‘FBI: International’: Eva-Jane Willis on Smitty Almost Leaving Team & Her ‘Internal Battle’ Returning to Old University

Smitty (Eva-Jane Willis) must face her past while solving a case in the next FBI: International.

In the February 11 episode, “Veritas Fidelis,” an American student is found dead at a prestigious U.K. university, which Smitty attended.

“The Fly Team investigates this infamous secret society and we learn how Smitty herself was kind of up against this old world elitism in her time at that very same university,” Willis tells TV Insider. “It begins with Smitty turning up at what appears to be a terrible accident. This young girl has died on campus. [Smitty] was in the local area visiting family, so she turned up to see what was going on and obviously had this interest because it was her university. Smitty decides that this doesn’t look like an accident and the Fly Team needs to investigate.”

She does find herself reverting a bit to the 19-year-old version of herself from her days at the university, Willis admits, specifically in the presence of the headmistress. It’s “almost like she’s been called to be told off again. It’s an interesting internal battle that she has because in her life she’s got so much authority and power and is almost fearless, and then suddenly what would be to anyone else a sweet old British lady head mistress can make her feel a little bit powerless,” she details. “It’s an interesting internal battle for Smitty throughout.”

Looking back on her time at this university isn’t easy for Smitty. When she was there, her focus was on learning. “I think that the thing that Smitty finds the hardest about what happened at the school, the fact that she wasn’t able to complete her degree there, is that she has always had the passion to help people, and by being at this top university, she’s able to get on track to become an incredible doctor one day,” says Willis. “Following that path towards becoming someone who helps people, I think, would’ve been so important to her, and for her to lose out on that would’ve been devastating.”

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This dive into her past comes one episode after she’d been willing to leave the team so she wouldn’t have to lie when questioned about Tyler Booth’s (Jay Hayden) actions for a possible promotion; he, instead, withdrew himself for consideration for that new job (which would’ve put him closer to his daughter). Willis confirms that Smitty was “absolutely willing to leave.”

She explains, “I don’t think Smitty bluffs really. She can be quite guarded and it can take quite a lot to earn her trust and the ongoing kind of battle that she was having with Mitchell [Jesse Lee Soffer] at the very start of the season, and then that kind of being compounded and made even more dangerous with Tyler’s presence, I think that made her feel that she really was a thorn in Mitchell’s side and that she needed to step aside so that they could run the team the way that they want to run the team. It’s his team, and if they keep going head-to-head all the time, it can cause problems and it’s not really how you want a team to run. You want everyone to be on the same page and everyone to be pulling in the same direction.”

Smitty would have rather “maintained her position as a kind of law-abiding, rule following person, not lie to anyone who calls her for that call and to just step aside and go find another team that’s more in line with the way that she wants to do things. Even though she has made some incredible relationships on the Fly Team, I think that at that point she was willing to go, ‘Okay, I don’t think this is a good fit. I’m going to step aside.'” The good news is she didn’t have to and she and Tyler were able to part as friends when he returned home.

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