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When Britt Robertson joined the cast of The Rookie: Feds she didn’t know any of her fellow cast members. Fast forward a few months and her co-stars not only helped her plan her April wedding but were also on hand to celebrate her big day.
A spin-off from The Rookie, which stars Castle’s Nathan Fillion as the LAPD’s oldest rookie cop John Nolan, the new show follows the lives of the agents in the FBI’s Special Investigative Unit headed by veteran agent Matt Garza (Felix Solis).
Team members include former school counsellor Simone Clark (Niecy Nash-Betts), veteran agent Carter Hope (James Lesure), who has marital issues, and Brendan Acres (Kevin Zegers), a reluctant television star who joins the FBI looking for a change.
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Robertson, who plays the show’s romantically traumatised behavioural science expert Laura Stenson, says Nash-Betts stepped in when she discovered Robertson intended to plan her own backyard wedding to English soccer player Paul Floyd.
“Niecy was like, ‘Absolutely not, you need help’. So she helped get me this incredible wedding planner and Kevin’s daughters were flower girls,” the 33 year old says.
Lesure was also on the guest list. “He stayed the longest at my wedding out of everyone I know.”
Scott Everett White
Britt Robertson as Laura Stenson in The Rookie: Feds.
However, the happy newlywed acknowledges life is not so blissful for her character.
Laura is the black sheep of a family of brilliant academics and the youngest person ever allowed into the FBI’s behavioural analysis unit. But after discovering that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with her best friend, she became depressed, questioning how a criminal profiler could miss that the people closest to her were liars.
“Our relationship, getting married, it has all been so easy for my husband and I, so it is funny going to work and having to pretend everything’s falling apart (in my life),” Robertson says.
Laura is given a second chance when she is assigned to Garza’s new unit and she throws her socially awkward, workaholic, book-smart self back into the job, hoping to get her mojo back.
“I just love that idea of reinventing yourself. I love the idea that it’s never too late to sort of switch it up,” she says, adding in her more than 20 years acting she has had to change direction many times.
She tackled comedy in 2012’s The First Time, romance in 2015’s The Longest Ride, sci-fi in 2017’s The Space Between Us and horror in 2020’s Books Of Blood. On television, she starred in Under The Dome, the teen drama Life Unexpected, legal drama For The People and crime drama Big Sky.
Robertson has even worked in New Zealand, filming the 2010 Disney movie Avalon High, alongside Kiwi actors Ingrid Park, Craig Hall, Alison Bruce and John Leigh. She also starred with Shortland Street favourite KJ Apa in the movie A Dog’s Purpose.
“I spent two months in Auckland and it was one of the best times in my life,” she says.
The Rookie: Feds lets her use many of the skills she has learnt along the way.
“What’s so great about the show from an actor’s standpoint is you get to exercise so many different muscles, that it’s hard to get tired of the gig.
“I enjoy going to work on a Monday and doing a big action-scene sequence and then going to work on a Tuesday and having to deliver some drama and Wednesday is my comedy bit.”
Eric McCandless
Britt Robertson has been working as an actor for nearly 25 years. She says working in Auckland on the movie A Dog’s Purpose was “one of the best times of my life.”
However, it appears work doesn’t always go as planned – especially when there are stunts involved.
“My stunt was that I just had to open up the safe, turn around, and there’d be this guy who would pistol whip me,” Robertson says.
“But I somehow left the safe open and as I turned around, I banged my head on the safe door and had a huge knot (on my head) for the rest of the scene.
“None of that was supposed to happen. It was me trying to look cool doing it and I just completely flubbed it.”
After nearly a quarter of a century as an actor, Robertson, who says she is still in therapy dealing with the effects of starting out so young, admits she sometimes considers what the future holds.
“I am really curious about what running my own business would be like. I want to have a little boutique – a ceramic shop in our neighbourhood or something.
“However, I have a lovely family and I’ve had a really eclectic career and I’ve been able to survive and
I’m super grateful, you know, because sometimes it’s just like luck or circumstance. It’s a privilege to be able to do this for as long as I have.”
The Rookie: Feds, TVNZ 2, Mondays
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