Chicago Fire star David Eigenberg has been with the show since 2012 but recently returned to one of his first projects, starring in the Sex And The City spin-off as Miranda's husband Steve Brady.
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Fans saw his character with hearing aids, but now show writers Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky have revealed that David has also been battling hearing loss, inspiring the character's development. "When [showrunner] Michael Patrick [King] reconnected with David about the show, the very first thing that David said was, 'I got hearing aids,'" they told Vanity Fair.
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"It was literally what he led with," they shared, adding: "That actually wound up being Steve's tone about his aging [in the show]."
David has never spoken publicly about his hearing loss, and his character Christopher Herrman does not use the aids on the hit NBC show Chicago Fire.
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There was bad news for fans of the firefighting drama this week when it was confirmed that production on the Chicago-based show and its sister series Chicago PD would be suspended after breakouts of coronavirus on set.
Filming for Chicago Fire ground to a halt in the first week of the new year after multiple members of cast and crew tested positive for the new variant.
Steve has hearing aids in the show, inspsired by David's real-life hearing loss
The firefighter drama had only just resumed filming after the holiday break when the order came to shut down production. PD and the other sister show Chicago Med were not affected until this week when the outlet shared that there had been "a couple of dozen," positive tests from crew and cast members of PD.
Med has managed to keep on going without incident.
NCIS, Grey's Anatomy, 9-1-1, and The Rookie had all also been suspended due to outbreaks.
David has been on the show since 2012
While Grey's and spinoff Station 19 were expected to resume production on 12 January, it's still not known when The Rookie will start up again.
"Further production delays and shutdowns across Hollywood TV production are expected even with most casts and crews fully vaccinated as the Omicron variant has been causing an unprecedented number of breakthrough infections," the publication reports.
"Studios are currently monitoring the situation and awaiting more testing data before making decisions on how to proceed."
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