This can mark the second time Jesse Lee Soffer directs an episode of “Chicago P.D.” He made his debut behind the digicam throughout Season 10’s “Deadlocked,” which occurred only some episodes after Jay Halstead’s exit from the present. Per Soffer, there was an deliberately fast shift between performing and directing an episode.
“It was a extremely type of seamless transition. I did not actually take a break. The second I acquired performed working, I believe I perhaps went again to LA for 3 or 4 days after which went again to set and began shadowing immediately. So it is like I by no means actually left,” he instructed TV Insider in 2023 earlier than the outing debuted.
Soffer added that working as an actor on the present helped put together him for his directorial debut. “For a very long time, a minimum of since Season 2 or 3, as soon as all of us actually acquired a way of the present and the characters, all of us as regulars on the present would assist direct scenes right here and there otherwise you’d have an thought that will come up or one thing that will be an amazing repair,” he defined. He in contrast his work as an actor with that of a puzzle-solver, particularly mentioning the work it takes to show a web page in a script right into a fully-fledged scene.
Whereas a number of “Chicago P.D.” followers discovered Jay Halstead’s character arc very disappointing, it is clear Soffer put plenty of thought into the function. He could proceed to take action, ought to Jay return to this system — if solely to appease followers’ anger over Halstead’s weird exit from the present.