FBI: MOST WANTED: Shantel VanSanten Previews the Arrival of Nina’s Family and the Moment That Surprised Her

October 25, 2024 by Marisa Roffman

FBI Most Wanted Nina Family Shantel VanSanten

“White Buffalo” – After a simple act of defiance by a couple of young climate activists goes south, the Fugitive Task Force works to hunt them down before their plans take a devastating turn. Meanwhile, Nina and Scola face family drama when they host her father and sister after they come to town, on FBI: MOST WANTED, Tuesday, Oct. 29 (10:00-11:00 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): Shantel VanSanten as Special Agent Nina Chase and Hannah Adrian as Tink. Photo: CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab available.

FBI: MOST WANTED is diving into Nina’s (Shantel VanSanten) family on the Tuesday, October 29 episode, “White Buffalo,” and things are, well, messy.

“Before we started this season, [FBI: MOST WANTED showrunner] David Hudgins and I got a chance to speak, and he told me the…Nina-focused episodes, where we get to see her personal life, are going to be really family-oriented this year,” VanSanten tells Give Me My Remote. “[He shared] we were going to get to meet her dad and her sister…I had a framework, not maybe as fleshed out as the writers could do, but I had this skeleton of Nina that I developed a backstory for and a childhood for when I was on FBI [prior to joining MOST WANTED]. So it was important to me that we were going to be diving in and seeing more of her, and her story.”

“[This allows] the audience to understand a little bit more of her, not just through Scola’s eyes or the job’s eyes, but through her family,” she continues. “Which is always so telling of a person, when you get to learn a little bit more about their childhood, or where they came from, or see the people who raised them.”

The CBS drama recruited John Finn to play Nina’s father, Jackson, and Hannah Adrian to play her sister, Tink, in the hour. But it turned out, there was actually a surprise in store for VanSanten in the script. “I got to learn that Nina was not my real name—that was a very big surprise,” she says with a laugh. “That was never previously discussed. There were a few different versions of Nina’s real name [before we filmed], and they landed on Marina. I like the name Nina. I’ve always been Nina. So for me, it was great, because my reaction [when she’s called Marina] was that of real Nina’s, which is, ‘That’s not my name.’ But that was a surprise to me.”

The actress also spoke with Hudgins about some of the family’s backstory that isn’t on-screen yet. “We allude to a past history that was really tough,” VanSanten previews. “I had my own ideas and wanted to make sure we were on the same page for the sake of the actress who plays Tink, my sister, so I could share with her and we could talk about what our childhood was like and know the same background history we were referring to in our scenes.”

While Nina is trying to handle her familial drama, she gets called into a case: A couple of climate activists draw the attention of the Fugitive Task Force.

“It’s always so interesting to me because I think these characters balance things so much better than I ever would,” VanSanten acknowledges. “I think they’re superhuman in that way: The way that they go from handling cases and seeing death or possibly having to cause somebody’s life to be taken in certain scenes and then come home and it’s life as usual. I’m always astounded when we have to do those things.”

“But Nina’s handling her family being in town really well because she has an amazing partner in Scola,” she continues. “When she gets the call and says, ‘I’ve got to leave town,’ he picks up [the slack] and takes over and handles the family and Dougie. I really think it shows that they’re in such a strong place in their partnership that he can do that for her and there isn’t that sort of resentment…That’s kind of their understanding: When the job calls, that’s important. That’s number one. Because keeping the world safe, and making a better world for Dougie, is a huge focus of both of theirs.”

“White Buffalo” – After a simple act of defiance by a couple of young climate activists goes south, the Fugitive Task Force works to hunt them down before their plans take a devastating turn. Meanwhile, Nina and Scola face family drama when they host her father and sister after they come to town, on FBI: MOST WANTED, Tuesday, Oct. 29 (10:00-11:00 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): Shantel VanSanten as Special Agent Nina Chase, John Finn as Jackson Chase, and John Boyd as Special Agent Stuart Scola. Photo: CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab available.

It’s also already been a big season already for Scola (John Boyd) on FBI. And while Nina hasn’t appeared on the mothership in any aired episodes this season (yet), it’s important to VanSanten to know what’s going on with her on-screen partner to put little touches into her own work on MOST WANTED.

“There’s quite a lot of dialogue behind the scenes,” VanSanten shares. “I knew that he was stabbed and I knew that he was losing his partner, and [other] things that are going to be happening on his show. Of course, especially when there’s anything that’s kind of Nina-center[ed mentioned there, I want to know].”

“It informs little things that maybe the audience wouldn’t really pay attention to, like Nina walking into the muster room later because she, in my mind, was up all night at the hospital after surgery,” she continues. “So, she’s standing and drinking coffee at the top, and it was just like, ‘Okay, it was a long night. There’s a lot going on.’ Or, ‘It’s been a long three days,’ however long it’s been in between because they don’t always happen simultaneously. But just kind of informing yourself of what’s happening in Scola’s world and for Nina the same.”

VanSanten points out the writers are also a big part of the planning. “If we have a babysitter in one, we’re not gonna have a different babysitter in another,” she says. “My sister’s in town in one, I should be informed of it. So that was always kind of the idea with having me on another show: We would be interconnected. Sometimes those things would play out on screen, and sometimes they’re in the subtleties of our performance.”

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

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FBI: MOST WANTED: Shantel VanSanten Previews the Arrival of Nina’s Family and the Moment That Surprised Her

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