Why ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’ Has a New Cast, According to Shemar Moore

• Shemar Moore, 56, is back as Hondo in S.W.A.T. Exiles, which premiered Friday, Sept. 25, on Starz with a new, younger team around him.
• He says bringing back the CBS show with the same cast made no sense: “Why bring it back and just do the same thing?”
• Three actors from the original return as guests, and Starz renewed the spinoff for a second season before it premiered.

New network, new squad, same Hondo. Shemar Moore, 56, is leading S.W.A.T. Exiles, the Starz spinoff of the CBS series S.W.A.T., with a team of young recruits instead of the unit fans followed for eight seasons.

The first episode arrived on Friday, Sept. 25. This week, Moore made the rounds to explain the change, on GMA3 on Tuesday and on Live with Kelly and Mark on Wednesday.

Why isn’t the original ‘S.W.A.T.’ cast in ‘Exiles’?

Because the point was to make something different, Moore said. CBS ended S.W.A.T. in 2025, after canceling it three times in three years, and Sony Pictures Television, which produces it, took the character to Starz.

If the old show wasn’t going to continue [on CBS] — and that decision was made — then why bring it back and just do the same thing?

Shemar Moore, to Us Weekly

“If you’re going to bring it back and do the same thing then you should have just continued what we had jiving,” he told Us Weekly in an interview published Sept. 25. He still calls the CBS series “the mothership.”

On GMA3, he credited the studio for the second act: “Sony believed in the franchise. They believed in little old me.” The old show, he said, “was great to us for eight years.”

Who is in the ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’ cast?

Moore is still Sgt. II Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson. The new unit around him:

• Ronen Rubinstein as Jude Callan
• Freddy Miyares as Ethan Cole
• Zyra Gorecki as Cassidy Han
• Lucy Barrett as Samantha “Sammy” Bishop
• Adain Bradley as Malik Henderson

Three faces from the CBS show are back as guest stars. Jay Harrington (Sgt. David “Deacon” Kay) and Patrick St. Esprit (Commander Robert Hicks) appeared in the premiere, and David Lim (Officer Victor Tan) is set for a later episode this season.

What is ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’ about?

After a mission goes wrong, Hondo is pulled out of forced retirement to run an experimental, last-chance S.W.A.T. unit made up of untested, unpredictable young recruits. The “exiles” are the recruits, and the show plays their generation against his.

Moore leaned into that on GMA3. The show mixes “the old-school, which is Hondo, with this Gen Z group,” he said, “a bunch of what I call Bad News Bears Rugrats.” He guessed Hondo is “probably 44, 45.”

The action costs more at 56 than it used to, he admitted, citing “a lot of cold plunge, a lot of massage, a lot of praying, a lot of physical therapy.”

Ten years ago, he said, his ego wouldn’t let his stunt double work. Now, he said, it’s “bro, get out there and make me look good.”

How can you watch ‘S.W.A.T. Exiles’?

New episodes stream Fridays on Starz, through the Starz app and Starz on other streaming platforms. The first season has 10 episodes, and Starz renewed the show for a second season on Aug. 11, before the premiere.

The original S.W.A.T., all eight seasons, streams on Netflix. Exiles was developed by Jason Ning and is produced by Original Film and Sony Pictures Television. Here is the official trailer:

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— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Shemar Moore on GMA3 (ABC), Sept. 29, 2026; Shemar Moore to Us Weekly (Yana Grebenyuk), Sept. 25, 2026; Shemar Moore on Live with Kelly and Mark (ABC), Sept. 30, 2026; Starz and Sony Pictures Television (premiere, schedule, cast, renewal); CinemaBlend (Megan Behnke), Sept. 28, 2026, for the returning guest stars and Netflix availability. Photos and video: Live with Kelly and Mark (ABC); Starz (S.W.A.T. Exiles trailer); Sony Pictures Television (“Meet the Squad”); GMA3 (ABC).