LANGUAGE BARRIERS

AS THE INTERNATIONAL CRIME PROCEDURAL RETURNS, ALANA DE LA GARZA TELLS US HER HOPES FOR SEASON TWO…

The FBI’S International Response Team are back on our screens for a new season of pan-global crimesolving, starting this Tuesday. Fittingly enough for a series that involves so much on-screen jet-setting, we managed to catch up with Alana de la Garza, who plays linguistics specialist Clara Seger, when she made a recent trip to the UK.

“What I’ve heard from people is that they love procedurals anyway,” she tells us. “And when you have a mothership like the original Criminal Minds and you expand on that formula from country to country – so you’re stimulating people not just visually but also culturally – I think that’s a bonus!”

As the team’s resident language expert, Alana’s part is more taxing than most as she has to be convincing in the 13 different languages that Clara speaks – which involves a lot of advance preparation.

“When I read the first script, I knew she was a linguist but I don’t think I really took it all in!” she chuckles. “And then I started flipping through the pages and I was like, ‘Wow, I speak a lot of Thai!’. But after my second lesson with the interpreter I somehow knew what I was saying and it made sense. I think you never know until you challenge yourself – and this felt like, ‘Get it together or they’ll dub you’ – and you don’t want to be dubbed over!”