FBI: INTERNATIONAL: Matt Olmstead on the Delicate Balance of Introducing New Characters and Season 3’s JOC-Like HQ

May 21, 2024 by Marisa Roffman

“Cowboy Behavior” – The Fly Team heads to Bulgaria in search of a wanted criminal who is exploiting underage American girls. Meanwhile, Raines becomes curious when Forrester asks him to keep an eye on Powell, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, March 12 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured (L-R): Christina Wolfe as Special Agent Amanda Tate, Carter Redwood as Special Agent Andre Raines, Vinessa Vidotto as Special Agent Cameron Vo, Eva-Jane Willis as Europol Agent Megan “Smitty” Garretson, and Greg Hovanessian as Damien Powell. Photo: Nelly Kiss/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[This interview was conducted earlier in the season, before news of Luke Kleintank’s exit broke.]

When FBI: INTERNATIONAL kicked off its third season, there was a noticeable shift in place for how stories were told: Instead of the Fly Team being on the go for the bulk of the hour, there was now an active headquarters, with some agents working from that hub as others did boots-on-the-ground investigating in European countries.

“There was kind of a happy…I wouldn’t say accident, but ramification, of the fact that when the original hub was blown up at the end of last season, it gave us all these character moves and the stakes involved [in that cliffhanger], but also your workspace has been eliminated,” FBI: INTERNATIONAL showrunner Matt Olmstead tells Give Me My Remote. “Now you have to find a new one. And so production-wise and storytelling-wise, we saw it as an opportunity—I would say especially production-wise, because where we were…it was kind of tough to film there. So we’re like, ‘Well, if we’re going to move to a new place, what can we do, having learned the limitations of that space? How do we open it up?’”

“And also, I was on the [ONE] CHICAGO shows for the first five years and one thing that [executive producer] Dick [Wolf] always liked was this kind of inner connectivity between the CHICAGO shows,” he continues. “It’s certainly easier there: They’re all in the same city, all three shows are basically on the same stages; we’re halfway across the world. But we wanted to kind of do a little more video punch-ins from the other two FBI shows…we want to see that these shows all live in the same universe. And so the new hub allowed us to do that. Also to [model it] a little bit off of the JOC in the FBI mothership, which really works for them, and we want to just expand it a little bit. So we’re able to add a couple analysts in the background, some great actors who’ve been helping us out.”

“Rules of Blackjack” – When a U.S. mercenary claiming to fight child trafficking abroad is apprehended at a remote Romanian border police outpost after the U.S. DOJ suspects his crew of embezzlement, Tate and Raines attempt to get him to flip on the leader of the group. The mission takes a turn when the outpost is attacked as they work to secure evidence, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, April 16 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured: Christina Wolfe as Special Agent Amanda Tate. Photo: Nelly Kiss/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To help facilitate their new homebase, the show also added Christina Wolfe’s Amanda Tate—who “really popped for us immediately,” Olmstead recalls of the audition process—who could “hold down the new hub.”

“Before [in the old HQ space] we would kick off the show with the hub scene and then we’re off to the races,” Olmstead recalls. “[We’d be on locations] and maybe would come back to the hub. We wanted someone who could hold down the nerve center, who can really throw information to our actors and characters in the field.”

Olmstead, a Wolf Entertainment vet—who worked on CHICAGO FIRE, co-created CHICAGO P.D., CHICAGO MED, and LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, plus co-developed CHICAGO JUSTICE—also utilized his decades of television experience in helping facilitate new character introductions on the show.

“This is something that Derek Haas, who co-created FBI: INTERNATIONAL, and a good friend of mine…we had a cop character on P.D. that we introduced,” Olmstead recalls. “We had two of the existing characters not like him from past grievances, just to give conflict. But we realize that when there is a new character and you hope that they can be a series regular…you already bury them from the beginning by having two characters you like not like him or her. [The new character is] already wearing ankle weights, so to speak, and you’re having to kind of recover them. And I remember Derek was very specific, like, ‘Wow, people don’t really like this character.’”

“At the same time, we were [working] on CHICAGO FIRE, and we introduced a new character—the Stella Kidd character, who is still on the show,” he continues. “And because of what we learned on P.D., we had one of the characters on FIRE, as soon as she hears the name [go], ‘I love her, she’s great.’ And just bring that character in with some wind in their sails, so they can have some momentum going forward.”

It’s not always an exact science, the showrunner concedes. “Sometimes you want someone who’s a little bit in the gray area or a nemesis or whatever it is,” he says.” But if you’re looking to have someone be part of a team, sometimes it’s better to have the other people want them there. So that’s why we had the Tate character prove herself in the first episode…it was kind of a hard lesson that we learned in the CHICAGO shows…We saw it actually [play out in] real-time and we just went to the other show [thinking,] ‘We’re not going to make the same mistake.’”

FBI: INTERNATIONAL Season 3 Finale: 'Tuxhorn' Photos

“Tuxhorn” – The Fly Team heads to Oslo when they are tipped off that two Norwegian prisoners are being held in Russia, on the third season finale of FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, May 21 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured (L-R): Eva-Jane Willis as Europol Agent Megan “Smitty” Garretson, Colin Donnell as Brian Lange, and Carter Redwood as Special Agent Andre Raines. Photo: Lars Olav Dybvig/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Off-screen, it’s also been a big year for Olmstead: While he has been with the CBS series from the start, season 3 also marked his first year as solo showrunner on the show. (Haas ran the series in seasons 1 and 2.)

“I was on the show for the prior two years when Derek was running it—he’s one of my dearest friends, so I was there to help him out, as we did on the CHICAGO shows, just kind of huddled together,” he recalls. “And it was already, through him, hitting on all cylinders by the time I took over this season.”

And the showrunner has been embracing keeping INTERNATIONAL simultaneously unique and a part of the larger FBI universe. “It’s a matter of checking out the other shows, living and learning, wanting us to kind of see the other shows on our show a little bit more, but also embracing the distinctive nature of our show,” Olmstead says. “[INTERNATIONAL] is obviously international, [and] part of the obstacles that come to the investigation when you’re working internationally [is] each country has its own distinctive government. I’ve worked on cop shows and other shows, and when you’re always working in the same city, the expression [is], ‘Step aside, homicide’—when they walk in the door, we’re in charge. Part of this show is we show up locally, they don’t want us here. We have to navigate their personalities, we have to navigate their rules, we have to kind of finesse. Which is a cool thing to play in terms of conflict and the uniqueness of this show.”

“So [we’re] definitely embracing our own uniqueness while being aware of the strengths of the show,” he continues. “And then also it comes from Wolf and everybody upstairs, as we say, who really have a macro view of all three of these shows and nine shows, in general. So they’re there also to help us kind of stay distinctive, but also within the world.”

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

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FBI: INTERNATIONAL: Matt Olmstead on the Delicate Balance of Introducing New Characters and Season 3’s JOC-Like HQ

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