Jesse Lee Soffer Talks Action-Packed ‘FBI: International’ Season 4 Premiere; Reveals Tank Meet & Greet
Former Chicago P.D. star Jesse Lee Soffer is zooming into a new chapter in his career, starring as Supervisory Special Agent Wesley “Wes” Mitchell in Season 4 of CBS’ FBI: International, which premieres on October 15. In the clip above, we have your exclusive first look at the action-packed events that eventually take Wes on a trip abroad.
In “A Leader, Not A Tourist,” Wes gets caught up in an epic car chase following a mysterious crew causing chaos in Los Angeles. But when his partner is shot and the suspects flee to Budapest, Wes is hot on their trail with a little assist from the Fly Team. Oh, and for anyone wondering, Soffer is doing “most” of his own stunts. “Yeah, my knees are aching,” he joked during a recent interview with Deadline.
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The new gig heralded a big reunion between the fast and furious driver and Chicago P.D. co-creator Matt Olmstead, who writes and executive produces on FBI: International.
“There’s so much action, the first episode is great,” he teased. “When Matt and I first started talking about doing this, we discussed who this character was going to be. I love Matt’s writing, which was one of the biggest draws for me to do this. He delivered; that first episode was so much fun and it felt like a pilot.”
He continued, “When you meet Wes, he’s in this complicated relationship and he’s obviously married to his work. You’ll see his girlfriend throwing out his shit because she thinks he’s cheating but he’s not. He’s just a hard worker but they get into this fight, and that’s how the episode starts. When he goes off afterward with his partner, who’s a close buddy, they get involved in a shooting when they’re chasing this robbery crew. But when his partner gets shot, Wes becomes a man on fire and chases these guys to Budapest. He reconnects with Cameron Vo (Vinessa Vidotto) there, with whom he has this whole backstory…The episode is packed with a lot of characters, backstories and a lot of action. It’s a great starting point for this new season of FBI: International and this new energy.”
The “new energy” arrives following the exit of Luke Kleintank, who led the series as Scott Forrester across the show’s first three seasons. Forrester made his final appearance in episode 11 on May 7 and his character was written off in the finale of Season 3 as having gone on the run with his mother with the pair heading to Alaska. In the final beats of the finale, the Fly Team fully welcomes Tank (Green) into the fold and is adopted by Raines (Carter Redwood). Does that mean he could be returning for a meet-and-greet with Wes?
“Wes meets Tank and Tank signs off on Wes,” Soffer confirms. “Everything is cool so hopefully that gets me some street cred with the fans. Trust me, I know Tank is the star of the show. We had a really cozy, cuddly scene in the second episode, so hopefully that will be a treat for the fans.”
In addition to the beloved black Giant Schnauzer, Soffer will also be joined on the show by his friend and Station 19 star Jay Hayden, who will portray Agent Tyler Booth in episodes to air later in the season, as we reported in September.
“You have no idea how exciting it is. It’s so cool,” he said of working with Hayden. “Jay is one of my best friends for over 15 years. We studied acting together, we taught together. We used to coach each other on auditions. We were both on TV at the same time, but I was in Chicago and he was in Los Angeles, so we hung out during hiatuses. It’s a dream come true that we get to work together on the same show. I hope the fans like our dynamic.”
Soffer further teased that Wes and Tyler “have a really cool backstory” and “have been through some shit together.”
He continued, “Wes marches to the beat of his own drum and doesn’t always do things the right way. He doesn’t go by procedure and is more like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna get it done and we will figure out if there’s a solution somewhere.’ Jay’s character Tyler is even worse than that. He’s like, ‘We’ll do the wrong thing to get it done…’ For Wes, Tyler is his bad angel and Smitty [Eva-Jane Willis] is the good angel because he’s somewhere in the middle.”
With Wes and Soffer’s Chicago P.D. character Jay Halstead both being law enforcement professionals in the Dick Wolf Universe, it was inevitable that both were present in Soffer’s mind when he was shooting.
“[Playing Wes], was both easy and hard at the same time. It’s tricky because they’re both cops, so their situations, their procedures and their lines of dialog and [using technical terms] like, putting out a BOLO or giving a description of somebody, all those cop thoughts are the same,” Soffer said. “The easy part is that Halsted had so much baggage at the end of P.D. and had been put through the wringer and was such a brooding, dark character. But Wes is like a breath of fresh air; he’s much lighter, carefree, and kind of unaffected. I have joked a couple of times that they do hold the gun the same way.”
Seeing Soffer with a new love interest on FBI: International caught me a little off guard as a long-time Chicago P.D. watcher who half expected Haley (Tracy Spiridakos) to appear—no disrespect to the actress who plays his love interest in the series. Hey, it’s an Upstead thing and Haley did leave P.D. for a job with the FBI. Although Soffer is not playing Halstead anymore, it could be a fresh start for both Haley and Wes.
“Hypothetically, she exists in this universe,” Soffer said of Haley. “And if she ever showed up in Budapest, Wes would be like, ‘Do I know you?'”
He added, “Hey, you never know.”
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