Posted in: Paramount+, TV | Tagged: Criminal Minds, criminal minds: evolution

Criminal Minds: Paget Brewster Talks Season 19, Gubler/Spencer & More

Paget Brewster discussed what we can expect from Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 19, the possibility of fan-favorites returning, and more.

While Paget Brewster has built the bulk of her career on comedy with her prolific work on NBC's Community, Friends, Love & Money, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Another Period, Grandfathered, and Huff, she's also been quite active in voiceover with her time on American Dad! The Thrilling Adventure Hour Podcast, Birdgirl, DuckTales remake, and Dan Vs.. The role she is now most synonymous with these days is BAU chief Emily Prentiss on the CBS procedural series Criminal Minds. Appearing in 15 of the 18 seasons, including the current Evolutions revival on Paramount+, Brewster has become one of the longest-tenured cast members of the series, with 225 episodes, the seventh behind Kirsten Vangsness, A. J. Cook, Matthew Gray Gubler, Joe Mantegna, Thomas Gibson, and Shemar Moore. While promoting her latest indie film Touch Me, the actress spoke to Bleeding Cool about how showrunner Erica Messer has handled duties since taking the torch from creator Jeff Davis, how difficult it is to keep up with 18 seasons worth of content to maintain continuity, if we'll see Gubler's Dr. Spencer Reid again after season 18, what it might take to get another fan favorite in Matt Simmon's Daniel Henney to come back, and her future.

Criminal Minds: Evolution Star Paget Brewster on Season 19 Update, Returns and More

BC: You wrapped season 19 of Criminal Minds. What was that like, and how did Jeff and Erica keep things fresh after all this time?

Brewster: Jeff Davis hasn't been a part of the show for a while. He created it, but he's moved on to other shows. Erica Messer, Breen [Frazier], and Chris [Barbour] are the big writers. They get way ahead of it before they even start writing and have ideas running around in their heads. We're waiting for a release date. We don't know when Criminal Minds season 19 is going to air, but I don't know how they do it. It's impressive to keep making stories for a show that's shot 350 something episodes. I don't know, and sometimes the fans know more than we do about what's happened in a storyline, or who this bad guy was.

It's always remarkable when people who watch the show repeatedly know so much about characters, and yeah, I couldn't be a writer. I would need like a Bible or an almanac to find out what we'd shot before, because there are so many that some of us don't know. We must sometimes have had to change the script while we were shooting. We had a guy named… this was in season seven. There are a lot of episodes, so they're phenomenal at coming up with new stories.

When we last spoke, we touched on some potential favorites returning, and, obviously, the big deal was Matthew Gray Gubler's return as Spencer for last season. I think you also mentioned Matt Simmons' Daniel Henney, wondering what he's been up to. Has there been anything about who we should expect a similar surprise this upcoming season, with another fan favorite returning?

Oh…I mean, listen, we always want Daniel Henney to come back, but he has been in Prague for the past four years shooting Wheel of Time, which I think is not continuing. If Paramount picks us up for season 20, which we're all crossing our fingers for right now, it would be great to have Daniel back. Matthew, I don't know if we'd be able to get him back, because he's shooting Einstein. He's shooting that show for CBS, but we can always hope. Just keep texting them and asking them, "Hey, what's up? What are you doing? Are you going to be around? Are we going to go around in May?"

Working on your stuff with Addison [Heimann], Criminal Minds, and voiceover, what are your plans in the future for the role you'll take? Did you want to do more serious work, like you have been doing with Addison and Touch Me, or are you content to continue Criminal Minds and voiceovers?

I'm very happy. I mean, hopefully Criminal Minds continues. I don't know what would happen if it didn't, so we're all hopeful. I love doing voice work, animated series, narration, and crime podcasts. I would love to be a guest star in sitcoms more. I'm just open to anything that speaks to me. I don't prefer drama, comedy or voice. I like doing it all, and I miss sitcoms. A lot of sitcoms were really fun, because they're easier work than single-camera dramas, which are hard. Those are long days, speeches, high-intensity emotions, murder, pulling your gun, running in the woods, and it's a hard job. We all love it, but sitcoms are in front of a studio audience. You're riffing, trying new lines, and that was a great time. I wish there were more sitcoms, but there just aren't, so I guess I would say that's the only thing I wish they were more of.

Yellow Veil Pictures' Touch Me, which also stars Marlene Forte, is now playing in New York, in limited release on March 27th, and on-demand and digital on April 7th. All 18 seasons of Criminal Minds are available on Paramount+

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