Jules Latimer is ready for Eve Edwards to step back into the dating scene.
“I would love for her to potentially date a queer man. I would love to introduce the idea that as a queer woman, I have the freedom to date who I want to date, and I feel like that would be cool for network TV," the Fire Country star says.
CBS drama Fire Country follows Eve Edwards and the rest of Edgewater, California, firefighters as they try to have full lives in between the heroic rescues that fill their days. This season, her focus has been on reviving and leading Three Rock, an inmate fire camp where incarcerated people decrease their sentence by working as firefighters. Leading a younger, more resistant crew than she was used to pushed Eve in ways previous seasons hadn't.
"This was like one of the first times that I felt the through line of me earning the trust of the people I was working with, and that was seen by our viewers," Latimer says. "You have to go through the ups and downs in order to get to the end result." At the end of the season, she opens up to a potential new love interest, and while it does not work out, it signals that Eve is ready to get out there.
Latimer hopes there’s a bit of messiness in Eve’s future since so many of the Fire Country main characters are in stable relationships. “I kind of want her to get into some really good trouble. I want her to have a fiery romance that feels like she shouldn’t be having it,” she says, “I want to see her date more, I want to see different faces.”
Jules Latimer as Eve Edwards in 'Fire Country' season 4, episode 16 "Not Worth the Risk."Sergei Bachlakov/CBS
Edgewater is bursting with romance; Fire Country season 4 ends with one of Eve’s besties, Jake Crawford, getting married, a ceremony Latimer’s character officiated. “I remember us filming it because that was our last day on set, and looking at the people that I’ve been working with for five years. I didn’t know I was going to inherit a chosen family. I really have,” Latimer explains. Latimer has her own reason to feel the weight of that day because she had just gotten engaged. Watching her castmate get married while surrounded by people who had seen her grow through five years of life made the moment hit differently.
For queer people, chosen family is often less a metaphor than a necessity, and Latimer knows that firsthand. “It’s very on par with what I’ve experienced in my regular life, where I have a hodgepodge of family. Everyone looks different, everyone has a different background, and yet we’re able to come together and support each other. I’m really grateful that’s my life off-screen as well,” she says of her Fire Country family.
As she gears up to start filming season 5, Latimer reflects on how that chosen family feeling extends to the LGBTQ+ fans of the show, who often catch her in the airport. In Austin, while supporting her partner at a gig, a Black woman who served in the Marines approached her. She told Latimer that watching Eve balance excellence at her job with the messiness of her personal life made her feel seen in a way she hadn't expected. "I felt like I was watching myself on screen," the fan told her. It's a reaction Latimer has encountered enough times that she's come to expect it, even if it still catches her off guard. "People are really appreciative of seeing someone who's so good at their job, so good at having humor around it, and sort of balancing their work life, while also having, you know, difficulties with that as well," she says. "I've found a lot of people love Eve a lot."
Another reason Latimer holds Eve so close is how much of the character is pulled from her own life. "I'm sort of estranged from my family, you know, for being a queer person," she says, "My dad supports me, but in the ways that he can." The show has given them an unexpected point of connection. He texts her updates. Recently, he sent her a photo of himself holding a case of farm-fresh eggs a customer had given him, telling her he just needed the Three Rock crew to send some vegetables to go with them. The image made her laugh. "My father and I have an up and down relationship," she says, "so I love that I'm on a TV show he can watch every Friday night."
That Friday night ritual points to something larger about what Eve represents on screen. "I love people being able to see every week on network a Black queer woman who is approachable, who they can feel like they have a relationship with, even if in reality they may be scared or not necessarily have that exposure," she explains. For Latimer, that approachability is personal, a version of herself that the people she loves can access even when the distance between them makes access difficult. Eve, she notes, is almost more approachable to her own family than she is herself.
Jules Latimer as Eve Edwards in 'Fire Country' season 4, episode 14 "Why Not Now?"Sergei Bachlakov/CBS
After a season spent watching Eve repair her fractured relationship with her father, Elroy, Latimer finds herself curious about what comes next for the character's family story. She wants to know more about Eve's mother, a figure the show hasn't explored yet. She's also wondering whether Eve might eventually be pulled toward her family ranch, which is a detail drawn from Latimer's own Oklahoma roots, where her father raised cattle. "Where does she want to go in life?" Latimer asks. "I wonder what this career is for her, and if it has room for her to expand into family or all the things that she dreams of. I'm curious about the things that she dreams of."
As production of season five gears up, Latimer is sitting with what five years of playing Eve has already given her and is excited for what’s ahead.
Fire Country's season four finale aired Friday, May 22, on CBS.
