Is Justin Hartley's Wife Sofia Pernas On Tracker?

The CBS survivalist action drama "Tracker" stars Justin Hartley ("This Is Us," "Smallville") as Colter Shaw, a vagabond and survival expert who travels the land and offers his expertise for various purposes — with the assistance of his loyal team, of course. The premise offers plenty of opportunities for changing scenery and a rotating cast of guest stars, some of whom have quite a bit of history with Shaw. In fact, in "Tracker" Season 1, Episode 6, the show brings in someone both Hartley and his character know very well — Hartley's real-life wife Sofia Pernas, who plays Shaw's ex, Billie. 

Billie and Shaw have a difficult history but manage to work together for the case of the week and even seem to repair their fraught relationship a little. The pair's copious screen time together lets the audience enjoy the same chemistry between Hartley and Pernas the pair has already demonstrated in projects like "The Young and the Restless" and the "Quantum Leap" remake. 

This isn't the first time "Tracker" has introduced a person who's particularly close to Shaw. The series premiere introduces viewers to Shaw's father (Lee Tergesen), a Berkeley scholar turned survivalist who taught Colter everything he knows, and other members of the Shaw family turn up as well. However, casting Pernas to play Billie brings an extra layer of familiarity to her character's chemistry with Shaw — as well as a fun wink and nod at the part of the audience that's familiar with the couple's off-screen history. 

Justin Hartley and Sofia Pernas are hardly the first married couple to star in a project together. For instance, "A Quiet Place" stars Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are married both in the movie and in real life, and Tom Holland has teased a potential new team-up with Zendaya, his real-life partner and co-star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe "Spider-Man" movies. Of course, this doesn't necessarily make the process any easier, even when it comes to intimate scenes. While filming "A Gentleman in Moscow," Ewan McGregor used an intimacy coordinator for sex scenes with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, to make the process smoother and more comfortable, and was vocal about supporting the intimacy coordinator profession. 

As for Hartley, he seems to have embraced the opportunity to work with his wife, and in a 2023 interview with E! News, he expressed a desire to do more projects together. "It's amazing," he said. "It's good for the environment, too. You can carpool and everything, so it's wonderful" (via Us Weekly). While Pernas has only appeared in one episode of "Tracker," Hartley's comments strongly suggest that the show's fans may very well see Billie again.