Shemar Moore Says in His Heart, Despite Being Canceled, He's Ready for More Seasons of 'S.W.A.T.'

Shemar Moore

When S.W.A.T. returns for its seventh and final season, the show found it in the budget to literally send Hondo (Shemar Moore), Commander Robert Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit), and Powell (Anna Enger Ritch) to Mexico for what initially looks like the simple job of escorting a fugitive back to the U.S. when everything gets FUBARed.

“I said, ‘If this is our final swan song, we’re not messing around,’ so Season 7 starts off with a bang,” Moore tells Parade in this exclusive interview. “At the end of Season 6, Hondo got engaged, has a little baby girl, and I sat during the strike, before we knew we were coming back and I said, ‘Okay, look, if this is the end, let’s give the fans everything we got, but let’s simplify it and just give them the good stuff, give them the signature.’ The theme song and then what follows that? Motorcycle chases.”

So, “The Promise” episode begins with a flashback to a promise that Hondo made to a young girl years earlier when her mother, who had promised to testify against her boyfriend, is murdered by him. In the meantime, Hondo has lost touch with the young woman, but he hasn’t forgotten.

“We do a flashback to something that has caused a lot of regret and unfinished responsibility, remorse for Hondo, so you see that and that leads into the show,” Moore continues. “Then you see this crazy chase scene, Hondo running through the streets of Mexico City, epic scenery, the whole thing, and once we get going, we barely take a breath. It’s a two-episode arc, two weeks apart, but we come out of the gates strong, and it’s going to be a thrill ride but there’s also going to be some surprises.”

One thing we won’t see in the season, which may disappoint fans, is we won’t see Hondo’s wedding to Nichelle (Rochelle Aytes) because Moore felt a wedding would slow down the action since S.W.A.T.’s renewal was only for 13 episodes.

“That’s what I was getting at,” Moore continues. “In the end of Season 6, you saw Hondo got engaged, but I sat with the writers, and I said, ‘I don’t want to do a whole Hallmark wedding and all of that when we only have 13 episodes,’ because I think it will slow it, people get it. Put the ring on the finger, show the love between Nichelle and Hondo, show the love, show the baby.”

That said, Moore promises that even without the wedding, there will be a lot of emotional scenes to balance the action.

“It’s nice to see such a badass, because Hondo’s such an alpha male, but it’s nice to see the sensitive, softer sides of him,” he reassures. “You’ll get plenty of that, but I didn’t want to slow down the show with a big dramatic wedding. So as soon as you see Hondo in Season 7, he’s got the ring on his finger, they got married in the break, and then we’re off to the races.”

What that means is that this final season of S.W.A.T. promises to be one full of highs and lows – although Moore says he’s up for more if a reversal of the cancelation should happen. But in case it actually is the end, they want to go out on top.

“You’re going to see S.W.A.T. as a team, as a machine, start to crack, start to fall apart, and it’s going to be up to Hondo and the rest of the gang to try to lift it back up and salvage it,” he says. “ And there are going to be some very poignant emotional surprises that are going to rock the audience."

Related: Fans Demanded It! All About S.W.A.T. Season 7, Which CBS Canceled Then Renewed

During our conversation, Moore also talked about the roller coast ride of the cancellation to the one additional season pickup, the cast changes for the final season, and what S.W.A.T. has meant to the culture in general.

You have quite a story here. The show was canceled, then uncanceled, what was that emotional ride like for you to think you weren’t going to be able to wrap it up and then they come back and say, “Okay, we’re going to give you some more episodes”?

It was a jolt. It was shock and awe. It was like, “What?” It didn’t feel real. We got canceled on that Friday, but the weeks prior, we’d been hearing nothing but good news, positive news. Our numbers were doing well, our timeslot was great, we just kept growing and growing. Still to this day, I know it had something to do with licensing between CBS and Sony. It’s always about money and then there was some mention of the price of what it cost to make our show because we’re a big show.

In some ways it’s like watching an action movie but made for TV, with all the stunts and craziness that S.W.A.T. has to offer, motorcycle chases, car chases, helicopters, hand to hand combat, blowing up stuff, but we’ve always, from what I understand, we’ve always stayed within our budgets, and even when they cut our budgets, we made our show for whatever we had. So, then we get this call that we’re canceled at 6 o’clock on a Friday, and my friends and people close to me were like, “How do you feel about that?” And I was like, “You know, I’m a little pissed off, but I’m kind of in shock and a little confused because that’s not what we were led to believe.”

And then I sat with myself for a few hours, and I kept thinking about it, and then something in my spirit said, “Say something.” So, I made a video, about a seven-minute video that a lot of people have seen, but before I pushed send, before I posted it, I literally watched it 12 times. No joke, 12 times, and 12 times 7 is 84. So, for 84 minutes, I watched it just because I was just making sure, do I seem angry? Do I seem arrogant? Am I making it all about me? Can this get me in trouble?

I don’t want to be blacklisted or get a bad reputation, anything like that, but I just kept watching it and watching it and I knew that I was talking from a fair place and an honest place. I hope I expressed my passion and stated some truths and some facts, and so I pushed send. And I was immediately like, “Uh oh.” I was expecting some backlash. And then a very powerful executive called me the next day and said, “Okay, Shemar, you made your video, you said what you said. It was actually pretty good. It may have given us some leverage. Don’t say anything else. I can’t guarantee you anything but shut up and let us do the rest.”

Related: S.W.A.T. Star David Lim on How What You Don't Know Can Sometimes Lead to Success

And so, then big, fancy, powerful people talked to each other and that Monday, 72 hours later, we got picked back up. When that happened, I didn’t pound my chest. I was relieved because I felt it was fair. I was like, “This show deserves its right to say goodbye properly, to go off into the sunset,” and that’s what we’re doing with these final 13 episodes. And also, the crew, the crew doesn’t make money like the actors make money, and they’ve got families and they’ve busted their tails for six years. I was like, “At least give them a chance to set up their futures, don’t just put them out of work on a Friday and they’re stuck on a Saturday.”

So here we are. They say it’s our final season. I may be the only one yelling and screaming this, but I’m saying it every interview so everybody can hear it. I make jokes that these 53-year-old knees can hold up and I can run around and be bad ass Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson, I’m not done with this show, and neither is the crew. There’s 300 of us that love making this show and it’s resonating. Howard Stern’s talking about us, Charles Barkley loves us. I talked to Stephen A. Smith from ESPN; he loves us.

And what’s ironic is 10 days or shortly thereafter of getting picked back up, we premiere on Netflix, and within a week we’re No. 11, and then after 10 days, we’re No. 7, then we’re No. 4, and then we’re No. 1. And as far as I know to this day, we’re still trending in the top 15, so there’s been this re-emergence of our show. I understand it’s business, it’s not personal, so if this is the end, we say thank you, bow out gracefully. But we’re going to stand there on our final episode and, hopefully, we’re going to make them rethink it because we’re not done in our hearts.

Both Alex Russell (Jim Street) and Kenny Johnson (Dominique Luca) have been moved to recurring. How will that affect the story? Is everybody going to get their ending?

Everybody’s going to get their time to shine. I always say, “Look, I may be the face on the poster, I may be the lead of the show, but it ain’t all about me and it shouldn’t be all about me.” I do what I need to do and I’m proud to do it, but this season everybody’s going to get their shining moment. Everybody. And that’s the way it should be because we worked our tails off to make this show. We’re going to shine as a unit and everybody individually is going to get to show out, do their thing, so the audience can see them get their moments.

It was so annoying because they only gave us one episode instead of two to watch before this conversation, and episode one has a cliffhanger at the end of it.

See, that’s a good thing. See how you feel? That’s good. If you’re mad every time the show ends, that means you’re going to tune in next week. And that’s what I mean, lightning could strike. These numbers are good, and if people get mad but show up the next week, who knows what could happen?

Anna was made a series regular for the final season. Is it because you need a female presence on the team?

Well, yes, but it’s all about representation. CBS and Sony know it’s optics. Look, I’m a Black lead, right? Where did that come from? CBS was lacking in diversity, diverse shows, and so I got an opportunity. But also, the men and women of law enforcement that trained us, what did I just say? The men and women of law enforcement. So, it’s not just so we can have a girl on the show, but we need to represent that there are women in law enforcement.

What I love about S.W.A.T., is for seven seasons … Look, we’ve got me who’s Black, you’ve got Jay Harrington who’s white, you’ve got Kenny Johnson who’s white, you’ve got David Lim who plays Tan who’s Chinese, you know? We had Stephanie Sigman at one point and Lina Esco, Latinas. So, it’s cool to have representation all the while still telling a story that everybody can relate to.

Related: Jay Harrington Teases What's Ahead for S.W.A.T. When the Series Returns from Its Midseason Break

This season they made you an executive producer. What does that mean for you?

I think the reason I was elevated to executive producer is, I don’t like to call myself a star, but I’ve proven and it’s been important to me that I’m not just a face or a star of the show, I really care about the show. I don’t just care about me looking cool and me doing all the hero stuff and, “Look at me, it’s my show.” I don’t, I’m not made that way. But I’m passionate and I care about the stories. And just like we spoke about, will all the characters get their shine this year? That was important to me. I was like, “Don’t make it all about me.” Because you know, I’m interesting but I’m not that interesting, I don’t want to see myself that much.

I care about the show, but being an executive producer means that I was able to be even more involved in the creative process. And the writers and producers, they’ve learned to trust my instincts, they’ve learned to trust my ideas. I don’t make the final decision, but they know that I have good ideas. And so, I’m only looking to make it better, I’m only looking to make it stronger, whatever that may be. If it’s in casting, if it’s in writing, if it’s in blocking, if it’s in pace of what we’re doing, locations, the whole thing.

So, this time around, I know the whole arc of all 13 episodes. I don’t know every single sentence that the writers are writing but I have the outlines of what we’re trying to do. So again, I don’t get the final say, but I know a lot of my passion and my ideas has helped sculpt what we’re putting on the screen this year.

With the culture that we’re living in, how do you see S.W.A.T.’s place in the culture?

We want to be optimistic. We’re a TV show, so we’re not going to paint cops in a bad light, but nobody’s perfect. Cops are not perfect, civilians are not perfect, and that’s what the pilot was all about. Hondo’s plight, his struggle is to bridge the gap, create more peace, create more compassion, create more listening. And that may seem a little Hallmark-y, but I think that’s what this country and the world needs. You know, a little more pause.

Look at what’s happened, that’s why we tackle shows like school shootings, suicide by cop, human trafficking, and Black Lives Matter. I’m very proud of that episode, because as a Black man as the lead actor playing a supercop, it would be ignorant not to speak on it. But we’re never preachy, we don’t talk about politics, we don’t talk about religion, we’re never preachy but we try to give you a sense of heart and a sense of humanity.

I do believe cops are humans, too, and there’s some bad ones out there but there’s some very good ones, so what we’re doing is showcasing the struggle not to lose yourself. You see how the struggles of being law enforcement can take you to a dark place, and then we try to fight to stay in that light. So yeah, we want to glamorize but never be false.

And the biggest compliment we get is not, “Oh, Shemar, you’re so cool. I love the show, it’s great.” But the biggest compliment we get is when law enforcement approaches us and says, “We love the show because you do us proud, and you make us seem like real people.” They respect the way that we conduct ourselves with weaponry and how we move as a team because that’s what they’re taught. And you can’t ask for more than that.

S.W.A.T. premieres its seventh and final season tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streaming next day on Paramount+.

Next, Shemar Moore on the Importance of Tackling Everyday Issues on S.W.A.T.