CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION’s Zach Gilford Warns Fans Will Experience ‘Feelings That You Never Thought You’d Feel for an UnSub’

In the new CRIMINAL MINDS revival, CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION (which bows Thursday, November 24 on Paramount+), the BAU team is back and dealing with one of their biggest threats ever.

“In the premiere, 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,” showrunner Erica Messer said at the show’s TCA panel in September. “We’re lucky to have Zach Gilford bring this one-of-a-kind UnSub to life and have so many familiar BAU agents back on the show.”

For Gilford, who is new to the franchise, he was only able to see the first script when he was offered the role of Elias. With minimal details about his character’s backstory on the page in the first hour, “they were able to tell me the arc of where they saw the character going over the season,” Gilford tells reporters in the video below. “Basically, [they shared] his journey, telling me what his real-life life is…his human life, his non-monster life, as I like to call it. And that all made it really interesting, because this is the first time on the show they’re really, really going home with the UnSub and getting to know him and seeing him function in the world. And you start to realize, ‘Oh, this could be this could be anyone at the grocery store. It could be my next door neighbor.’ He’s just a person, but he does all these horrific things.”

And showcasing the different sides of Elias is important as EVOLUTION spends ten episodes diving into the web of mayhem he’s created.

“Even if we were tracking this guy for 10 episodes, but really just saw the bad side of him, it would be boring,” Gilford says. “It’s like, ‘All right, let’s catch the bad guy’…it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.”

“I’ve always said, in relation to other things, everyone was a little boy once,” he continues. “We all come into this world innocent, I believe. We get into his origin story, a bit, and you see sort of how he got put on this trajectory and on this path. I think you’ll find yourself feeling for him. And then you see his normal life and who he is there, when he’s at his job or whatever it is that he’s doing, and it’s like, this is a good guy; I like this guy. But then you see him on his dark side, you’re like, ‘Ooh, no, no, no.’ So I think it’s gonna be really fun for the audience, because you’re gonna find yourself feeling feelings that you never thought you’d feel for an UnSub.”

Watch the video for more from Gilford…

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, Season Premiere, Thursday, November 24, Paramount+

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