Just when they thought they were out — they pull them back in! And that’s not such a bad thing. The gang that solved scores of heinous crimes for 15 seasons on “Criminal Minds” is back.
“Criminal Minds: Evolution” marks a new version, streaming on Paramount+ and featuring most of the original cast as the crime solvers who specialize in profiling and character analysis for the FBI.
“The first year has 10 episodes and explores what our heroes have been up to since February of 2020, which is the last time you saw them, or, as we call it, ‘the-before-times,’” says Erica Messer, executive producer and writer on the new show.
“The B.A.U. (Behavioral Analysis Unit), like a lot of workplaces, has had some changes,” she says. “These past few years ... have made the team count on one another a lot more. And that is a very good thing, because they're going to discover there's been a prolific killer on the loose since 2005, and he's evolved into legendary status during the pandemic.
‘We're lucky to have Zach Gilford bring this one-of-a-kind unsub to life and have so many familiar B.A.U. agents back on the show.”
Joe Mantegna returns as agent David Rossi, Kirsten Vangsness as computer whiz Penelope Garcia, Paget Brewster as Emily Prentiss, A.J. Cook as Jennifer "J.J." Jareau, Aisha Tyler as Tara Lewis and Adam Rodriguez as Luke Valdez. Among the B.A.U. MIA are Matthew Gray Gubler and Shemar Moore.
“Our hope is that the team members that we ended the series with on CBS will be able to come back and play at some point,” muses Messer.
“But everybody does have other projects. And the timing — we started shooting in August, and we're going to be wrapped in December because it's a 10-episode season. So there was a short window to try to get all of our friends to play, and we weren't able to make that commitment.”
When “Criminal Minds” began, it proved a mega hit for CBS, though two attempts at spin-offs didn’t quite work. The drama was based on authentic cases reported by Edward Allen Bernero, a former Chicago cop who served as executive producer on the series.
“All of our cases are based in real cases. I don’t want anyone who was actually involved in it to ever know,” he said. “So we start out with a kernel of what’s a real case, and then we try to make it so different that nobody who was actually involved in it ever would know.”
The show was unusually graphic and grisly, especially for network television. But Bernero said that was not an exaggeration. “Our cases all start with a basis in reality, but we’ve had to tone down almost every single one of them,” he said. “What is REALLY happening is much worse than anything we could or want to do. Actually, there hasn’t been a single one we didn’t have to tone down.”
Mantegna adds, “If you think you were disturbed before, we may be taking it to another level. But I've always been a defender of the fact that our show gave that realistic aspect to what these real men and women do. Because very often we hear, ‘Oh, how can you?’ ‘Don't you get nightmares?’ Or, ‘Doesn't it disturb you to do this show?’ No. My feeling is it doesn't disturb me at all. Because when they say ‘cut,’ that person lying there with the ax in his head pops up and goes over to craft services and gets a sandwich,” says Mantegna.
“The ones I worry about are the real men and women of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world who have to really do this for a living,” he says.
“We show it like it is. I grew up in the era of when you watch a cowboy movie, the guy got shot and fell over, and it was cute. You know? We show it like it is. And I think that's important. I think you have to show: Thank God we have the men and women who really do this job. And if you really want to see what they have to deal with every day, we're giving you a snapshot of that.”
“We've worked with people that actually do this job, and it's a tireless job,” adds Tyler. “And it does affect them, and it is a very heavy burden for them to carry. And so it's an honor to be able to try to represent that. But I think people find it comforting to go, ‘Oh, there's smart people working hard to make sure that the bad guys go to jail.’”
“Criminal Minds: Evolution” streams a new episode every Thursday night on Paramount+.
Special brings out the 'Beast' in Groban
It’s hard to imagine Josh Groban as the Beast, but that’s his latest gig in ABC’s new live commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the animated film “Beauty and the Beast.” The two-hour special, premiering Dec. 15, features Rita Moreno as narrator and boasts H.E.R. as Belle with Martin Short as Lumiere and David Alan Grier as Cogsworth.
Grier, who first copped the limelight in the comedy series “In Living Color,” says it wasn't till he was in college that he knew he wanted to act. “I wasn't one of those people who acted as a kid. In high school it just wasn't cool to be in ‘Godspell,’” he recalls.
“I dropped out of college at the University of Michigan and moved to New York to be a songwriter. During that year I met some young actors from the Actors’ Studio and went to plays, and they were really cool. They would watch me perform (his songs) and said, ‘You've really got to be an actor!’
“One saw me perform, he saw me singing my songs and he said, ‘You're an actor. You HAVE to do this.’ And he's the one who talked me into it. I tried it. And from the first play I did, from that moment on, it was like, ‘This is what I should do.’ I knew immediately. It was two lines in ‘Othello’ — a messenger from the galleys.”
Grillo stars in biopic
Frank Grillo is starring as the genius Italian auto mechanic-inventor Ferruccio Lamborghini in the new film, “Lamborghini: the Man Behind the Legend,” screening in theaters and streaming on-demand. Lamborghini longed to create the vehicle that could beat that of his lifetime rival, Enzo Ferrari. But could he make it work?
Gabriel Byrne portrays Ferrari and Mira Sorvino costars in this throttle-down biopic. Grillo, (“Kingdom,” “Billions”) seems the perfect choice to play Lamborghini.
The grandson of Italian immigrants, he says, “They were not educated at all. They were farm people from southern Italy, and they had no money and no education. And that’s how bad it was, they had to get out of their country — they were starving. My father was caught between being Italian and being American, and he wasn’t either. My grandparents didn’t speak English. My dad had an older brother that was his surrogate father because my grandparents didn’t fulfill that role. They were fruit vendors, drove a truck, whatever they could do to make money. My father never had a job either that was a career. He had a bunch of jobs. That all affects children.”[
Grillo says that the cinema became an important influence on him when he was growing up. “The one thing I could do as a kid was go to the movies. And I thought, ‘Wow, I’d love to do that one day.’ And here I am talking to you.”[
Actress shifts from 'Equalizer' to a Christmas movie
Actress Liza Lapira takes a break from her tough shift on CBS’ “The Equalizer” to star in a Christmas movie. “Must Love Christmas” premieres on the network Dec. 11 and finds Lapira playing a romance-novel writer who’s suffering writer’s block and seeks refuge via a brief visit to a small town. When an unexpected snowstorm strands her on an icy roadway, she discovers that she and the tow-truck driver may share a past.
Though she’s enjoyed roles on such prestigious shows as “The Sopranos,” “Dexter,” “NCIS,” Lapira says she originally wanted to be a singer. “I came out of the womb singing,” she says.
“I was the 3‑year‑old that Mom would pick up on the counter and be entertained, and so I was just singing and dancing. And then I thought that that's what I was going to do, so I started doing musicals. And ... then I started wanting to do plays without music. I wanted to do straight plays and then it segued into film and TV. Funnily enough, I think my parents — with the singing because it was so obvious — they went along those lines. ‘And get your law degree too, Liza. But clearly you have some ability there, so do that.’"
But acting was another thing, she says. “Acting was a bit of a shock, and eventually they came around in their own ways. They were never not supportive. If anything, they were just fearful. And I think for Dad, it was (my appearance on) ‘NCIS’ that he was like, ‘All right, my girl!’ Reruns to this day and he's like, ‘Yep, that's my girl.’
“And I think Mom, I physically had to take her to sets for her to see, and she was like, ‘Oh, OK, this is a job. Not only is this a job, it's a good job, and it's a job with an army of people. It's not just you and a camcorder. It's like an army. It's like a team, and you're all a team creating this thing.’ And that really crystallized it for her so now we're one big happy family.”
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