Category: TCA Press Tour (Page 47 of 56)

Okay, I know, I totally jumped the gun earlier by posting James Woods’ obscenely witty comments during the informal “Shark” panel, but, dammit, it was funny, and I really wanted to share them with you. So now let’s get back to the series itself and mention a few more highlights of the panel…

* In Season 2, James Woods and Jeri Ryan will be working far more closely together than ever before. Says creator Ian Biederman, “In the construct of their world, she was a district attorney and, as opposed to that, she was ostensively his boss. So he was able to bring her in on cases every once in a while, but this year she lost the election for assistant district attorney at the end of the last season. She will be coming into the team at the beginning of this year, so she will be a partner on the team.”

Yeah, yeah, whatever. When are they gonna sleep together?

“Jimmy and I are negotiating on the amount of money it will take for that to happen,” says Biederman. “If the check clears, yes, there will be a torrid love affair.” More seriously, he adds, “I think the potential is there. It will always linger there. There’s an attraction between these characters on a number of different levels. So we will just have to see how it goes. I would think it’s something that’s interesting. We’ll see how it goes. As much as Jeri is begging me, I’m going to try to be patient.” (Says Woods, “I’m working for scale this year, just on the hope.”)

* The cast is being adjusted a little bit. Actor Samuel Page, who played Casey Woodland, “had a movie he wanted to do,” said Woods, “and he had the option to stay. And Sam, he’s phenomenal. This very morning, I called Oliver Stone to ask him to see Sam for the ‘My Lai’ movie because I think he’d be great in it. It’s one of those things where he could have not taken the movie or he could have gone with us, and I said, “Sam, do what you have to do.” We can bring him back. It was written in the first episode that he’s running his father’s campaign for governor, and so on, and so on. So we have the option to have him come back as much as we want, which I’m sure we will do. And he can still pursue his movie career. Honestly we are such a tightknit family, that it was one of those things, it just worked out perfectly for him. He’s got a big career, a big career shot, and, hey, let him take it, but also will you come back to us, and he can come back and forth.

“And,” adds Woods, “we have a new addition on a regular basis, which is more of a challenge for me, like we need a new character who can come in and kind of stir me up. This young man named Kevin Alejandro, who’s terrific. We’ve had a couple scenes together so far and he’s terrific.”

* Billy Campbell, who played Wayne Callison in two episodes during the first season (including the gripping season finale), will be almost certainly be back, says Woods. “we want to keep Billy around as much as we can because — it’s just one of
those characters that’s not just a thorn in Sebastian’s side, but there’s so many issues that you bring up — miscarriage of justice, how, you know — I’m sure the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will find a way to let the guy off, but, hey, he only murdered about 15 women. But he does have his rights, so, you know, I’m sure that will be an issue that will come up. Just get that Thelton Henderson in there and I’m sure he’ll get out and get elected president.”

“Just a little joke, guys,” clarified Woods. “Come on…!”

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.”

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