FBI: INTERNATIONAL: Jay Hayden Previews Booth’s History with ‘Old Friend’ Wes

December 5, 2024 by Marisa Roffman

“Keen as a Bean” – Wes’ former colleague, U.S.-based agent Tyler Booth (guest star Jay Hayden), enlists the Fly Team’s assistance in helping him capture an American on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list by luring him out of Russia with the help of the perp’s conflicted ex-wife, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, Dec. 10 (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: Jay Hayden as Agent Tyler Booth. Photo: Nelly Kiss/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

FBI: INTERNATIONAL’s Fly Team is getting a bit of help starting with the Tuesday, December 10 episode of the CBS drama: Agent Tyler Booth, played by STATION 19 vet Jay Hayden.

The arc brings Hayden together on-screen with his long-time friend Jesse Lee Soffer—an X factor he credits with helping him get the part.

“I think that Matt Olmstead, who is the showrunner, trusts Jesse a lot,” Hayden tells Give Me My Remote. (In addition to working together on INTERNATIONAL, Olmstead and Soffer also worked together on CHICAGO P.D.) “I think that him and Jesse had spoken a bit about maybe some fun character turns this season that were going to be happening. And I found myself having lunch with Matt and talking about what I was doing and the show that he was doing with Jesse. Then the next thing I know, they had gotten into contact with my reps and I was coming out there.”

“So I felt very lucky that Matt trusted me with this kind of character,” he continues. “And Jesse, obviously, probably went to bat for me.”

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A post shared by Jesse Lee Soffer (@jesseleesoffer)

In “Keen as a Bean,” Booth reunites with his former partner, Wes (Soffer), as the Fly Team tries to help Booth track down a nefarious fugitive…and the agents attempt to utilize the complicated relationship between the perp and his ex-wife.

“This is a guy that Tyler Booth has been chasing for a while and really has kind of caught a little bit of a break in the case,” Hayden previews. “But he needs an old friend’s help, but that old friend comes with baggage. They’ve been through some stuff, and maybe the air needs to get cleared a little bit, but he needs his help, and he’s going out there to get him, get his guy.”

Wes and Booth’s history is intense: As Soffer previously teased, Booth was the other agent Wes was working with when the men wound up a major standoff that had catastrophic consequences. And while Wes was able to get away with limited repercussions after the operation fell apart, things were messier for Booth.

How that history will play into their present will “be interesting,” Hayden acknowledges.

“Wes is a good guy. And when you meet Tyler, you go, ‘Oh, these are definitely not the same kind of guy,’” he notes. “They were partners and they did handle certain situations differently. And they still do. And Wes is in charge of this Fly Team now. And will this old partner disrupt his decision-making? Especially because it’s like, ‘Hey, I need your help with my case.’ So, who’s in charge? I think that’s definitely going to be difficult for Mitchell. I don’t think Tyler’s always going to make things easier for Wes.”

Playing scenes opposite Soffer, however, “was so much fun,” Hayden gushes. “We had a blast.”

“Jesse and I have been buddies for so long, but we always just found ourselves on different projects,” he says. “What are the chances? What is the percentage chance that one of your closest friends, you get to act with on a TV show? That doesn’t happen. Like, I didn’t know [STATION 19’s] Barrett [Doss], but she became one of my closest friends…So to find myself on set with Jesse and us getting to do that together was so special and so much fun.”

Hayden also praises Olmstead, who “wrote the heck out of the character.”

“It was so cool of him to be like, ‘This is the guy I want you to play,’” he says. “And then [I was] like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And then have to carve that all out and then bring the Jay part of it into [who Booth is]. It’s a lot different than the other characters that I’ve played in the past. So I thought it was really great, because, yes, I collaborated once the character was given to me; I collaborated [with] putting my essence into it. But Matt really had written a fantastically well-rounded, well thought out, complete character that I got to jump into.”

“Keen as a Bean” – Wes’ former colleague, U.S.-based agent Tyler Booth (guest star Jay Hayden), enlists the Fly Team’s assistance in helping him capture an American on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list by luring him out of Russia with the help of the perp’s conflicted ex-wife, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, Dec. 10 (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): Vinessa Vidotto as Special Agent Cameron Vo, Carter Redwood as Special Agent Andre Raines, Jay Hayden as Agent Tyler Booth, and Eva-Jane Willis as Europol Agent Megan “Smitty” Garretson. Photo: Nelly Kiss/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Filming FBI: INTERNATIONAL also meant that Hayden got to shoot scenes on location in Europe. (The CBS drama largely films in Budapest.)

“All the locations are so gorgeous and beautiful, and the architecture is crazy,” he gushes. “I don’t know how they talked someone into letting us film on the side of a castle wall or overhanging…you have the main train station, which is like Grand Central Station of Budapest, [and] there’s tons of trains. It’s so beautiful. The hangar is so deep and it’s so crazy beautiful. We just own it. We’re just shooting there for hours. There’s some government employees being like, ‘Hey, you guys are good!’”

“So, the scope and scale of the show is huge, and it’s daunting to be there,” he continues with a laugh. “I was just running around with my little firefighter hat around LA [on STATION 19] and then suddenly I’m sprinting across train tracks and on top of, like, battlements with a gun. It was very different. It was shocking for me.”

And there was an important lesson to be learned, too: “Jesse’s used to this, but sprinting after bad guys on cobblestone is very different on your body,” Hayden says with a laugh. “It’s an adjustment.”

“[It’s] hours and hours of takes,” he continues. “And I’ll tell you right now: Stunt guys run fast. So they are running from you, and you are sprinting on that cobblestone over and over again. And [FBI: INTERNATIONAL stars] Carter [Redwood] and Vinessa [Vidotto] and Eva[-Jane Willis] and Jesse, they’re used to it. They do it…And then there’s Jay Hayden, cruising along, trying to catch up.”

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

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