‘FBI’ Adds Katherine Renee Turner To Cast, ‘FBI: Most Wanted’ Names David Hudgins New Showrunner As René Balcer Exits

EXCLUSIVE: CBS’ FBI franchise, from Dick Wolf and his Wolf Entertainment, is making a couple of changes in front and behind the camera.

On the mothership series, 2020 Juilliard graduate Katherine Renee Turner has joined as a new series regular. On offshoot FBI: Most Wanted, Friday Night Lights alum David Hudgins has come on board as executive producer/showrunner as part of an overall deal he has signed with the studio behind the FBI series, Universal Television.

Hudgins will succeed FBI: Most Wanted creator and longtime Wolf collaborator René Balcer, who was Season 1 showrunner, as the crime drama is adjusting its creative direction.

FBI, which also underwent showrunner changes early in its run, quickly established itself as one of CBS’ most watched series. Boosted by having the mothership series as a lead-in, FBI: Most Wanted ranked as the most watched new drama last season.

On FBI’s upcoming third season, Turner will play Tiffany Wallace, an outspoken, “best and brightest” who was raised in Bed Stuy. She spent 6 years with the NYPD, mostly narcotics and fell in love with being a Fed after working on a joint task force but is still a bit of an outlier at 26 Fed.

Turner graduated from The Juilliard School earlier this year after starring in their productions of Lynn Nottage’s Crumb From The Table Of Joy and Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue. Before attending Juilliard, Turner won awards for her starring role in the San Francisco production of Danai Gurira’s The Convert. She is repped by APA.

This marks a return to Universal TV, part of NBCUniversal Content Studios, for Hudgins. At the studio, he previously worked on Parenthood, most recently as executive producer, in addition to developing a number of projects. Before that, Hudgins worked on Uni TV’s Friday Night Lights for the entire run of the series, serving as co-showrunner on the final season, which earned four Emmy nominations including best drama series. Hudgins more recently was under a deal at Sony TV where he created and executive produced the NBC drama series Game Of Silence, based on a Turkish format and served as showrunner on Hulu’s Shuteye. Earlier in his career, Hudgins created Fox’s short-lived drama Past Life and worked on the WB drama Everwood.

The mothership FBI explores the inner workings of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Ebonée Noel, Jeremy Sisto, Alana De La Garza and John Boyd star. Dick Wolf, Rick Eid, Terry Miller, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski executive produce.

FBI: Most Wanted focuses on the Fugitive Task Force, which relentlessly tracks and captures the notorious criminals on the Bureau’s Most Wanted list. Hudgins joins executive producers Dick Wolf, Fred Berner, Arthur W. Forney and Peter Jankowski.

Both series are produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television in association with CBS Television Studios.