FBI: MOST WANTED: Dylan McDermott and David Hudgins Preview the ‘Completely New Feel to the Team’

The Fugitive Task Force gets a new leader on the Tuesday, April 12 episode of FBI: MOST WANTED, as Dylan McDemott’s Remy Scott joins the elite squad.

“Dylan brings a completely new feel to the team, in all the best ways,” executive producer David Hudgins told reporters. “We’ve had a blast writing for him. I’ve had a blast looking at his work, working with him on the character…I just think he brings such a new energy to the show, and I think the audience is really gonna respond to it. And we’re happy as hell to have him.”

For Remy and the team, they have to immediately focus on work, as a string of homicides takes priority over a more traditional “getting to know you” introduction. (The FTF has been sans a leader in the aftermath of former leader Jess’ death.)

“I feel like we’ve hit the ground running with the first episode, and we were into a case right away,” McDermott previewed. “I think that because these are professional people and these are agents, they know they have a job to do. Yes, maybe they have feelings, certainly, about who I am or where I came from, but I think that awkwardness really sort of diminishes after the first episode.”

“The idea of a new leader coming into a team is such an interesting dynamic to play as writers,” Hudgins added. “Everybody has a different style. And what’s fun about this episode—and even the next couple of episodes going forward—is as we start to unpack more about who Remy is, you start to
see the way the rest of the team is responding to him.”

“One of my favorite things about the new energy and vibe of the team is there’s a lightness to it, in a good way,” Hudgins continued. “I feel like we can lean into the moment of the humor on the show now with Dylan. I think the way he’s playing him is very surprising both to the team, [and] sometimes to us [as writers], in a good way, too…there’s always the opportunity for drama amongst the team but I do think Remy coming into the team, he’s good at what he does, and he’s driven…They understand what he’s doing. So, going forward, I think he’s gonna be a great leader for these guys. And he’s also willing to invest them with their own authority to do things. I think he trusts the team, and that’s gonna be building over the next couple of episodes, as well.”

While there’s been a fair amount of on-screen shakeup on MOST WANTED this season—in addition to former series star Julian McMahon’s big exit and Kellan Lutz’s (who played Crosby) premiere farewell, Alexa Davalos (who plays Kristin) joined, while Keisha Castle-Hughes (who plays Hana) returned from her maternity leave and Roxy Sternberg (who plays Barnes) just left for her own on- and off-screen maternity leave—McDermott is familiar with the Dick Wolf overarching universe, having co-starred as Richard Wheatley in the first two seasons of NBC’s LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME.

“It’s really an interesting process because…I’ve been reading comments online…and people are saying, ‘It’s too soon. He’s Richard Wheatley. He’s a bad guy,'” McDermott noted. “I relish in it, because I think it’s amazing that people actually believe that’s the character that I play, I’m him. So I just love that because now they’re gonna see me in a completely different light from Richard Wheatley to Remy Scott. These are wildly different people and wildly different agendas in life. And I knew instinctively that I had been playing some questionable people along the way, and now it was time to play someone good again. And Remy Scott is that character.”

“That’s exciting to me as an actor to be able to go from a wildly bad guy into a character who is so noble,” he continued. “And I just thought that was a great exercise for me as an actor… I’m using my own sense of
humor in playing Remy Scott, and I love that. I try to steal from a little bit of me as much as I can, because I think that grounds it and makes it real. But every part is like a mathematical problem.”

In the writers’ room, they were aware of what was going on with their cousin franchise, but had no hesitation about bringing McDermott into their world.

“From the [writing] standpoint, from creating the show standpoint, it was not a concern because we had an idea of this character conceptually early on—[and then] Dylan came in and it just expanded even further—[that] this guy is gonna have some energy and some lightness and some ability to connect with people, which I do think is one of his biggest assets,” Hudgins recalled. “So I wasn’t concerned about the Richard Wheatley of it all, especially when we started breaking the episode where Dylan comes in, and then when I started seeing his performances. They are so different.”

“When we were conceiving the character, and speaking with Dick Wolf about it, and we got word that Dylan was potentially available—and then we got word that he was potentially interested, and then we cast him—we were thrilled in the writers’ room,” he continued. “We felt like we had a whole new world to build in and a whole new character to go with…I think by the time you see him in this episode and then the others going forward, you’re not gonna be thinking about Richard Wheatley—which, by the way, was a f—ing great character.”

The possibility of joining the MOST WANTED world arose while McDermott was still busy with ORGANIZED CRIME—and before there was anything he could read about Remy’s introduction. “I found myself daydreaming about what I would do on the show, but I didn’t have a script,” McDermott said. “So I was sort of limited in my daydream, if you will. But I would, nonetheless—I always daydream about a character and I spend time with them. But then I got the script, I was just so floored, because it was so good and it was so detailed, and you really found out who Remy was and his backstory and his relationships and what happened to him. And then I was really able to do a deep dive on him.”

“It’s just been wonderful to work on everyday, because there’s a level of it that I really enjoy,” he continued. “A lot of times, when you’re playing a character and it’s so well-worn, they start to take over, you know? It’s no longer Dylan…it becomes Remy, and that’s why I’m an actor, frankly. That fantasy, when you’re playing a character, and then they start to feed you ideas, that’s when it’s fun. That doesn’t always happen, but it happened to me, really, since I turned 50, for whatever reason—I became free. I don’t know what it is about age, but there’s a wonderful side to aging…When you age, you become more confident. You become more yourself, because you care less about what people think of you.”

And there is long-term potential for Remy to stick around. “I haven’t been the lead on a show in a while,” McDermott acknowledged. “There’s space. There’s landscape. And I feel like we have so much of that [with potential stories]. I think we’re touching on a show that already works, you know? It’s proven that this show works on so many different levels. And now, I believe, for me, I have a character that I can play that it’s wide open—so much can happen. There’s so many things that can happen with Remy Scott over time, and to have that in front of me is the most exciting thing I can think of.”

FBI: MOST WANTED, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS

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