Tracker has brought on The Boys star Jensen Ackles in a major role. The CBS show, which is based on the Jeffery Deaver novel The Never Game, follows lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley), who makes money by helping various people with his tracking skills. The ensemble cast of the show also includes Robin Weigert, Abby McEnany, Eric Graise, and Fiona Rene. One character who has been brought up multiple times on the show but has not yet appeared is Colter's brother Russell Shaw, with whom there is some major family drama.
On Instagram, Justin Hartley shared a video update revealing that Russell Shaw will finally be appearing as they prepare for Tracker season 2. Check it out below:
As he talks, describing their "perfect casting choice" who "knocks it out of the park every time," the sound of someone playing a video game can be heard in the background. Hartley eventually pans to reveal that Ackles is in the room with him, implying that he will be playing Russell. At the time of writing, it has not been made clear if Ackles' Russell will appear on multiple episodes or just one.
Jensen Ackles Is Well Prepared To Join The Tracker Cast
The Role Of Russell Shaw Finds Ackles In Familiar Territory
Before joining the Tracker cast, Ackles has held a variety of roles that should prepare him for his new part perfectly. The role of Russell Shaw will be a complicated one, as Colter still suspects his older brother of the murder of their father. However, thanks to his role as Soldier Boy on The Boys, Ackles has plenty of experience toeing the line between hero and villain that should help drive the intensity of the drama in his first appearance on the show.
One other benefit of bringing on Ackles for the Justin Hartley network drama is that he has more than a decade of experience with crafting an onscreen brotherly relationship, with all the familiarity and animosity that that entails. His biggest role prior to The Boys was playing Dean Winchester on the CW show Supernatural, which ran between 2005 and 2020. Dean was a co-lead with his brother Sam (Jared Padalecki), giving Ackles plenty of experience portraying a brotherly relationship over the course of 15 seasons and a total of 327 episodes.
Ackles also has a history of committing to major roles in new projects following the end of Supernatural. In addition to portraying Soldier Boy in a cameo on the Boys spinoff Gen V, he has voiced Batman in more than half a dozen DC animated projects and starred as Sheriff Beau Arlen in 14 episodes of Big Sky. He could potentially showcase this level of commitment with Tracker as well, returning to play Russell over the course of several episodes or seasons as needed.
