When Chris Carmack isn’t making Us swoon as Link on Grey’s Anatomy, he’s making us laugh on TikTok alongside wife Erin Slaver — and honesty is key when it comes to working together.
“I would say make it safe and comfortable to be able to shoot down each other’s ideas,” Carmack, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting his partnership with Autotrader. “It takes way too much time and emotional energy to coddle each other every time there’s something that you don’t think is funny or you don’t think is good, and it can still prick a little bit from time to time. But if you want to be productive, if you want to get things done, you have to be able to say, ‘No, I’m not feeling it.'”
However, Carmack emphasized that collaborating with his wife on their hilarious TikTok sketches is a back-and-forth.
“That doesn’t mean somebody can’t go to bat for it and say, ‘No, no, no, I think you are wrong because of such and such,’ and put up a fight. That’s fine,” he said. “But always be willing to accept that your idea isn’t as funny as you thought it was. And always be able to accept a rebuttal that your judgment was wrong. Just be wrong all the time. Be willing to be wrong.”
The former Nashville actor, who married Slaver in 2018, admitted that he’s usually the party who is wrong — especially when it comes to bringing up his early career. One of their most popular videos (with over 27 million views), shows Slaver making “accidental eye contact” with Carmack’s teen headshots while another (with over 20 million views) shows Slaver watching her husband on The O.C., the show that launched his career in 2003.
“Erin gets excited about doing those because usually what happens is we find an old artifact and that is the beginning of Erin [saying], ‘We’ve got to use this,’ and we do. And it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes we come across several artifacts and she wants to do a bunch in a row, and I’m like, ‘Let’s just pump the brakes,’” he admitted to Us. “I don’t want to make it all about my modeling days — but she wins almost all the time.”
He doesn’t mind too much, though, adding, “Who doesn’t get a good laugh at looking back at themselves when they were younger?”
While many of their bits on social media are scripted, Carmack and Slaver worked hard to make sure their pranks for their Autotrader campaign were completely authentic.
“We were excited to partner with Autotrader and especially when we collaborated on the idea of an anti-surprise prank campaign because my wife and I have been watching couples pull pranks on each other on social media for a long time and dying to do it,” Carmack told Us. “This gave us the opportunity to smash each other with shaving cream-filled balloons and scare each other with spiders and smash each other’s face with saran wrap and all in good fun.”
In their video, fans can see their genuine surprised reactions because the pair didn’t know when each prank was coming or what it would involve.
“I told Erin I wanted it to be as real and authentic as possible, and she agreed and it was so stressful,” he admitted. “It was so stressful setting up a prank in your house to catch your spouse. There were a couple times where we got discovered or discovered each other and had to bail on the prank, but eventually we were able to pull it off. I would say it took about a week to get all of those pranks.”
Carmack confessed he waited about 30 minutes outside with daughter Kai, 8, to capture Slaver unknowingly walking through a doorway that they had covered in plastic wrap. “It was very stressful and it took a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun and got some good belly laughs out of it,” he added.
The couple, who also share 2-year-old daughter Cielle, knew that Autotrader’s anti-surprise campaign was the perfect fit — and not just because it gave them a reason to be silly.
“When we got approached by Autotrader as a partnership, we thought this would be great because I have been perusing Autotrader myself to look at replacing my 11-year-old vehicle,” Carmack explained. “I always buy used vehicles because I appreciate the value of used vehicles. And their private seller exchange offers a very safe and easy way to make that transaction. … I’m not going to have to go to some back alley with an envelope of cash and make a sketchy transaction. They handle the titling and they verify the buyers and sellers and they handle the payment digitally. So it’s easy and it’s safe.”
