‘Chicago P.D.’s Tracy Spiridakos Says Hailey & OA Butt Heads in ‘FBI’ Crossover

FBI Chicago PD Crossover Tracy Spiridakos Preview
Q&A
Michael Parmelee/CBS

Dick Wolf’s One Chicago and FBI universes collide when Chicago P.D.‘s Hailey Upton heads to New York Tuesday.

In the latest P.D. episode, Voight (Jason Beghe) took action as a response to Hailey’s recent “Voight-ian” decisions — getting Darius Walker killed and planting Gael’s drugs in his car — and assigned her to an FBI task force in New York. Yes, it’s the one operating in CBS’ FBI. “They do things different there,” he told her. “The lines, they are real clear.”

“It’s been fun to play” those Hailey and Voight scenes this season, Tracy Spiridakos told TV Insider. “Jason’s so great.”

Here, Spiridakos discusses Hailey’s questionable behavior on P.D. and previews her FBI crossover.

We’ve seen Hailey make some Voight-like decisions this season, and he’s made it clear that’s not what he wants to see from her. But she doesn’t see anything wrong with her choices.

Tracy Spiridakos: She has a lot of respect for Voight, and she holds him in really high regard. She knows that she’s pushing boundaries, but she’s trying to do the right thing and a good thing, but in a very bad way. With Gael, she planted his own drugs on him, so she is doing a bad thing but hoping for a good reason.

Upton Rojas Chicago PD Season 7

(Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

There’s a scene at the end of the episode we actually didn’t get to see. She goes home and talks to Rojas and Rojas doesn’t know what happened and Upton tells her that “I am here for you, anything that you need.” She really deeply cares for Rojas and was wanting to protect her as best as she could.

Did what she did with Darius Walker make it easier for her to do this with Gael?

I don’t know that it was easier for her. It’s hard for her to do. She plays off — even at the end of the episode with Darius, where she tells Voight when they’re talking — that it’s not affecting her, but it is. She’s really tormented about going back and forth with things. Voight can see that.

What’s cool is we met Voight at the place that he already is and what we get to see with Upton is the things that she’s doing and the decisions she’s making are very Voight-ian. It’s almost like getting to see what Voight was before he was Voight and we get to see a little bit of that in Upton and watching that push-pull with her, back and forth, as she goes in whatever direction she’s going to end up going.

Voight told her she’s going to New York on this assignment. How does she feel about it? Would she have been interested in it as an offer?

She doesn’t feel great about it. Like you said, if it had come under different circumstances, it would’ve been something different. But because she’s being sent away for the reasons that she was, it’s an interesting opportunity, but with a grain of salt. She knows why she’s being sent there.

Zeeko Zaki FBI Season 2 Finale PD Crossover OA

(Michael Parmelee/ CBS)

Is she going into it just planning to get through it and get back to Chicago as soon as she can?

As she’s leaving, that’s the initial feel of it. Then when she gets there, she and OA butt heads in the way they go about things, and as she always is, she’s very guarded when she’s in new situations, as she was when she came to the Intelligence Unit. It takes her a second to warm up, it takes her a second to allow herself to have relationships, friendships.

With OA, when she first gets there, they start to butt heads, but then they start to get on, and they have a good friendship/partnership/relationship. At the beginning, it’s about trying to get through it, but towards the end of it, she enjoys the partnership and has found a friend.

Is she mostly with OA or will we see her with the rest of the team as well?

We do see her with the rest of the team as well, but she definitely works mainly with OA.

What can you preview about them working on the case and how, as the logline teases, Hailey’s “investigative methods clash with the Bureau’s more buttoned-up environment”?

That’s kind of it. Hailey has a tough approach to things and she’s a little more blunt and she’s a little rough around the edges, and that definitely butts heads with OA at the very beginning. As they work together and get to know each other a lot more and see how they operate, they warm up to each other.

Jubal Isobel FBI Season 2 Finale PD Crossover

(Michael Parmelee/CBS)

What does she think of Isobel and Jubal as leaders, especially compared to Voight?

We see them together a little bit but not too much one-on-one. And she’s worked with other bosses before and has had that type of leadership and everything that’s different than Voight before.

Do we get a sense of what she thinks of how the FBI team works together compared to how Intelligence does?

[It’s] very different. She’s impressed by the high-tech FBI operation in New York. It’s a stark difference from District 21. She’s just taking it in and being as respectful of everything as she can be and respecting the way they operate with things, but having her Upton opinion on things.

Yeah, FBI has a room full of people on computers while on P.D., sometimes they’re all around one.

Yeah, exactly, and as she comes in for the first time, we see her taking in everything — all the computers, the people working — and she’s quite taken by how it operates, definitely. Then there’s a moment later on when she and OA are talking and we need some information, and they have it within a few minutes, and Hailey’s quite impressed at how quickly things come back for them.

How many episodes is Hailey away from P.D. for this?

There’s the season finale for FBI, “Emotional Rescue.” We had started to shoot a second episode, but production shut down before it finished, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that. I know that coming back in the new season for Chicago P.D., I will be back.

Tracy Spiridakos Jason Beghe Chicago PD Season 7

(Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

How has Hailey’s time in Intelligence changed her perspective on the way the team does things, especially when she looks at someone like Vanessa who’s new to the team? Vanessa came to her about deleting the footage.

[What’s] really started to shift is she’s watched Voight. Voight has this protectiveness for all of us in Intelligence. He does things that are questionable and puts himself in different situations to protect the team, and that’s the thing that Hailey really respects and that’s what we see her doing with Vanessa. Vanessa’s in a situation, she did a bad thing, and she knows it’s wrong, and she admits it and comes forward with it. Hailey wants to protect her and wants to do what she thinks, as she says [to Voight], “I did what I thought you would do.” She’s trying to protect.

That’s the big thing that has shifted in her in this unit, is other units she’s worked in, it was maybe her and her partner, but never quite as intense as a family unit as Intelligence is, and so the way that they operate is as a family. They have each other’s back. She sees each of these people as her family members.

Vanessa being the new person in the family, she wants to protect her and do what she can do for her. They also have a unique bond. She and Vanessa are roommates and are much closer than maybe some of the other people because of [that] situation.

FBI, Season 2 Finale, Tuesday, 9/8c, CBS

Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC