How old is Matt Casey on Chicago Fire?

Matt Casey (Jesse Spencer) is in a precarious spot. He officially left Chicago Fire in season 10, but he’s made sporadic guest appearances, and the season 11 finale saw him take the enormous step of proposing to his ex-girlfriend, Brett (Kara Killmer).

It’s obvious that Jesse Spencer and Fire showrunner Derek Haas understand the importance of the character, and their commitment to keeping him in the mix is a testament to that. Casey is the star of the series next to Severide (Taylor Kinney), and as such, there might be some questions about his age. Well, here’s what we were able to dig up.

How old is Jesse Spencer?

Casey, like his longtime pal, Severide, has never been given a proper age on the show. Still, there have been lots of context clues that can help us narrow down a year, or at least a small window.

The show stated that Casey graduated from the Fire Academy in 2003 and began service around 2004. If we take into account that the minimum age to become a firefighter in Chicago is 21, then we can assume Casey was born in 1983 at the latest.

Casey was written to be 35 in the pilot, according to the original script, but like we previously said in the Severide post, this age feels more like a pre-casting placeholder than an ironclad fact about the character. Spencer was 33 at the time, so the discrepancy isn’t too far off.

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This minor discrepancy leads us to the biggest indicator of Casey’s age, though: the actor’s age. TV shows often use the age of their actors as a barometer for the character’s age, and that’s what the showrunners have seemingly done here.

Spencer was born in 1979 and is currently 44 years old. As we previously established, Casey had to be born before 1983, so we can safely assume that the character shares a birth year with his offscreen counterpart. He’s 44, which makes him slightly older than Severide and capable of fighting fires for another decade if he chooses to come back to Chicago.

What did you think about the Chicago Fire season 11 finale? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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