This person who missed the flight ends up being somebody that is very influential and important to Forrester’s character, so he goes off on his own to track him down, but then things get even more personal for Forrester when his mother, Angela Cassidy (Elizabeth Mitchell), becomes involved and passes him information. As viewers know from an earlier episode, one of the reasons Forrester went into law enforcement was as a result of his belief that his mother was a traitor, who had defected to Russia when he was a boy. It was only recently he heard from her that that might not be true. She might actually be a double agent. “It becomes an action-packed case to figure out what he’s going to do and how he’s going to either help his mother or not,” Kleintank told Parade.com exclusively. “We don’t know her intentions, we don’t know where she’s coming from, where she’s going. So yeah, it’s a heavy-handed task for him. And the team is helping the whole way along.” But, of course, this is Forrester’s mother so there are the residual feelings from his childhood to deal with even if they haven’t really seen each other —just one time—in 15 years. And that’s where the rock and the hard place come in. “There are a lot of unanswered questions for him,” Kleintank added. “I think, ultimately, he wants her to be telling the truth that she’s been working for the U.S. this whole time and she’s not a traitor. He wants to believe that, but there’s a part of him, too, that’s wary of that because of his training. He’s an FBI agent. He’s constantly looking to people like they’re lying. It’s his mother at the end of the day, so I think he doesn’t want to believe that she’s lying. He wants to trust her, but he doesn’t know if he can.” Also in the interview, Kleintank talks about Forrester’s relationship with Special Agent Jamie Kellett (Heida Reid), his four-legged teammate Tank (Green), and his upcoming movie with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Good Neighbor. Congratulations on the season 2 pickup. How hard is it going to be to live in Europe for another year? It’s terrible [jokes]. No, it’s amazing. Something I never thought I would do in my life, to be honest with you. Not many American TV shows film in Europe. Yeah, it’s true. When we started this show, it was a big step for the majority of us. Taking a big jump over here because we were leaving our families and everybody, but it’s been a real blessing so far to be honest. Incredible. Will this episode be a cliffhanger, or will it be resolved for the season? Well, it’s the season finale. Season finales are always cliffhangers. Forrester and Kellett had a relationship this season, on again, off again. Where are we going to leave them? They’re still figuring their stuff out. Again, that’s a cliffhanger, too. You really don’t know. I think they love each other. I think they love each other so much that they don’t want to ruin each other’s jobs or risk each other’s lives in any way. We’ll see. She turned down the job in New York City that she had been hoping for and then it came through. Does that put extra pressure on their relationship? Maybe it’s an underlying kind of feeling, but I think the main reason why she was thinking about going back to New York, or to have a job placement in the States, is because of her family and everything that’s gone on in her life, with her mother, which they’re going to dive into more in the second season, I’m assuming. I think that was a big part of her allure to go back. But then I think a lot of her doesn’t want to face that, so Forrester, to her, is a comfort away from all of her past drama. You also have a four-legged cast member. Everybody loves Tank, man. But they made him get sick and seem to be using him less now. Was there a reason for that? Yes and no. Again, it’s the first season of the show and you have the characters that are speaking, and so we have to pay attention to them, and we have to bring them into the fold and go into their backstories. Initially, Tank was solving the crimes and he was doing things, but it isn’t a show about a dog; it’s a show about the humans and Tank was there to help. So, I think they wanted to focus a little more on the individual characters. And then also, if you ever worked with an animal, sometimes it gets a little difficult. He’s amazing, he’s great. He’s not hard to work with, it’s just sometimes if he wants to run off, he doesn’t hit his mark. He’ll listen to you sometimes, but you’ve got to make your days as a director, and sometimes if Tank’s really excited that day—his name is not Tank by the way, his name is Green and we have three of them. The main one is Green. Sometimes we feed him a lot of treats and a lot of sausages to get him to do what you want him to do. But sometimes, he’s a dog, he wants to play. He’s actually a puppy. He’s only 3 years old. He’s a sweetheart and he’s not going anywhere. I’m sure he’ll come back more and more, but when we started this season, he’s a pup and he has to be trained and they asked a lot of him. You’re based in Budapest, but you travel around to different countries from what I understand. How hard is that? We haven’t done a lot of moving this year because of logistical reasons and production reasons because we started late in the season. But we went to Croatia for the finale. We went to Prague for an episode. They’ve done some exterior things in France and some in Austria as well. Our art department’s amazing. They’ve been able to convert Budapest into a lot of these different places. And I know from the producers next year we plan to go to a different country every three to four episodes. For me, it’s amazing. It’s a blessing I get to go see a new country that I’ve never seen in my life. The tone of this show is a little bit different than the other two FBI Dick Wolf shows. Is that because crime is different in Europe? Well actually funny enough, the majority of the crime for the FBI is international. It’s not domestic. So yeah, it’s a lot bigger, and you can get away with a lot more. Criminals can run to different countries pretty easily. I always thought the CIA handled all the international stuff, but it turns out that’s not true. That the FBI does get involved in other countries. They do. I can’t remember the exact number, but I think it’s like 98 different locations throughout European countries. All around the world, the FBI has set up house. You were raised speaking English and Spanish. Do you still speak Spanish? Yeah, a little bit. I can understand it more than I can speak it. I was one when we moved to Mexico. Being based in Europe now, are you trying to learn another language? It’s funny, my wife (Christina Vignaud) speaks six languages, and she makes me feel really stupid. Hungarian, I think it’s the top three of the hardest languages to learn. It’s really hard. I’m trying, but I’m not good at it. I have to learn things phonetically, and then they just go out the door. Like they just go in one ear, out the other. You also have a film coming out on June 17, The Good Neighbor. What’s it about and who do you play? We filmed that actually in Latvia, in Riga. It’s a psychological thriller. My character’s name is David, he’s a journalist, he’s had a bad breakup in his life, and he’s trying to find a new situation. And so, he takes a job with a friend played by this amazing actor, Bruce Davison. He gives David a job in Latvia writing for this journalism company. And Bruce’s character lends him the keys to his house and says, “You can drive my car.” The car doesn’t start, and so David goes over to speak to his neighbor, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who helps him with the car. David doesn’t really know anybody in the town, he just moved there, and his neighbor actually speaks English. And so, he’s like, “Oh, new to town, let’s go out for a night.” And they go out for a night and David meets this girl that he really, really likes. He’s just enjoying Europe. He’s turning over a new leaf in life. He meets her and makes the mistake with his new neighbor of driving back a little inebriated. He ends up hitting a girl and killing her. And so, then it’s about the drama that ensues of what do you do in the situation? David wants to call the cops and his neighbor convinces him not to. And then it becomes a psychological drama, who this neighbor really is and his intentions behind his relationship with David. FBI: International airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Next,FBI: International Joins the CBS Lineup and Showrunner Derek Haas Fills Us In On Everything We Need to Know!
