Tom Ellis has made the move from Tell Me Lies to the FBI spinoff CIA — and he already has ideas about which of his costars should join him.
“They’re all so good,” Ellis, 47, exclusively told Us Weekly about his former Tell Me Lies scene partners. “But I think because of this season and the way this season is going, I’m really excited about the work that Spencer [House] is doing as Wrigley.”
Ellis continued: “He’s so brilliant. I’d welcome him onto any set that I was working on because he’s got so much to give.”
The actor credited his wife Meaghan Oppenheimer‘s hit Hulu series for preparing him for CIA.
“Tell Me Lies was practice for CIA. Tell Me Lies is basically what Colin does all the time,” Ellis quipped to Us. “It’s really weird going from a character on Lucifer who prided himself on never lying to now playing someone who basically exclusively deals in lying. Because of what Colin does and because of how long he’s done it for, his sense of what reality is is probably a bit warped by now.”
Ellis was thrilled by the challenging character work, adding, “He chooses and hand picks what he tells people about himself. Sometimes you realize that that changes and you think about how reliable is this? How reliable is this source? But it’s always about self preservation. For the CIA, they can’t let anyone into their inner circle and so that’s why it becomes a bit of a stumbling block for [Nick Gehlfuss’] Bill.”
FBI debuted on CBS in 2019 and follows the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York City. The network followed that up with FBI: Most Wanted, which aired from 2020 to 2025, about the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Fugitive Task Force. There was also the FBI: International spinoff about the International Fly Team that ran for four seasons before concluding in 2025.
In April 2025, CBS gave CIA a straight-to-series order starring Ellis and Gehlfuss. According to the official synopsis, CIA centers on “two unlikely partners — a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent who believes in the rule of law.”
“If these two people are going to get paired up to work together, there has to be an element of trust. How can you trust someone who isn’t always telling you the truth and is quite often bare faced lying to you?” Ellis teased. “But as the season goes on, Bill starts to realize why Colin is this way and the type of work that he does and why it’s important that he doesn’t let people in.”
Ellis went on to compare CIA to its predecessor FBI.
“The FBI deals in crimes that have already happened predominantly and the CIA try to stop the crime from happening in the first place,” Ellis exclusively told Us. “FBI is a very public present arm of the law enforcement. They’re the poster boy of U.S. law enforcement. And the CIA is very much in the shadows — and doesn’t want to be on any poster. It doesn’t want people to see who they are and they operate in a very sort of voyeuristic manner.”
CIA airs on CBS Mondays at 10 p.m. ET.
