Chad Michael Murray says his role choices are shaped by his three children—so much so that he passed on “two rather good projects” because he didn’t want the family dealing with the “type of trauma” tied to the work. He also describes how “Sullivan’s Crossing”
When Chad Michael Murray talks about his career these days, the conversation keeps circling back to the same place: home.
In a phone interview. the actor described a careful. almost protective approach to choosing what he works on—one driven by his three children and his desire to stay fully “dad” while they’re still young. Murray. 44. said he prayed “for two and a half years” for a project that would let him balance ambition with family life. “I’m in a place in my life where I do have three young kids. I wanted something where I could still be dad,” he said.
That search led him to “Sullivan’s Crossing,” a CTV series that now streams on Netflix. Murray said the show gave him exactly what he needed: a consistent role and the chance to stay close to his family. He has been playing Cal since Season 1 in 2023, and Season 4 dropped on Netflix on June 30.
What makes the arrangement work for him, Murray said, is geography as much as schedule. The series shoots in Nova Scotia. near his family’s Buffalo home. allowing him to be present for his wife Sarah Roemer and their kids. “To do something in this current climate where we were in a place that felt like home. we got totally immersed in the community. ” Murray said. He described coaching his son’s football team out there. with his kids going to school in the area and the family building “lifelong friends.” He called it “an unbelievable blessing.”.
Murray also said the show’s fit isn’t just personal—it’s protective. He said he doesn’t have to work “five days a week. ” and he doesn’t have to “carry the show.” He added that it wasn’t “too gratuitous” in a way that would undermine how his children grow up through elementary and middle school. “That’s a hard time to grow up,” he said.
At home, though, his children are still deciding what they can handle when it comes to seeing him on screen. Murray said his kids—two daughters and a son—are 10 and under, and their names have been kept private. He said they aren’t quite old enough for “Sullivan’s Crossing” yet: “No. no. no. I think that’s still a little too old for them.”.
Instead, he said they’re in the phase where they tease him. “Currently, I’m in the ‘I’m going to pick on dad’ stage,” he said. He added that they’ve been keeping their attention on his earlier work, with his daughter responding to “A Cinderella Story.”
That instinct—protecting his kids from parts of his work that might feel too heavy—has also shaped decisions beyond “Sullivan’s Crossing.” Murray said he had passed on “two rather good projects this year.” “There were two rather good projects this year that were just. no. ” he said. “I finished the script going, ‘No. It can’t happen. The kids don’t need this type of trauma.’ And then what if they’re like. ‘Hey. what are you working on?’”.
He described how his approach to material goes beyond the set. “I’m the kind of guy who takes my work home with me,” he said. If the work is dark, he said it stays with him for a while. He pointed to the movie “Outlaws and Angels. ” saying it took him a month to shake off the role after filming it. He tied that weight to a personal moment too: “my son was a baby.”.
Murray said the goal isn’t only to choose the “right” project—it’s to arrive home emotionally light. “I want to be dad that comes home with that light. I want them to remember me that way,” he said. “You only get these kids for such a small period of time in your life.”
He described the transition ahead as inevitable. “And then we’ll transition to the next period where we’ll do bizarre, weird, cool things that we feel like, ‘Right now, this is awesome.’”
The picture he paints is simple but lived-in: a career at its busiest, shaped by the timing of childhood, and by the belief that some kinds of stories don’t belong in the middle of a school year.
Chad Michael Murray Sullivan's Crossing Netflix CTV Sarah Roemer Nova Scotia filming Buffalo Outlaws and Angels Outlaws and Angels role A Cinderella Story Freaky Friday One Tree Hill Gilmore Girls