1 of 4 | Adam Rodriguez stars in “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” which kicked off its 19th season this weekend. Photo courtesy of Paramount+
This weekend’s Season 19 premiere of Criminal Minds: Evolution saw Adam Rodriguez’s FBI Behavioral Analyst Unit investigator Luke Alvez facing two unimaginable traumas — his dog Roxy’s death and a gruesome case in which someone is lobotomizing his fellow veterans.
The Paramount+ drama co-stars Joe Mantegna, Paget Brewster, A.J. Cook, Aisha Tyler, Kirsten Vangsness and Zach Gilford.
“You’ve got an ensemble where everybody gets a turn at really carrying the ball and this was my turn and I was really excited about getting the opportunity to do that,” Rodriguez, 51, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“For the character Luke, I think it’s important for the fans to grow their relationship with him and this was one of those episodes,” he said. “The fans really get to see a different side of him. They get to experience some things emotionally with him and take a ride with him that really furthers the relationship, makes it deeper.”
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Rodriguez acknowledged that having the spotlight on him was as nerve-wracking as it was thrilling.
“You always get a little nervous, or I do anyway, when you’ve got some big, emotional things to play,” he said. “It’s a challenge, but an exciting challenge.”
One of the most moving moments so far this season is a scene when Luke is grieving over his dog, alone in an elevator, then must instantly regain his composure when the doors open and he has to get to work.
“Those scenes are tough, but that’s the job,” Rodriguez said.
“Some people can tap into those places really easily, and those places, for me, are the hardest to go to on camera because I don’t often go there in real life, but when I do, it’s something you can’t control, and when you have to control it, as an actor, there’s always that fear of, ‘Am I going to be able to control this and make a performance out of it?'”
It is not easy, he added, to precisely assess what is the appropriate amount of emotion to express.
“You’ve got 100 [crew] people that are, basically, waiting. It’s literally standing around watching you and waiting for you to deliver on this,” Rodriguez said.
“You’ve got a camera right in your face, and sometimes you can get a scene, but something goes wrong with sound or something. Is that in focus? Or, you know, you bump into the camera, something happens, and you’ve got to repeat these things.”
Helping Luke deal with the strain is his fellow team member and close friend Penelope (Vangsness).
“We just keep on shipping and I love it,” Rodriguez said.
“I love the dynamic between our two characters,” he added. “I love Kirsten as a person, outside of this job, and I’m quite certain that shows through our interactions as characters on the show, but I love the dynamic, because she really is light in the darkest places.”
Rodriguez, who starred in CSI: Miami before joining Criminal Minds, said his work on crime dramas offers him insight into how dangerous the world can be and how essential the people who try to protect us are.
“I’d like to believe I’ve always had an awareness and an appreciation for that, but there’s no doubt, that doing this show, has heightened that,” he said.
“We deal with a different kind of criminal on this show than on most of the other law-enforcement shows that I’ve done. We’re really dealing with the type of criminal that is after something else,” he explained.
“They’re after a gratification that’s really rooted in a mental illness, in some really dark driving force that’s hard to see on the surface. They’re not out to murder for reasons that make sense to people.”
The actor said he thinks those making the show and the viewers watching it want the same thing — to understand what motivates the most sinister among us.
“I need to understand this and, by understanding it, maybe I’ll feel a little safer in the world,” he noted.
“I want to try and reconcile why people go through the kind of mental anguish that drives them to hurt other people.”
