Cook finds humour in horror
Laughter is a great antidote to horror, according to Canadian actress A.J. Cook, who plays FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit profiler Jennifer “JJ” Jareau in Criminal Minds, which begins its 10th season tomorrow.
She admits the show’s storylines, which explore pretty much every aberration that can occur in a human being, sometimes trigger a touch of paranoia.
“It is a struggle for me to leave my work at the office, as they say,” she said by phone from Los Angeles recently.
“But I try really hard and I have a lot of really great coping mechanisms, like laughter. It is such a dark show that in between takes we are always goofing off and messing round.
“But every once in a while it does get to you, especially when you are a mum.”
Cook has a six-year-old son, Mekhai, who has played her on-screen son Henry on several occasions. She says that parenthood has made her more anxious.
“But Joe Mantegna (who plays her BAU colleague David Rossi) said something to me that really resonated,” she said. “He feels that it would be a real disrespect to the people who do it for real, the actual profilers, for him to say ‘Oh, I don’t know how I do this, it is too hard’, because we are just pretending.
“We want to shine the light on the people who do this for a living and thank goodness there are people out there who can do it. We are just silly actors who pretend.”
New to the cast of this season will be Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer). She plays former FBI undercover agent Kate Callahan and fills the gap in the team left by the departure of Alex Blake (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Cook says that Hewitt has fitted right in on set.
“She has a wicked sense of humour like the rest of us. It has been fun.”
The two women have another reason to bond — both are expecting a second child. “I just could not believe the timing — that we both got knocked up at the same time,” Cook laughed.
There are only two episodes in the season left to film and Cook is not sure how the writers are going to deal with the pregnancies. “I think JJ is going to do what I have done, she is going to try to keep it hidden from the team. I think it will be written in but you will never see me super-pregnant on the show.”
Cook’s character has evolved during the 10 years the show has been running. She started as communications liaison officer for the team but has become a profiler. She left the show in season six and returned during season seven, with the events of JJ’s time away at the Pentagon and mission in the Middle East explained during season nine. “It is interesting because when I started the show I was so young and innocent and we needed that point of view,” Cook said.
“But someone growing up, going from their 20s to their 30s and living in this dark world, it is going to change them.
“Also after I had a kid something in me just clicked, there is now a fierceness there, you want to make the world a better place for your child no matter what. The writers see that in me and have infused that into my character.
“Also I think they figured out that I can be very physical and I love doing stunts. It is a great day at work when I get to wear a Kevlar vest and shoot my gun,” she said. “But JJ will always be that big mushball inside, caring about everyone else more than she ever cares for herself.”
Criminal Minds airs on Wednesday at 9pm on Seven/GWN7.
