Would you accept an answer of “probably”? I haven’t seen the show yet – the CBS pilots arrived not long before I left for L.A., so I wasn’t able to check ’em all out – but based on the star power of the series (Jimmy Smits, Hector Elizondo, Rita Moreno, and Nestor Carbonell) and the feel of the material shown in the preview clip, it sure seems like it’ll be great.
“Cane” is the creation of executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who’s more or less writing from experience. “I’m Cuban, I have done two pilots for them previously, (and) I’ve done Cuban shows before,” she explains, “and (Nina Tassler) said, ‘You should write about what you know.’ And my father was in the sugar business in Cuba; he was a sugar chemist.”
As far as the pulling-together of such an impressive cast, producer Jonathan Prince explains it away with one simple phrase: “If you write it, they will come.”
“Cynthia wrote a beautiful pilot,” said Prince, “and the commitment from CBS to give it the production value it needed, we kept saying we really want to do something big and epic and felt like it wanted to get bigger each week. So the first cast member to come on board was Jimmy. And Jimmy came on board early enough that he could help us shape the vision and the script, and so then a good script got greater. And suddenly, I guess — the most fun about the casting process is this: Who will be Jimmy Smits’ wife? Who will be his adoptive parents? And as you begin to look at lists, you guys know how it works. Some casting director gives you a bunch of lists, and suddenly the list is Hector Elizondo. You say, ‘Well, he would never do this. He would do this show? Oh.’ Or Rita Moreno. ‘Rita Moreno wouldn’t do this show. She would do this show? Oh, sure.’ And then you get surprises. We had never met Paola. We had never met Lina. We knew Nestor’s work. I’d never met Eddie. He came in and auditioned on a weekend one day. It’s not the way it sounds. He was charming and blew us away. I’d never met Michael. So some of them were complete surprises. Others, Cynthia and I kept — we would go home at night, thinking, ‘We got Hector.’ It was crazy. But Jimmy led the way by, I think, example, but also helping us create a better script for these roles. One of the people who is not up here today is Polly Walker, who is a British actress. If you watched the show ‘Rome,’ you would know who she is. She plays — it’s a small part in the pilot, (but) it’s a very large part in the series. She plays a woman who is having an affair with Nestor’s character. She plays the nemesis. She plays Ken Howard’s daughter. When she signed on, it was sort of like — it was icing on the matza. It was like, ‘This is crazy.’ So the cast got better.”
Rita Moreno was particularly pleased with the concept of the series. “As a Latina,” she explained, “it’s so important for me to remind you of why this is important to many of us and particularly to the two older members of the cast. It’s the first time, as far as I know, that you will ever see a successful, educated, beautifully dressed, articulate Latino family…” At this point, Moreno went into an intentionally over-the-top Latino accent that would do Charo proud. “…who don’t necessarily talk like this all the time.” After the laugh, she sobered and reclarified the importance of the series for her. “I can’t tell you what that means to me. I’m 75. I’ve been around a long time now. What I love, as a Latina, about the show is that it has enormous scope. It’s definitely epic. It is a saga. It has passion. It is sexy. And what’s really going to, I think, turn on a lot of the older people in our generation is that (Hector and I) are a very sexy couple.
“And if nothing else,” she added, with a smile, “I am pleased beyond belief that I actually am going to have gorgeous clothes!”
Smits has apparently been in the writers’ room a great deal, offering his own personal contributions whenever he’s able (“Jimmy’s very involved creatively,” says Prince), and others in the cast have popped in on occasion as well, looking to explore specific facets of their characters. Smits in particular always feels as though he should maintain a presence amongst the writers, even if it’s a quiet one. “I just kind of sit in the back like a church mouse,” he says, “and it’s just important for me right now that we keep the things that we pitched to the network in the beginning that are important in terms of what we feel the success of the show is on course.”
Nestor Carbonell has no idea if his character will return to “Lost,” admitting, “You probably know the answer to that question that better than I do. I had an amazing time doing (that) recurring role, (but) that’s sort of off to the powers that be.”
Oh, and Elizondo was asked his opinion on the departure of his former “Chicago Hope” co-star, Mandy Patinkin, from “Criminal Minds.” He chose to plead the 5th Amendment…and he did so while providing a very acceptable impression of Brando in “The Godfather.” I never met the guy,” he claimed, to great laughter. From there, however, he returned to normal voice and simply said, “I’m not my brother’s keeper, (but) nothing surprises me, and I wish him well.”
