Chicago P.D. is losing one of its finest when original cast member Jesse Lee Soffer will exit the Intelligence Unit and his role as Det. Jay Halstead during the upcoming tenth season, Variety exclusively reports.
“I want to thank the incredible fans for their unwavering support during the past 10 years and want to express my deepest gratitude to Dick Wolf and everyone at Wolf Entertainment, Peter Jankowski, Matt Olmstead, Derek Haas, Michael Brandt, Rick Eid, Gwen Sigan, NBC, Universal Television, my fellow castmates and our incredible crew,” he said in a statement to Variety on Monday. “To create this hour drama week after week has been a labor of love by everyone who touches the show. I will always be proud of my time as Det. Jay Halstead.”
Halstead has been a central figure on the series, especially the past few seasons when the series has reflected the change in policing that is taking place in the U.S., and he has become the voice of conscience for his boss Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), who until that time would do whatever it took to get the job done. Now Voight looks to Halstead to keep the unit on the right track.
“We play cops that are people first, and people aren’t black and white,” Soffer told Monsters & Critics when the changes in the series began. “People live in the gray area, so everybody has a line, no matter what your moral compass is or your ethical code, there’s the line that if it was crossed you might do anything in any given situation. You might break the law if something happened to a family member or if someone had had your spouse at gunpoint.”
Soffer’s character is also married on the series to fellow officer Det. Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiradakos), so it will be interesting to see the resolution of the storyline. With Halstead’s strong ties to the Intelligence Unit, will he be transferred, or will he be killed off?
In addition to Soffer, Beghe and Spiradakos, Chicago P.D. stars Marina Squerciati as Kim Burgess, Patrick Flueger as Adam Ruzak, LaRoyce Hawkins as Kevin Atwater, and Amy Morton as Trudy Platt. Joining the cast as a series regular in Season 10 will be Benjamin Levy Aguilar, who guest starred in the Season 9 finale as Dante Torres.
Credit goes to Parade for reported the news.
