FBI’s Jeremy Sisto Previews Jubal’s Very Personal Visit to FBI: INTERNATIONAL

After helping the Fly Team via phone and video calls on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, FBI’s Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) heads to Budapest for an in-person assist on the Tuesday, April 9 hour, “Remove the Compromise.”

“I’m on the same show ten months of the year, so it’s nice to just jump out and join another production,” Sisto tells Give Me My Remote with a laugh. “And [I get to be with] another group of actors and play with them, just on a purely personal level; I enjoy it. But it is also fun to see how different writers from a different universe [write Jubal]—because the show is different. They’re a little bit more superheroes over there; they do a lot of action-y, sort of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE kind of [things]. Whereas ours is a little bit more grounded in the New York investigative qualities of the cases.”

“It’s fun to join in that slightly different [world] and to try to make sure the character aligns the same with the character that’s over [on FBI]; I really enjoy it,” he continues. “They’ve also started a JOC-type situation [on INTERNATIONAL]. Last year, I was over there on the crossover and was talking to the writers, and was excited to see that they were exploring that because it is a great, great part of our show. It also really helps with tying the stories together. And so it was nice to get over there and see where they were in the process of developing that device. It took us a while to try to figure out how to use the device of the JOC…so that was fun. But Jubal is a pretty versatile character. He’s a really great character for shows like this—he’s got a lot of different sides of himself. He is obviously very capable. But he’s also got a number of personal challenges and complications that can arise, while not completely short-circuiting a case.”

Unfortunately for Jubal, it’s not exactly a relaxing work trip: Though Vargas (David Zayas) is safely locked up after tormenting the FBI agents—and arranging the death of Jubal’s girlfriend, Rina (Kathleen Munroe), from prison—his cartel is still active internationally. Jubal, naturally, has a very personal desire to see it shut down.

Initially, though, Sisto didn’t know that Vargas would be tied into the crossover. “I was at dinner with [FBI franchise executive producer] Dick [Wolf] and [Wolf Entertainment President] Peter [Jankowski] and all the New York actors on Dick’s shows, and then Peter was like, ‘Hey, you feel like going to Budapest?’” Sisto recalls. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ He always checks because I’ve got a family and he wants to make sure it’s all going to work out, which is super nice of him…[and] I didn’t get any heads up about [the story] at all, which is fine by me. I got the script and, yeah, it was an interesting one.”

“The writer [of “Remove the Compromise”] I think is great; I love Edgar [Castillo],” he continues. “There was a very complex, strange arc for Jubal that I’ve never really seen. I mean, Jubal definitely has the ability to take a back seat—he is extremely respectful of his own position, respectful of [FBI’s] Isobel even when he disagrees with her. He knows how to work as a team.”

But with the Durango cartel, Jubal has experience the agents in the Fly Team simply don’t have. “He’s been keeping his eyes on [the cartel],” Sisto previews. “His team put away the leader, Vargas, and they’ve been reeling, but the cartel is finding new life, as they do. For him, even though they might be different people running the show, it’s always gonna be a thing. You say the Durango cartel and he’s gonna have a little extra fire to just knock that whole organization out of existence. Even if it’s not completely rational because the person behind what occurred, they got him, he’s in prison. But the organization that he created is still in existence.”

Though it may be more personal for Jubal, his aforementioned established connections come into play. “The thing I’ve liked about Jubal from the beginning, and that has come in [here], is how connected he is to the world and to people,” Sisto says. “How he’s really able to jump into situations and feel at home in some very strange situations. I love him walking into their JOC over there and having this relationship with everyone and feeling pretty quickly like he’s a part of the team—although he does kind of piss them off this time because of his slightly altered sense of who he should be, he still fits in with the group pretty well.”

“And, personally, I enjoy fitting into the group, too,” he continues. “It’s nice to have a second family over there. My son came with me [during production]. We had night shoots every night, [filming in an] abandoned Russian military base…it was really fun.”

FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS

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