he looked so dope — just like Atwater — and I took my phone out to take a picture, because I thought it was adorable. And my son looked at me and said, “Put your phone in your pocket, Daddy.” And I kept on trying to take pictures of him, because I thought I was capturing the moment. But the more he looked at me, it was like, ‘Daddy, don’t be that guy.” And since that moment I’ve honestly been a lot more conscientious about, even when I’m just by myself in quarantine, of not pulling my phone out and trying to document everything.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: The first people that I think about are the people from my hometown of Harvey, Ill. When I went to go help my grandma stock up, I noticed there’s definitely a need there. Naturally with whatever extra cash I have, I make sure I pour into those people as the spirit leads me. But what I’m trying to cook up through Be Powerful is a way that we can immediately touch the students that are missing out. Especially the student-athletes that might have missed important scholarship opportunities, because they weren’t able to play high school games. Or students that were probably on the brink of a certain GPA or getting into a certain college, their rhythm might have been interrupted. And what me and my team are trying to cook up are ways that we can add relief to those young minds. I’m tapped into some of the families that have been affected, so the situation will dictate how we try to meet the needs for people in Harvey, Riverdale, Dixmoor.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: Yesterday I just started watching “For Life” on ABC, and I dig it. I’m also watching some of the classics, like “The Wire” and “Luther.” Those are the shows I like to connect to because they have an authentic darkness to them. I also watched the Madam C.J. Walker show (“Self Made”) on Netflix.
And I’m teaching Tommy Yola how to play chess right now. I have this really dope chess board that my barber on the show, P. Scott, made. He’s also an artist, and all the pieces are made out of repurposed tools like hammers, screwdrivers — it’s really rustic looking. My grandfather taught me to play chess back in the day, so I figured this would be a good time to teach Tommy. But outside of that, we’re just making a lot of music.
— S. Epatha Merkerson (Sharon Goodwin on “Chicago Med”)
Q: Where are you?
A: New York City.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: My partner, Steven.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: I’ve never been one for a serious routine, but the one thing I’ve done during this is, I get up and I make my bed (laughs). That comes from my home training from my mother; we used to have to keep our bedroom doors open and that meant your bed was made.
By nature I’m a homebody, so this is an excuse for me to stay at home and not feel guilty. I’ll tell you, I’m above the age of 65 and I’m diabetic, so literally when the show was shut down, I came home and I haven’t been out of the house since. My partner, Steven, works in Seattle, and I work in Chicago, but both of us came home to New York, and it makes a difference that we can be together.
Q: How have you been spending your days?
A: I have this huge room in the apartment that’s sort of like an office space and a craft place; there’s also a television in there, so I have torn that room apart and each day I discard something. I have been hoarding stuff for years (laughs), things I’ll never use. There’s a big cedar closet in that room, so I’m taking out clothes and preparing bags, so at some point I will donate. I have a computer in there that I’m not using anymore. And I’m shredding like mad. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m starting in that room and then I’m going to go through the apartment and do a spring clean.
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: We’re sort of planning it out. When I got home, Steven was already here, so he had done a lot of shopping.
But we realized the one thing he could not find — because he’s the one who is venturing outside — are disinfecting wipes. I happened to mention that to a friend who lives in SoHo, and on Saturday he came up here with some, because everything that comes in the house has to be cleaned.
I’ll tell you, I’ve always been a stickler about hand-washing, and it’s amazing to me to realize that people have not really been washing their hands. I’m one of those people, if I’m in the bathroom and people walk out without washing their hands? I say something. Loud enough so that they can hear me!
My mother — who is still living and will be 94 this year — that’s what she always taught us: If you use something, you clean it. She’s still in Detroit (where Merkerson grew up) and she calls me everyday. I’m the youngest of four — I’ll be 68 this year — and she had me laughing the other day. She said, “It dawned on me, none of my children can leave the house because you’re all senior citizens.” (Laughs) So she still has her sense of humor about things.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: Well, I think it’s totally creative to go through a room and throw away (crap) you don’t need! (Laughs).
I actually was going to do a play in upstate New York at Vassar during my hiatus and I don’t know what’s happening with that. It’s a two-character piece with Charlayne Woodard and it’s a lovely play that she wrote called “The Garden.” So I don’t know if that’s going to happen with everything going on. It was supposed to be in June. Hopefully things will work out.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: I’m ashamed to say I haven’t just yet. When I pay my dues for the Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity, I put an extra donation in with that. But I’m not much of a delivery person, especially because I have underlying conditions, so I don’t want a lot of things coming into the house that have been touched by others. I’m really just sort of getting myself regulated and figuring out how to be helpful. I do sew, as well, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll sew some masks.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: I’m binging shows that friends of mine are in, like “Queen Sugar,” which is on Hulu. I’ll watch maybe two or three episodes a day and I’ll do that while I’m cleaning up.
— Brian Tee (Ethan Choi on “Chicago Med”)
Q: Where are you?
A: I’m at home in Valley Village, Calif., which is Los Angeles.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: My wife, my 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter and my parents, who are 75 and 85.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: The only routine that I have is I feel like I have to do something physical every day. On a normal day I would go to the gym or go on a hike, so being at home I’ve had to be a lot more self-sufficient — a lot more pushups, a lot more things like that. But as far as routine goes, it’s almost nice not to have a routine. It’s nice to be spontaneous.
But I will say, we recently added puppy to the mix so that occupies a lot of my time. I’ve never had a dog as an adult and from what I’ve read, schedule is a big deal. So we’re trying to create a schedule for the puppy, which inevitably creates a schedule for us. And there’s some structure to the day for the toddler. She’s in pre-K, so the school system has been great in offering online schoolwork. Sometimes they all get online together and have activities to do. That’s from about 10:30 to noon, then lunch, a nap and then playtime.
Q: Because you have older parents, are you being extra careful?
A: My father has a little bit of a respiratory problem, and my mother had quadruple bypass not too long ago. So that, plus the age, means they are definitely immunocompromised, so we’re super hyperaware. So much so that we’ve sort of packed up for the long haul in terms of necessities and we’ve scheduled ourselves to be in quarantine for about a month straight. We’re not leaving the house. Luckily we’re all together. My heart goes out to the elderly who aren’t with their kin or children.
But for my daughter, this is the greatest thing on earth, because Dad works in Chicago, and now we’re all together as a family. This is like Disneyland for my daughter.
Q: Are you planning meals or improvising?
A: We’re improvising each day. A lot of soups, oddly. Soups are time-consuming to make — we’re cutting a lot of vegetables — so it’s something to do that fills your day. It brings the family together. And if you make a big pot, soups last for a while. So we definitely do a dinner ritual where we’re cooking together. Before this, we didn’t have a structured dinner — everyone was doing their own thing, so we kind of would eat on the run. But now, there’s nowhere to run; we’re all here. So it’s created this amazing unity, of sorts. My mom is an exceptional cook. Back in the day, she and my grandmother owned a restaurant.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: I’ve thought about that a lot. One of things I’m going to do is a PSA for the Illinois Broadcasters Association. I did one two years ago about the Zika virus, and we’re going to do another one for corona: Here’s what it is, here’s what it isn’t, stay informed. It’s not even because I play a doctor on TV, but as someone in the entertainment industry, if I’m going to vocalize something, I want to help spread awareness.
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: I have been writing some television and film projects. Being an ethnic minority, Asian American, I feel like the industry has started to open the doors, at the very least, to hear our stories and I feel like I have a particularly distinct one. So I’ve been working on some projects, and now is a time to hone them.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: I haven’t been watching much. I mean, I’ve been watching “Chicago Fire,” “Med” and “P.D.” of course. But I’m more of a doer, and when you’re home, there’s always something you’ve been putting off that needs doing, whether it’s cleaning out the garage or working in the yard. I’m very lucky that within my own home I have people to connect with and a lot of things to do, both physically and creatively.
— Nick Gehlfuss (Will Halstead on “Chicago Med”)
Q: Where are you?
A: Chicago.
Q: Do you share your home with anyone?
A: I live with my wife and two dogs. And a lot of plants.
Q: Do you have a daily routine?
A: I do think it’s important to establish a routine and I think deep down we all need one, especially depending on how long this is going to go on. Even if it’s just keeping to a bedtime and making sure you’re eating a balanced diet. And because gyms are closed, I’ve been really creative in terms of how I work out at home.
This is an extremely challenging time period, and it goes against our instincts because we’re social creatures. My family lives in Ohio, and that’s hard. But FaceTime is amazing. I’ll call my brother and say, “Hey, do you want to have a drink tonight?” And we’ll just sit in our chairs and toast.
I fought the urge to go home to Ohio, because my mom is still working. She works at the Cleveland Clinic, and my father is a plumber and he’s still doing some emergency jobs, so they’re still around other people. My mom works in the oncology ward and so what she’s dealing with is terminal illness and those that need their chemo. That’s just hard in itself.
Q: Are there ways you’ve been able to help others?
A: I’m part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I mentor a boy named Mekhi, so I’m going to FaceTime him in a little bit. He’s 13, and I want to check and see how he’s feeling about all of this and check in with his mom. I’ve been able to lay roots in Chicago and I’m proud to feel like I’m part of the community.
I know how difficult this is for people who are living paycheck to paycheck, and maybe they don’t have people to talk to in their homes, and I would just stress that mental health needs to be a priority. Therapists are doing a lot of telehealth right now — I have a therapist and just spoke with them on Zoom — and I think everyone could benefit from it a little bit.
You don’t have to feel socially isolated just because you are physically. There was a birthday for my uncle with all my family over Zoom. It was 20 videos going at once, no one could hear a word from anybody so it wasn’t too far off from what it’s like when we actually get together in person (laughs).
Q: How are you staying creative?
A: I love music. I taught myself how to play guitar, and it’s been a medicinal and therapeutic thing. A new skill I’m teaching myself is how to record and produce, since I’ve got some equipment at home that I’ve gathered over the years.
Q: What have you been watching on TV?
A: I’ve been watching these MasterClasses: Hans Zimmer on music; David Mamet on dramatic writing and also Aaron Sorkin. I also started watching “Glow” on Netflix, and that’s really fun. I watched a movie called “The Lighthouse” directed by Robert Eggers with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson. I really liked that, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. And I do find that I need to go towards comedy, so I’ll rewatch episodes of “The Office” or I actually love “Cheers.”
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