Zach Gilford on 'Complex' 'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Villain Elias Voit

Criminal Minds has always been about the chase, and the efforts of the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) as it tries to catch the unsub of the week. But Evolution is doing something different, it's bringing viewers into the villain's home.

Rather than have a bad guy of the week, Evolution follows the BAU's investigation into a serial killer network that was created during the pandemic. Though they don't know it yet, the group is being led by Elias Voit (Zach Gilford).

Gilford spoke to Newsweek about his role, and shared how he enjoyed playing a "complex" villain who was more than just a one-dimensional character.

Zach Gilford on 'Complex' 'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Killer Elias Voit

Gilford's Elias Voit is more than just the average Criminal Minds killer as viewers are brought into his home, and learn about his family life. He has a wife and two kids, who have no idea of his dark secrets.

The Midnight Mass star told Newsweek how the show's creators expressed their interest in him joining the show and went on Zoom with him to persuade him to come onboard when he noticed his character didn't have any dialogue in the first episode.

"I think that's why they wanted to Zoom with me, they're like 'let us explain who this character is,'" Gilford said. "That first conversation they had him so thought out, and he already was so complex and interesting to me that I just was like 'this sounds great' and how fun, not fun to be the bad guy, but as an actor to do something different.

"I'm usually the protagonist, sometimes a slightly flawed one, but to be someone who's kind of evil was exciting and I think what I could bring to it was bringing a human aspect to him, because I think all these people they weren't always monsters.

"And I'm not saying let's be sympathetic, but there's a human inside of every single one of them, and who is that person?"

Gilford explained that the creators of Criminal Minds: Evolution told him that "our house is a fun house to play in," and they urged him to be as collaborative as possible in the role.

"What took a little bit of the pressure off is the fact that now it's moved to Paramount+ and it's a slightly different show," the actor said. "It's the same thing but they're doing it a little different, and so it allowed me to not have to say 'this is how they do it, this is how it always goes.'

"It's the first time of going home with the unsub, and it's the first time they really flesh them out and don't just catch them at the end of the episode.

"So, that's what I get to do. And they've said to me, 'we've never done this before so talk to us about it.' They'll slip me the scripts a little early sometimes to be like 'read it, your scenes are more, not procedural we want them to feel real.'

"And any thought I have they're like, 'love it that just made the scene better' or if they disagree, they really explain why, and then I'll be like, 'Oh, I didn't get that, thank you.' It's just such an amazing work environment."

Who Is the Unsub in 'Criminal Minds: Evolution'?

The unsub, or unknown subject, is the person that the BAU is trying to catch during the course of the episode, or season in the case of Criminal Minds: Evolution.

Evolution is proving to be a complex puzzle for the team, though, because there's a whole network of killers to work with, they just need to find the leader who they have given the name of Sicarius.

Though they don't know it yet, Elias Voit is their unsub. But he may prove tricky to find, not only because of his skills in technology, but also because of his normal home life with wife Bridget (Kiele Sanchez) and daughters Harlow and Holly.

"I think what what I liked about it was it just made it a more real character and made them more complete, as opposed to kind of just the bad guy, you see him do bad things and that's it," Gilford said of Elias.

"Anytime as an actor you're doing a character, you want it to seem real, you want it to be believable and so you want to know all these different aspects of them, and I think being able to do that [was interesting].

"It would have been really hard to just be a guy who just runs around murdering people all the time, you know, it's not interesting."

"It would be interesting for the show and the viewer, because we're all obsessed with serial killers for some reason, and we want to catch them and figure out how we catch them, but for the character itself it would have been a little empty, and I think this is a very full character," he added.

The showrunners used several real serial killers as the basis of Elias, but Gilford preferred to do his own thing with the character.

"I just approached him with a clean slate, I like to trust in the writers and the character, if they're basing him on someone," the actor said.

"They referenced one time, I think it was Ted Bundy, and they're like, 'when he talked about himself, there was good Ted, and there was bad Ted,' and I think they have some different, prolific serial killers that they're taking aspects and putting them into the writing.

"I'm kind of trusting that to them because I don't want to put something in that then I get to episode nine or 10 and it's like, 'oh, that doesn't make any sense.' I don't want to divert the train and they're so collaborative, and I talk to them about every choice I make so we're always on the same page."

Criminal Minds: Evolution airs Thursdays on Paramount+.