Dick Wolf’s One Chicago reveals have heaps and plenty of memorable characters at any given time, however a few of them stand out from the huge crowd of Windy Metropolis first responders. That is why it got here as a blow when, in 2022, “Chicago P.D.” favourite Jesse Lee Soffer bid the present farewell. Soffer’s Jay Halstead was a fan darling for a lot of his time on the present, each by himself and as one half of the favored “Linstead” relationship with Sophia Bush’s Detective Erin Lindsay.
Not like “Chicago Hearth” star Yuri Sardarov — whose character was written out as one of many main emotional blows the franchise likes to deal each from time to time — it was instantly clear to all that Soffer’s departure from the present was the actor’s private alternative. He did not actually elaborate on his causes on the time, however in a 2023 interview with Selection, Soffer lastly opened up on his choice to go away the procedural.
“I actually wished to develop and increase, and we have solely obtained this one journey. If I signed up once more, it could have been for one more three years. I might have turned 40 on the present. I believed, ‘You realize what? It is time to take a threat.’ It was one of many hardest choices I’ve ever needed to make in my life. Let’s be sincere: I like the followers of our present a lot, and I like my followers. I do know that they are nonetheless grieving this, and to a point, I’m too.”
Soffer did not enterprise fairly as removed from Chicago P.D. as you may count on
Whereas Jesse Lee Soffer selected to stroll away from his function in the binge-worthy crime present, he nonetheless stayed surprisingly near “Chicago P.D.” in additional methods than one. In reality, he returned to the present virtually instantly after ending his final scene … solely, this time he served the sequence as a director. He is directed two episodes of the present to date — the season 10 episode “Deadlocked” and season 11’s “Stock” — and credit the transition behind the digicam to the work he already put in when he was nonetheless taking part in Halstead. Here is what he needed to say in regards to the directing expertise within the Selection interview:
“A few of it was easy. A few of it was irritating. A few of it was tremendous rewarding. A few of it was humbling. It was simpler than I believed it was gonna be, as a result of we’re storytellers on this business, and I like telling tales. After I’d get a script that was a Halstead-centric story, I might break that sucker down a lot, calling the producers with ideas. I have been doing that every one alongside, so it was a simple shift.”
His post-One Chicago appearing work has additionally been surprisingly near his “Chicago P.D.” gig. In 2024, he joined the solid of “FBI: Worldwide” as Wes Mitchell, a brash supervisory particular agent who joins the present’s Worldwide Fly Crew in season 4, and shortly establishes his spot inside the group. Because it occurs, the “FBI” franchise is one other Dick Wolf joint that very a lot exists in the identical universe because the One Chicago reveals. This might make issues very attention-grabbing if Soffer ever returns to the function of Halstead and Wolf Leisure performs its crossover playing cards properly.
