|
TNT's ‘Wanted' puts human touch on relationships
between cops
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES -- Wanted: a distinctive cop show.
In a summer of usual suspects, Jorge Zamacona is on the case.
The creator of TNT's "Wanted" isn't trying to "reinvent the cop
wheel." But he thinks his new Sunday series (airing at 10 p.m.)
about an elite unit that tracks down the baddest guys in L.A.,
humanizes the relationships between cops.
Armed with producing credentials that include the tough-minded
"Homicide: Life on the Street" and the gritty prison drama "Oz,"
Zamacona says his latest premise is "pretty simple, which I like:
There's a bad guy. We are going to get him!"
"Wanted's" cop squad, which is drawn from various enforcement
agencies and assigned to nab the city's 100 worst criminals, legally
or otherwise, is headed by no-nonsense L.A. police SWAT officer
Conrad Rose, played by Gary Cole.
Cole, who starred in "Midnight Caller" from 1988-91 as a cop turned
late night radio host, says he was attracted to the show's "almost
schizophrenic quality going between this real brutality and glimpses
of my character's domestic life."
He adds that later episodes also are exploring "some of the other
characters' personal lives, attitudes and values."
Cole credits Zamacona for setting the series apart.
"It's always all about writing and it just seemed these characters
were very distinct," he says. "Jorge is one of those guys who has an
ear for dialogue that seems to be coming out of people's mouths, as
opposed to out of a typewriter."
Cole is waiting to shoot a scene in a seedy downtown alley for an
upcoming episode called "Click, Click, Boom." Working alongside his
character are Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officer Jimmy McGloin
(Ryan Hurst), FBI agent Tommy Rodriguez (Benjamin Benitez), LAPD
high-tech expert Rodney Gronbeck (Josey Scott), and Carla Merced (Rashida
Jones), a former Naval Intelligence officer who's an expert hostage
negotiator.
Killed off in the July 31 premiere episode was Drug Enforcement
Agency officer Joe Vacco, played by Brendan Kelly.
His death in the line of duty was something Zamacona says he planned
from the first draft of the script, "not for shock value, only
because it's a dangerous job these guys do. And I want it to be that
from episode to episode -- you don't know what might happen."
The demise allowed room, beginning on next Sunday's episode, for Lee
Tergesen to join on as the anarchic Eddie Drake, a U.S. Marshal
Service veteran who just happens to have had an affair with Rose's
estranged wife.
Zamacona has been interested from the first in writing a role for
Tergesen, memorable as abused and abusive inmate Tobias Beecher in
"Oz." But the actor was doing a play on Broadway when the pilot was
being shot.
"I needed a more sort of laconic, sarcastic, pain-in-the-arse guy,
who could just upset the chemistry of everybody," says Zamacona --
referring to the character, not the actor.
"Eddie Drake is sort of this loose cannon, funny, edgy guy, who has
this really foolish, foolish mustache," Tergesen grins, as he waits
in his trailer for his day's work to begin.
He says his Fu Manchu-style facial hair was Zamacona's idea -- "and
one of my rules is if you can't act it, grow it."
Having worked on HBO's rough and raw "Oz," Tergesen admits that
doing anything else on TV does feel a bit constricted. "That was
really pushing things and outrageous. I'll never get a script that
will shock me the way those 'Oz' scripts used to shock me."
But he likes the "loose, seat-of-the-pants" methods of the "Wanted,"
squad, and the cable series does give him some artistic latitude
with its TV-MA rating for language, sex and violence.
Zacamona was challenged at a recent news conference about TV's
escalating gruesomeness, and he says the question was upsetting.
"I'm not after just sort of exploiting the misery of others to sell
this show, or sell this team," he says. "There is a violent world
out there."
|
|
Back to
Wanted
Reviews & Articles |