Joe Mantegna Reveals His Hopes for Rossi Ahead of Season 20 (Exclusive)

Special Agent David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) has officially closed the book on serial killer Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), a thorn in the entire BAU’s side for four seasons. But now, when Criminal Minds: Evolution returns for Season 20, the team will be moving forward and leaving Sicarius in the past.

Rossi did just that the last time we saw him in the Season 19 finale, finishing up his book and having one last look at the hallucination version of Voit — “I know you better than you know yourself, and this book will shatter the illusion of you for good” — then raising his wine glass to the empty chair.

Below, Joe Mantegna reflects on Rossi and Voit’s changing dynamic, the tension with Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) in Season 19, and more, plus shares his hopes going forward.

Does it feel like Rossi has truly closed the book on Voit, or at least on who Voit was and how he affected him, with that book that he wrote at the end?

Joe Mantegna: We’ll see. I don’t know. I mean, the point is I have to say, some actors like to know the storylines past, present, and future, and they really want and need all that information. I never have. I always live in the present. I always feel that what’s going to happen is something that is not necessarily information I need. That’s why I’ve never been to a fortune teller because I don’t want to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I’ll find out when I get there because you got as much chance for bad news as good news. You know what I mean? So we’ll see. I mean, to me, it’s still an evolving thing and I don’t know. And I trust the people, the creative side of our show, the writers and stuff, and they allow us to have some input too. So we’ll see where it goes.

But I’m glad that it resonated as long as it has and effectively you say you’ve enjoyed the season. I’m glad to hear that. And I feel very confident about even what we’re doing now at Season 20 as well.

Michael Yarish / Paramount+

We see Hallucination Voit again at the end of Season 19, but also this season, it was the flip. We got to see you play Hallucination Rossi, this Rossi who’s in Voit’s head. It was just another change in the dynamic between you and Zach onscreen.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we have a lot of history, a lot of water under the bridge, him and I. And so turnaround is a b***h and can be. And I think he found that out. So it’s nice to get that opportunity as an actor to do that where you go from the victim to the person in control somewhat, that aspect of it. So you get to play the flip sides of a character in a way in terms of what they’re going through emotionally and how they deal with things. So again, I give credit to our creative staff and where they’re going with the storylines. And I always felt our show is, we’re not just another procedural in the sense that crime comes up, you figure it out and you solve it, and then you move on to something else. I mean, there’s always going to be that aspect of it, but it’s got to be more, especially for people who invest 20 years into a show, you better give them something that goes a little deeper and maybe you can relate to even personally in the sense of, “Oh yeah, if that happened to me, I wonder how I react with that.”

What we saw between Rossi and Garcia this season because he got very mad at her for what she did with testifying for Voit, but then also when she brought up Donnie Mallick… It’s that thing, it’s like family knows where to hit you where it’s going to hurt the most.

Yeah. I think that will always be there in our show that we try to show the reality of it, that it’s not always hunky-dory within a family as tight as we are. That’s what’s interesting because in reality, we couldn’t be any tighter. I mean, the current cast of the seven principles of the group, we couldn’t be any tighter if we were all born out of the same human being as a child. We were like septuplets or whatever the number would be of seven at once. Yet life isn’t like that. You know what I mean? And so to be able to show the aspects of that, that it’s not always us against the world, sometimes it’s us against each other against the world. And so again, I give credit to the creative staff in understanding that and allowing that to… At the end of the day, sometimes you got to work through stuff to get to where you got to get to.

How does Rossi feel about Voit taking responsibility for his daughter Holly killing James?

Well, I mean I’m a father and I have two daughters, so I relate on that level. I could certainly understand. And when you get into that aspect of a storyline, anybody who’s in that position I think, it can hit them in a certain way. How would I feel if I was in that position? And Rossi has a daughter [Amber Stevens West‘s Joy] as we found out many seasons ago.

I want to see her again.

Yeah, I do, too. I miss her. But she’s out there and I’m glad I had — And that was actually a storyline that I had actually suggested many, many years ago. They let us have input on the show early on. And one of the things I came in with when I first joined the show and they said, “Well, what do you think? What’s your background?” And what I pushed for is I said, “Let’s mix it up. Let’s have it that I had multiple wives.” It was purposely, I wanted one to be interracial in fact, because I just thought that’s Rossi. I mean, he’s going to run the gamut. There shouldn’t be any restrictive aspect in terms of that. And I said, “And then maybe even we find out he had a kid at one time and doesn’t realize.” So that all manifested itself as well as that whole storyline of me being a Vietnam veteran and my whole thing of bringing in Meshach Taylor, who was one of my dearest friends, and to be able to do that storyline for that backstory.

So being able to have that input has been really a blessing, and again, I think hopefully is the reason why, in every aspect, the show has had the long run that it has. I think the fans can pick up on us really feeling good about what we’re doing, that there’s a certain reality to it. It’s much more than just a cop and robber show.

Speaking of, congratulations on Season 20 of Criminal Minds because it’s so well deserved and it feels like this is a show that can keep going and going and going. So I know you said that you don’t like to know what’s ahead, but is there anything that’s been on your bucket list that you want to do with Rossi?

I tell you what I would like to do with Rossi is to maybe wind up in a romantic relationship that has some legs. [Laughs.] I mean, we finally get something going with Krystall [Gail O’Grady] and then, hello. And I took that pretty hard as you may have seen and rightly so because you get through one of those things like, wow, I kind of finally got it right. It took a second time around with the same girl to get it right. But that’s life, you know what I mean? And I think that’s the reality of it, and that’s the tragedy of it and that’s the yin and yang of life. So we’ll see. So in terms of a bucket list, we’ll see. So maybe down the line, maybe there is that certain someone that will, not saying that they have to get married again or do whatever, but I don’t know. But for right now, I think it helps justify some of Rossi’s kind of edginess that we see.

Yeah, but it would be great to just see happiness. But I also feel like he seems as happy as he can be and maybe content is more the word at the end of Season 19 when he’s sitting there writing the book.

Yeah, I think so because I think he’s realistic about who he is and what he is and the place he’s at and he is almost the father figure for this group in many ways. And that’s what it is in reality. When we’re on the set, I mean, I’m Papa Joe in a lot of aspects to this group because I am. I mean, just chronologically I am. So I mean it’s not like we’re doing a lot of pretend there, so it’s all good.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, Season 20, TBA, Paramount+