‘FBI: Most Wanted’: Dylan McDermott on Jumping From ‘Organized Crime’s Wheatley to Remy Scott

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You can forget about Richard Wheatley — and if you can’t just yet, you will soon enough. Dylan McDermott is now Supervisory Special Agent Remy Scott on FBI: Most Wanted, and while it may seem a bit strange to see the Law & Order: Organized Crime star on another Dick Wolf show — technically part of the same universe, too! — so soon, don’t dwell on it so much.

McDermott’s been reading the comments online about it being “too soon” (his last appearance as Richard came on March 3, and his first as Remy is on April 12). “I’m relishing it,” he admitted when speaking with press ahead of his debut on the CBS procedural drama. “I think it’s amazing that people actually believe that’s the character that I’m playing, that I’m him. Now, they’re gonna see me in a completely different light, from Richard Wheatley to Remy Scott. These are wildly different people and wildly different agendas in life. I knew instinctively that I had been playing some questionable people along the way, and now it was time to play someone good again, and Remy Scott is that character.”

Mark Schäfer/CBS

When Remy first arrives on scene, the team gets to work immediately, investigating a series of homicides tied to a forbidden love between a young teen and her older boyfriend. “You’re gonna see so many facets of this guy that I think you’re gonna quickly forget about Richard Wheatley,” McDermott continued. “By the end of Episode 17, I think you’re gonna be like, ‘This is Remy Scott.'”

Showrunner and executive producer David Hudgins agreed, though noted it wasn’t something the writers worried about given the picture they had in their minds for Remy and how that expanded once they cast McDermott. “The idea was this guy is gonna have some energy and some lightness and some ability to connect with people, which I do think is one of his biggest assets,” he explained. “So I wasn’t concerned about the Richard Wheatley of it all. Especially when we started breaking the episode where Dylan comes in and then when I started seeing his performances, they are so different. … By the time you see him in this episode, and then the others going forward, you’re not gonna be thinking about Richard Wheatley, which by the way, was a f**king great character.”

In fact, McDermott enjoys that people will be watching him back-to-back on Organized Crime and Most Wanted. “I had never seen it done before, frankly, and I thought, ‘That’s cool. Let’s play with that,'” he said. “That’s exciting to me as an actor, to be able to do a wildly bad guy into a character who is so noble.”

Mark Schäfer/CBS

As for what to expect when Remy takes over as team leader, it’s business as usual when they get started. “We were into a case right away, so because these are professional people and agents, they know they have a job to do,” McDermott previewed. “Yes, maybe they have feelings certainly about who I am, where I came from, but I think that awkwardness really diminishes after the first episode.”

Added Hudgins, “As we start to unpack more about who Remy is, you start to see the way the rest of the team is responding to him. One of my favorite things about the new energy and vibe on the team is there’s a lightness to it, in a good way. I feel like we can lean into the moments of the humor on the show now with Dylan. The way he’s playing him is very surprising.” Expect to see him be a great leader, as well as show he trusts his team to get the job done.

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Furthermore, you’ll not only see him share a moment with each member of the team, but “he’s not just barking orders and telling people what to do. He’s listening to people,” the EP said. While as team leader, he’s the one who “ultimately makes the call, he’s welcoming of everybody’s input on the team and they can give him s**t and he can give him s**t right back. And that’s gonna start to develop, all within reason.”

FBI: Most Wanted, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS