Why Does Deputy Director Bailey Look So Familiar On Criminal Minds: Evolution?
"Criminal Minds: Evolution" brings the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit back to television — but their new boss isn't going to make their return easy. As seen in the series premiere, the BAU and the NCAVC have been hindered by petty bureaucracy executed at the behest of the affable but ineffective Deputy Director Bailey.
In the first episode, it's shown that Bailey separated the BAU to increase their individual efficiency and save the department money. He also refuses to clue in Agent Prentiss (Paget Brewster) on the whereabouts of Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler's absent character from the original series), and uses the internal jurisdictional process to disrupt Tara Lewis' ongoing investigation. In short, he's a nice enough guy who's terrible at trusting his team.
Bailey is played by Nicholas D'Agosto, a television and film actor whose resume includes a cult comic book series, a major horror film franchise, and one of the most-watched sitcoms of all time.
Hunter Raymond, The Office
Early in his career, Nicholas D'Agosto was a recurring character on one of the most beloved sitcoms of the early 2000s-2010s. Though one of the smaller roles in his resume, his performance as Hunter on NBC's "The Office" not only introduced him to a vast audience several times throughout the show's run, but during its unprecedented streaming renaissance as well (per Variety, it was the most streamed show of 2020).
Hunter was the handsome young assistant of Jan Levinson (née Jan Levinson-Gould), Michael Scott's toxic on-again-off-again girlfriend and former boss. It is inferred throughout the series that Jan and Hunter were having an affair while they worked at Dunder Mifflin — possibly while she was living with Michael. His song, "That One Night," (which D'Agosto actually provided the vocals for and which was featured several times throughout the iconic "Dinner Party" episode) seems to be a hilariously graphic and obvious retelling of their first evening together — it doesn't help that Jan dances to it with a sad sort of calm.
At some point during her relationship with Michael, Jan becomes pregnant. Though she states it was achieved through artificial insemination, many wonder who the father actually is. Though deleted content points toward either Kevin Malone or tennis player Andy Roddick being the sperm donor, one popular theory suggests Hunter is actually the father — "That One Night" might tell the story of the baby's conception. Clearly, D'Agosto's character made quite an impact.
Sam, Final Destination 5
In 2011, Nicholas D'Agosto starred as Sam in the fifth installment of the "Final Destination" horror franchise. Like previous films in the series, it begins with a group of characters narrowly escaping a gruesome fate after one of them experiences a vision of the future. In this case, D'Agosto's Sam sees a suspension bridge collapsing, with the ensuing damage and chaos taking the lives of himself and his friends as they embark on a road trip together.
As a consequence of the vision, Sam urges his friends to abandon the bridge with him — cheating Death of its rightful victims. Throughout the film, his friends are killed off one by one in a number of outrageous, gory, and statistically improbable accidents. In an interview with hollywoodstreams, D'Agosto admitted that he hadn't seen any of the "Final Destination" films prior to accepting the role, as he personally dislikes horror films. "I just get too frightened," he said.
He went on to state that the film's eyeball scene — in which a character's eye is seared by a laser during a routine Lasik procedure — particularly made him squirm. When asked if working on the film made him more superstitious about death and danger, D'Agosto said, "Mostly I laugh at the irony of the possibility of things happening ... [When] I'm driving on a bridge, it's just like 'it better not be this bridge ... '" He continued, "I think we like to laugh with it. I think what's fun about doing a movie like this is you get to bring that element of laughter in, about death. Which is sort of strange how it allows you to do that, but I guess it does. It makes you laugh a little bit more at it."
Harvey Dent, Gotham
In its five-season tenure at Fox, "Gotham" proved to be all at once curiously compelling as a straightforward crime drama and fundamentally flawed as a Batman prequel. In a universe detached from any established Batman franchise or context (arguably a misstep, recently repeated by "Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman's Butler"), the series would introduce engaging iterations of popular Batman characters only to be forced to stall their development due to the series' constrained timeline — after all, Bruce Wayne was barely ten in the first season.
Harvey Dent was once such character, and he was valiantly played by Nicholas D'Agosto several times throughout the series. Dent is a well-known Batman foe called Two-Face, brought to mainstream audiences through his role in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," where he was played by Aaron Eckhart. Though he is featured prominently in his early episodes on "Gotham," the character quietly stopped appearing on the show during its second season. By the time the series ends, nothing is said of his whereabouts or status.
In an interview with Cinemablend, executive producer Josh Stephens shared that they wanted to honor the fact that, in basically every iteration of the character, Harvey Dent doesn't become Two-Face until after Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. Apparently, they had toyed with the idea of a "proto-Two-Face," a version of Dent that was closer to his villainous counterpart, but could never figure out how to execute it.
D'Agosto guest stars as Deputy Director Bailey in Criminal Minds: Evolution, streaming November 24th on Paramount+.