Elijah M. Cooper has star written all over him.
The young actor stepped into the role of Harry Grant during 9-1-1 Season 7 and immediately made his presence known, inhabiting the role with tenacity and a grounded presence that honored the character’s history and pushed it forward.
As the character continues to grow, Cooper grows along with him, lending authenticity to the youngest Grant son as he makes his way into the world.
9-1-1 Season 9 Episode 9 is a big hour for Harry, as he suffers an injury while training at the academy and has to face some fundamental truths about the profession he’s stepping into.
What follows is a series of introspective and deeply moving conversations with everyone from May to Buck and his mother, Athena, that further his path toward becoming the thing he’s pushed himself to become: a Los Angeles firefighter.
Cooper is everything you could want in an interviewee, which is to say he’s candid, kind, knowledgeable, and genuinely enthusiastic about the work he’s doing.
We got to chat with Cooper about Harry’s big hour, what’s next for him in joining the 118, and what’s to come for Mr. Harry Grant.
Since Harry decided to become a first responder, it’s been full steam ahead for him. He’s been very laser-focused. And after the setback with his injury, he is forced to confront the realities and risks of his path in a way he may never have before.
Can you expand on the internal battle plaguing Harry and the aftermath of his accident?
Right. Harry is a young guy, and he is very strong-willed. And when Harry puts his mind to something, Harry is going to make it happen. We’ve seen this from literally the beginning of when I came onto the show. I was fleeing the cops. I am fully making a trip across the country. I’m in there.
So, we’ve consistently seen this theme of Harry being that full-steam-ahead type of person, even if he doesn’t 100% think through what he’s doing. And hearing from his sister, here’s the rationale, here’s the reasoning, here’s everything behind why mom is feeling this way, and here’s the reality of it.
When he gets to the stage where now he’s back in front of this ladder, now it’s like, wow, this is all real. It’s no longer just an idea of, well, I’m going to go back to the academy, and I’m going to do this, and I’m going to be strong.
No, I have to actually get up on this ladder and possibly risk further injury. So all of these conversations Harry has had over the past few seasons I’ve been here have always been very important to him — to be able to provide perspective on.
I understand that you’re an action-oriented person who likes to get things done and make things happen.
But you really have to take a second to step back and fully embrace what am I doing and what weight does this carry? It’s a space of learning for Harry. It’s a space of maturation. He has to learn to think things through better.
We’ve seen Harry go to Buck in the past, and he goes to Buck in this episode, too. Buck has become a real confidant and mentor to Harry, especially during this journey and after Bobby’s death.
What is it about that dynamic that you enjoy the most, and what is it about Buck that you think allows Harry to be so vulnerable within that friendship?
The thing that I love the most about this relationship between Harry and Buck, and it ties into real life too, is that he has that feeling of being an older brother. He’s my guy in real life. Oliver and I are tight.
And I think too, in the series, Harry knows that Buck once went through being a young person just trying to find his footing, and he turned to Bobby for help.
And so now having Buck, who he knows has experienced a lot of the same things as him, and had somebody who was also so close to him as his mentor.
I feel like it allows him to take down that wall and have that space of vulnerability to say, “I know that you can see me. I know that you authentically feel what I feel, and I need your help now.”
And as we can see, there aren’t many other people Harry is really even willing to turn to and be real with. So that really cements the importance of their relationship to Harry.
Harry’s grown up in a household with a first responder, so he’s not new to the fears that come with loving someone who’s in a dangerous profession. When he has that talk with Athena in the car, I like that Athena even brings up that when he was a kid, he wanted her to quit her job.
He was scared for her, just as she’s scared for him now. So how important do you think it was for them to have that conversation? And does this allow them to reach a new level of understanding that they can build upon in the future?
Harry needed that conversation. And Harry is going to continue to need different connection points between what he has experienced in his life to now and what he’s doing.
When he talks to his mom, and it becomes real, like, yes, I did feel these feelings of, “Mom, I wanted you to quit. I wanted you to be here. I wanted you to be safe. I wanted you to keep being my mom. And I was afraid of these things.”
He is offered the perspective of being on the other side, when I left you and had to go into the line of danger; now I had to learn how to turn that off.
I had to learn how to do my job without letting that affect me. Still love you, still think of you, and still want to care for you.
But also understand the importance of just focusing on doing the job I’m doing right now, because it’s a hard job.
There’s a lot that’s happening all the time, and your focus can’t be over here or off to the left this way. You have to 100% be in it.
And I think that Harry didn’t fully take the time or even didn’t really have the ability to experience what that truly meant until he had somebody like his mom, whom he trusts so deeply and loves and cares for, say, “Hey, I understand what it is to be in this situation.
“I’ve experienced it, and I’ve done it successfully for this long. This is how you do it. I’m going to give you instructions to do this better because I want to make sure that you’re safe, just as you wanted to make sure that I was safe.”
The hour ends with Harry joining the 118, which is a big deal. He always been on the outside looking in at the 118 through Bobby and through Athena. How do you see Harry navigating the changing dynamics now that he’s actually a part of the team?
Yeah, this dynamic shift is going to be one that is very different for Harry. The good thing is that he has that feeling of attachment. He knows he has this family inside the 118, but now it goes from, as you said, the outside looking in to now I’m in it. I’m doing this, not just with the crazy rescues that are going on.
Now I’m a probie. And now I get a real look at what the bathroom looks like because I got to clean it. You know what I’m saying? It’s now tangible for him.
He understands this is a job, this is serious. There’s a lot that goes into it. There’s training involved. There’s risk, there’s strategy, there’s all this other stuff I didn’t have to experience but knew was happening.
So I think that it provides this new place of perspective for Harry to really get in there and say, “Wow, I see, and I appreciate what you guys have been doing for so long, and now I have to find my own personal footing in this because I am new to this. I don’t know this. You guys have been doing this for a long time.”
But he also has a lot of great people to guide him in the firehouse. So we’ll see how those relationships develop.
We’ve seen Harry and Buck, and we’ve seen Harry and Hen a little bit, but we haven’t seen Harry and Eddie or Harry and Ravi, or even Harry and Chim a whole lot.
Is there anything you can tease us about what those relationships will look like moving forward?
When we look at Harry and Chim, for example, Chim is now the captain, and he has the entire 118 to worry about. But he also has Bobby’s stepson coming in here, and that means a lot to him. Bobby meant a lot to him.
And now he feels the pressure of, ‘I’m responsible for him. I understand that he’s a firefighter. I understand that he’s a probie, but I’m responsible for this kid, whom I have a really deep emotional connection to…”
And this layering of like, “I have a friend that passed away, and now I have to make sure that he doesn’t pass away as well.” That’s a different level of pressure on Chim.
And that is going to prove to be something that affects how he thinks about Harry and affects his decision-making.
When you look at Eddie, he is like an uncle-type figure. He has a son. He understands the importance of speaking into someone, making sure that someone’s being safe and doing things properly.
We have Ravi. Ravi was the probie. He was the young guy.
Now he finally has somebody else that’s kind of under him at this point, but he’s also able to guide Harry through certain things as well because he’s like, “I was literally right here just a little while ago. I can help you out. I can provide perspective for you.”
So we’ll be able to explore many of these other dynamics as more episodes air. But yeah, it’s all set up well.
It’s been really nice seeing Harry’s growth since he’s been back.
As you said, when we first met him, he was running from the cops. And then obviously, some of that growth comes through loss and different things that have caused him to grow in various ways, but he’s really motivated and driven right now.
What are some of the things that you’ve enjoyed discovering about Harry and getting to bring to life on screen?
I think bringing Harry to life has been a very personal effort for me because I’m young, I’m 20 years old. I’ve got two years on Harry, but I’m still in the same kind of life stages, and I’m working through things and learning how to be me and live life.
And Harry’s going through all of this simultaneously.
And so Harry is discovering as much about himself as I am about myself as I work through playing this character and understanding the importance of taking on a new role. Being in the 118 is new for Harry, but it’s also new for Elijah. This is a brand new job. I’m doing brand new things.
There are a lot of parallels. There’s this feeling of being in lockstep with my character, which makes it so authentic and so fun to play every week.
I was actually going to ask you which parts of Harry’s story have resonated with you and taught you about yourself. But it seems like kind of everything.
Everything really has. And even this whole season is about leaning on family.
It’s about remembrance. It’s about moving forward. I’ve had to deal with all of those things in life. I’ve had to deal with loss.
So, taking all my personal experiences and bringing them into my character has been really freeing. And it’s been easy in a way because it’s me.
I’m pulling myself into this, and I’m just hoping that people are enjoying what I’m bringing to it.
How has it been getting into the stunts and action sequences?
It’s been crazy because I’ve never done stunts to this extent before. Even in this episode, I’m falling off a ladder, and then I have a concussion now.
We’re really jumping in there pretty quickly. I had never been up on a ladder five stories up before.
Even just this feeling of like, oh, the ladder gets more narrow. It’s shaking when I’m up there.
Now I have to figure out, like, “oh, let me get my footing,” all this different stuff.
There’s a lot of complexity that comes with it, but it’s also really fun. You dream of being an actor, of doing stunts, and of doing stuff. It’s been scary at times, but it’s also been really fun.
I know you do the Aftermath podcast with Corinne, so you probably have a really good sense of what fans are connected with based on comments and everything like that.
So, what do you think the fans are going to be super excited to see in the back half of the season?
Wow. Based on our comments on the Aftermath, people are really excited to see Harry and May’s brother-sister sibling dynamic.
We’re seeing a lot more of this in season nine, and there’s a lot more of that to come as well. Seeing both of us go from being kids to now being adults who are having, oddly enough, these adult brother-sister conversations between each other.
These are now independent of their mom, and they’re trying to figure out how to work towards helping our mom through these things, hard things like loss and everything like that.
People are really enjoying seeing this new version of these characters. People are continuing to enjoy all the other characters, Athena, Buck, Chim, literally everybody.
They’re enjoying seeing how everybody is moving through a hard time, but also growing.
I got to clap it up for the writers on the show. They’re doing an amazing job. They navigate a lot of tough dynamics, but they do a really good, really full job with this show. I’m excited for people to see more.
***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***
You can watch 9-1-1 on Thursday at 8/7c on ABC.
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