The series also stars Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, Ryan Eggold, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, and Harry Lennix.

After an absence of two years, however, Reddington returns to help his former bodyguard, Dembe Zuma, who has in the interim become an FBI Special Agent with the assistance of Cooper, when a modern pirate named the "Skinner" nearly kills him.

Red and Cooper come to an agreement to resume his deal with the FBI and continue hunting down global criminals on his "blacklist" in honor of Liz's undertaking.

In February 2013, he and Bokenkamp invited Kiefer Sutherland, Bryan Cranston, Pierce Brosnan and Richard Gere to apply for the role of Raymond Reddington.

The producers rejected his idea, however, Spader insisted on trying on a fedora while screening the pilot; later, the crew felt the hat enhanced Reddington's image and agreed to keep it.

[45][46] Although showrunners attempted to search for a more established actor as they cast Reddington, they invited more obscure performers for the role of FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen.

[53] On March 13, 2013, Diego Klattenhoff joined the series as Donald Ressler, a law-abiding field agent working with Cooper's task force.

[55] On July 25, 2013, Parminder Nagra joined the cast as Meera Malik, a professional field agent who decides to help Elizabeth settle into her new job.

[57] Eight years after her departure, Anya Banerjee joined the series for the tenth season in a role of Meera's daughter, MI-6 intelligence officer Siya Malik.

[57] On October 8, 2014, Amir Arison was promoted to a recurring role as Aram Mojtabai, a quirky technician and a professional computer master after he showed some extraordinary on-the-move improvisation skills in his debut episode.

[65][66] Samar was a field professional agent recruited by the task force Director and originally working for Mossad who develops relationships with Aram.

[68] On May 7, 2020, Laura Sohn was promoted to series regular as Alina Park, another new field agent taken into Cooper's task force, also previously recurring in the seventh season.

[77] The episode "Luther Braxton" introduced David Strathairn in a guest role of Peter Kotsiopulos, the Director of the National Clandestine Service.

Deidre Lovejoy was cast as White House Counsel Cynthia Panabaker, set to replace Adriane Lenox, who had left earlier this season.

[89] In August 2016, Leon Rippy joined as a ranger and her savior, Hunter, while Enrique Murciano landed a role as Julian Gale, an FBI investigator who previously worked with Ressler on capturing Reddington, in February 2017.

In August 2017, it was announced that Michael Aronov, and Aida Turturro would take the recurring roles of Smokey Putnum, the logistician and an embezzler, and Heddie Hawkins, his accountant.

[97] In October, Jonny Coyne was cast as Red's nemesis and Tom's murderer, Ian Garvey; his adopted daughter, Lilian Roth, actually Liz's halfsister, Jennifer Reddington, was portrayed by Fiona Dourif.

[106][107] Stacy Keach played financier and con man Robert Vesco, who in real life escaped without payment of $200 billion from the U.S. and who was rumored to die from lung cancer in 2007, amidst theories about his pseudocide.

[109] Laila Robins also appeared in the season's final minutes as Liz's mother, Katarina Rostova, a subject of the show's major story line.

[111] In December 2019, Joely Richardson was cast as Cassandra Biancchi, an international thief and the ex-girlfriend of Reddington, for a special episode partly based on Agatha Christie novels.

Reg Rogers was cast in the role of the main antagonist, the mentally disordered crime lord Neville Townsend, who sought revenge on Red after he murdered his family and who launched a bounty hunt on Katarina Rostova.

[119] In October 2022, Diany Rodriguez and Karina Arroyave revealed that they would be starring in the upcoming season as Cuban sisters Weecha and Mierce Xiu, respectively.

[125] Han also returned in the finale, when his character, after being incarcerated for 10 years, escapes from prison and starts gathering blacklisters from all over the world to avenge Reddington.

Thanks to the show's success, though, NBC and the producers have little reason to tinker with that formula, other than having Spader's 'Red' Reddington assume an expanded role within the premiere, while tapping some fine new actors to join (temporarily, perhaps) the program's extended company".

[182] Canadian television critic John Doyle from The Globe and Mail wrote a glowing review on the third season, praising Spader's performance, the soundtrack and the plot.

He wrote, "Like any network drama steeped in mythology, the procedural case-of-the-week format lost its luster as the clues and red herrings piled up, until The Blacklist went from a hit to (mostly) an afterthought, certainly in terms of its declining ratings".

[225] The Blacklist official accounts on Twitter and Facebook, in addition to NBC and CBS news affiliates and regional stations published hints on their location through the hunt.

[227] Ryan Eggold was set for the lead role, playing Tom Keen, with a family relations buildup similar to what seasons seven and eight of the original series introduced.

[227][229][230] With all supporting cast appearing through the third season of The Blacklist, episodes "Susan Hargrave" and "Alexander Kirk" served as a backdoor pilot for the series, to that date unnamed.

[238] UK drill rapper Sus references The Blacklist several times in the second verse of his track Dug Out, including the lines "Me and my shooter Red and Dembe" and "I'm keen for Elizabeth, get paid".