FBI's John Boyd Opens Up About 'Surreal' Nature of 3-Way Crossover, Says Final Hour 'Is as Big as It Gets'
John Boyd says that being a part of this Tuesday night’s 3-way crossover between CBS’ three FBI shows was no less than “an out-of-body experience.”
Three years ago, Boyd’s FBI character, Special Agent Stuart Scola, had a small role in a mini crossover with Most Wanted. But this time around, Boyd can be seen in all three episodes of the “Imminent Threat” crossover event.
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“It was definitely a first, getting to take a character that I’ve been building for five seasons and drop into shows that I have watched,” Boyd shares with TVLine. In the crossover event’s third hour, for example, “It was a surreal thing to be sitting in the Muster Room with the cast of Most Wanted, to have a scene where all of them are looking at my character. Like, I’m looking at the show, and the show is looking at me! I was having an out-of-body experience.”
Boyd adds, “That was definitely the most interesting part of crossing over, that no one could have warned me about — the sheer surrealism of taking your character and going into a world that you’ve seen but never played in.”
The “Imminent Threat” crossover event — which is not broken up with individual show credits and instead rolls each breakneck hour right into the next — kicks off Tuesday at 8/7c with an episode of FBI: International. That hour opens with an explosive wedding, before jumping to “Three Months Later,” where the Fly Team led by Special Agent Forrester (Luke Kleintank) gets to investigating an American businessman’s abduction in Rome, Italy.
As it becomes clear that the kidnapping victim knows things that would be extremely useful to terrorists, FBI‘s Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) and Nina (Shantel Van Santen) jet off to Rome. Meanwhile — and likely related to the abduction — Agent Scola back in New York has been working undercover to draw out someone interested in buying industrial-grade explosives. “Scola is doing his job, and… it’s not going great,” Boyd reports. “He’s struggling to get anywhere with the case.”
Not helping matters is that fact that Nina, who is pregnant, is working so dangerous a case over in Rome, while baby daddy Scola is doing his best to not blow his cover amongst a very sketchy and dangerous lot of individuals.
As such, whenever he gets to break cover and come up for air, “Scola’s focus is on his feelings for Nina and missing her and wanting her to know how much he cares about her,” says Boyd.
In the second hour, when Scola’s undercover work points in the direction of some Brighton Beach baddies, FBI: Most Wanted‘s Remy (Dylan McDermott) — who has experience infiltrating Chechan gangs in the Brooklyn nabe — gets called in for a big assist.
“It’s interesting seeing a seasoned agent with that depth of undercover experience joining up with a member of our team,” Boyd notes. “We really get to see Scola respond to the way Remy works, as the leader of an elite fugitive task force.”
The third hour, an FBI: Most Wanted episode, builds to a climax that “is as big as it gets,” Boyd declares. “It’s New York City, it’s three shows, it’s tens of thousands of lives [at risk], every law enforcement agency….
“They pulled out all the stops,” the actor attests. “They really went all out.”
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