Niecy Nash-Betts promises lots of Nathan Fillion in ‘The Rookie’ spinoff, ‘Feds’

Niecy Nash-Betts is heading up the new Rookie spinoff, The Rookie: Feds. In the CTV series, she plays Simone Clark, a rookie FBI agent who, at 48 years old, is the oldest rookie in her division. But, as she first proved on The Rookie and has also proved in the first few episodes of Feds, with age comes invaluable experience.

Nobody knows that better than Nathan Fillion, who heads up The Rookie as officer John Nolan. The show is currently in its fifth season, and Nolan has progressed from the newbie cop to an important part of the force. As it turns out, he’s also an essential part of Feds.

Not only is Fillion an executive producer, but Nolan and other Rookie characters make appearances on Feds.

“John Nolan is in love with Simone, and he doesn't know it,” Nash-Betts joked during a Television Critics Association press conference. “I'm just kidding. Simone thinks everybody is in love with her.”

According to co-creator Alexi Hawley, the shows will co-exist in the same universe, much like the Chicago One franchise or Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19. In other words, expect lots of Fillion as the first season unrolls.

“The shows exist within the same universe, within the same city, and the design in creating them was always to have them be able to cross over back and forth,” he said. “That definitely exists, not just with Nathan and Niecy, but with all of the characters on both shows. The police and FBI work hand-in-hand a lot, and the ability to have the fun of the characters we loved bouncing back and forth is really part of the show.”

That doesn’t mean Feds doesn’t hold its own though. According to Hawley the very nature of it means there will be more travel, bigger cases, and an opportunity to tackle current, relevant issues.

“The unit has a jet, and so we can tell bigger stories. At the same time, there is a different hierarchy. There is a different systemic system in place that we can also address in the FBI,” he explained.

“We take it upon ourselves to be a show that deals with matters of policing and systemic injustice, and so we wanted to address what it would be like for Niecy's character to be inside an organization that is traditionally male, traditionally white and traditionally stuck in the past. The clash of those two cultures and those two forces makes it inherently dramatic.”

For Nash, tackling the role of Simone Clark was as much about addressing these issues as it was about the group she was signing up to work with. She recalled the first day the main cast—which includes James Lesure, Felix Solis, Britt Robertson, Kevin Zegers and Michelle Nuñez—got together to meet and do weapons training. Her grandmother had just passed away and she was feeling pretty down.

“Somebody looked over and said, ‘Are you okay?’ And I immediately started to cry like a baby,” she recalled. “And everybody got up and just put their arms around me [in] a group circle like they had known me all their lives, and I said, ‘Man, I've got the right bunch right here.’”

Catch The Rookie: Feds Tuesdays at 10pm ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and on the CTV app.