The unlikely rise of the sexy ‘9-1-1: Nashville’ fireman

Hunter McVey is the kind of Hollywood origin story that might not have made sense five years ago.

There were no years of acting classes in New York or L.A. No years waiting tables between auditions. Instead, there were medical sales. Fitness content. Modeling gigs that grew out of social media. An inbox audition he almost didn’t take. And now a primetime role on 9-1-1: Nashville as Blue Bennings, a stripper turned firefighter whose reinvention storyline mirrors McVey’s own unconventional rise.

The role is a far cry from the one that first put him on the casting radar: playing John F. Kennedy Jr. in FX’s buzzy new series Love Story. (Spoiler: He didn’t get it.) “I had never submitted an audition tape before,” McVey says. “The agency told me it was terrible. … I was looking the wrong way, reading down, had props involved — all the stuff you’re not supposed to do. But I sent it in anyway.”

It wasn’t the most auspicious first step into acting — but it was a telling one, offering a snapshot of how fame, or more precisely visibility, works in 2026.

For decades, Hollywood sold a singular myth of discovery: the ingénue spotted at a soda fountain, the theater kid plucked from obscurity, the actor grinding through bit parts until a breakout role finally arrived. Today’s pipeline looks different. Casting directors still value training and craft, but they’re also scanning social feeds, brand partnerships and digital audiences that already exist before a single audition is taped. The industry hasn’t abandoned talent; it has simply widened the definition of where talent can come from.

McVey built an audience long before he built a résumé. He started in medical sales, selling preventive full-body CT scans while juggling fitness content and modeling gigs as side hustles. Social media eventually became a full-time business, paving the way for coaching, ebooks, cookbooks and a growing digital brand. Acting wasn’t part of the plan; the audience was simply a byproduct of entrepreneurship.

Then came an audition email he almost ignored.

“I turned to [my fiancée] Julia and said, ‘Hey, this may put me in front of some good people,’” he recalls. “Something may come from this.”

The JFK Jr. role didn’t materialize, but the Ryan Murphy project got him on the TV producer’s radar and soon into the sprawling 9-1-1 universe. The stripper turned firefighter arc could read as gimmicky on paper, but McVey saw something else: familiarity.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t the first time that I’ve stood in my underwear in front of a camera,” he laughs. “I’d done plenty of that in modeling and social media. It drew a lot of parallels to my previous life.”

That “previous life” included a stint on OnlyFans, which he later deleted — a detail that, in another era, might have been framed as scandalous but now exists in a grayer, more complicated cultural space. Platforms like OnlyFans, TikTok and Instagram have blurred the lines between influencer, entrepreneur and entertainer. They can be stepping stones, side hustles or simply chapters in a longer story. McVey doesn’t position that chapter as a headline or a regret. It’s just part of the journey.

“I can’t look back at decisions I’ve made and wish differently upon them,” he says. “Who knows if I’d be in the same exact position I am today, which is a wonderful place that I thank God to be in every single day.”

That perspective underscores how he views fame itself. The word carries less glamour for him than it might for outsiders. When he says it out loud, he admits that it comes with a slightly negative connotation. Visibility, however, is different. It’s a tool.

“I’ve leveraged social media and marketing to my advantage,” he says. “More eyeballs on my content leads to more people in a funnel for whatever I’m building. But there’s no connection between followers or likes and my happiness or self-worth.”

Still, the leap from digital entrepreneur to network television isn’t as simple as uploading a viral video. An existing audience might get someone noticed. Staying on a set — and earning the trust of a 200-person crew — requires something else entirely.

When he booked 9-1-1: Nashville, McVey immediately hired an acting coach, who flew to Tennessee and drilled with him for seven to eight hours a day in the week leading up to filming.

“I had to learn what the heck the difference between a page number and a scene number was four days before starting to film,” he says. “It gave me a huge respect for everyone involved. The amount of blood, sweat and tears on set every day — it’s immense.”

That respect, he says, keeps him grounded as a newcomer stepping into a massive franchise. High-pressure environments don’t rattle him; they sharpen his focus. Years of fitness training — showing up consistently and doing hard things without immediate reward — now translate to long filming days and emotionally demanding scenes.

Off set, he counters that intensity with something quieter. McVey lives on acreage outside Nashville, where weekends are spent working on the land, renovating his home with his bride-to-be, Julia Bridges, and disconnecting from the churn of notifications. “You’re listening to the water, nature, crickets, looking at the stars at night,” he says. “That peace and quiet has helped me a lot.”

It’s also why he has little desire to relocate to Los Angeles. With production hubs expanding and self-taped auditions now standard, the entertainment industry is becoming more geographically flexible. “I’ve got a great home base here,” he says. “I’m building my dream home and dream land with my family.”

That doesn’t mean acting is a passing phase. If anything, McVey sounds surprised by how fulfilling he finds it — and open to what comes next, whether that’s more network drama or, ideally, a role in Yellowstone and Landman creator Taylor Sheridan’s universe.

And why not? McVey’s rise proves that the pipeline to primetime is changing — but as he’s learning in real time, staying there still takes old-school work.