Post by Inside Man on Jan 9, 2009 15:26:22 GMT -5
This is the "Powers That Be" Commentary of the Pilot Episode, with Shawn Ryan (SR), the Late Great Scott Brazil (SB), Clark Johnson (CJ), and Michael Chiklis (MC):
SR: Hi my name is Shawn Ryan and I am the Creator and Executive Producer of The Shield
MC: My name is Michael Chiklis but you can call me Chick and I play Vic Mackey
SB: I'm Scott Brazil, Co-Executive Producer
CJ: And I'm Clark Johnson. I directed the Pilot and I kept directing till they got sick of me.
SR: Ha ha. We never got sick of Clark. Uh, I want to talk about the origins of this piece. I had originally written the script, FX decided they wanted to make it, so they asked me to Executive Produce it, and I, uh, quickly realized that I had no idea what the hell I was doing, in terms of making a Pilot and, uh really, I think the success of this pilot is mostly due to the three of you guys and your experience and, uh, ability to make it happen. Scott, uh, you were the first one that came aboard. What's your memory, what's your recollection I guess, of getting the script, or...hearing about this? Your impressions when you first read the script?
SB: Initially, I was sent a script called "THE BARN," and I knew nothing about it and I thought it was going to be a farm show with little fuzzy animals for the Family Channel.
SR: Which maybe explains why the Network asked us to change the title of the show, eventually.
MC laughs.
SB: Ha, exactly. And I was quite surprised, because I had no frame of reference when I read it. And then I have a memory, a terrific memory of you and I talking for about 2 hours.
SR: It was longer than 2 hours. You and I met, it was supposed to be like a long meeting, I remember it was at the Fox TV Studios offices on the Fox lot and uh, I remember it more like 3 hours.
SB: It may have been, it was a terrific meeting because we got a chance to talk about how it came to pass with you, in terms of creating the show, we got a chance to talk about directors, we got a chance to talk about talent, we talked about the life of a series, it was a wonderful wonderful conversation. And then I think I went away for a month and you never called.
SR: Haah, well you were, I think, the first or second person that I met to produce it and uh, I was new to the thing and I wanted to meet as many people as I could and you were always the Front Runner in my mind and-
SB: You know I'm teasing you.
MC: I had a similar experience. 3 weeks went by and he never called, he never wrote.
SR: That's my way of, you know that's a power play on my part. You know, you get people and you know they want it, so you don't call them for 3 weeks.
MC: Right, right.
SR: I think that's like the Russian style of negotiation. But, just some background, Scott. You've directed and produced Pilots and shows for a number of years and have an amazing track record, in terms of working on pilots that then got on the air. And you're quick to point out that track record to me.
SB: It's all I have going.
SR: And really, I think I was up front about it, I'd written the script, I was a writer and um, I didn't know a lot about Production and certainly about producing a pilot, I'd never even worked on one. And uh, in many ways, you creatively got what we were going after and you added to it, but you were the one that really made it happen on the days. And I remember you and I spent a lot of time together and then we uh, started meeting with directors and that's where Mr. Clark Johnson comes into the picture. I was given a long list of directors that the network tenatively approved of...
MC: Hah!
SR: You know, until you actually say "We want to hire this person," then they had to reexamine whether that person was approved or not. But uh, it was a long list and I'd always been a huge fan of "Homicide" and your name jumped out at me, I was semi-aware that you had gotten into directing, but I was unaware at that point of how extensive your credits were and the body of your work but just because of your role in Homicide, your name jumped out at me and read it and what, I know that you had an experience with your agent out here right? Where you first became aware of the show?
CJ: Yes, uh. My agent, I was in there for something else and James D called me in his office and says "Just read. Read the first page of this." And I read the first page and I went..."Shit. I'm in. Give me a meeting. Do what you have to do. Let me go talk to that guy." Cause I was hooked. Of course, I never did read the rest of the script...
MC: Hahah! Which is evident.
CJ: But that first page!
SR: Luckily for us...
MC: Pretty evident.
SR: Um, then you and I, we had scheduled a meeting at the restaurant that my wife Cathy and I,we had got engaged at. It was near my house, and you got lost.
CJ: And I got lost.
SB: It was a first. Clark got lost.
SR: And I'm there, for like 45 minutes, after we were supposed to meet. I came to learn that you know, Clark's there when he gets there.
CJ: No, that's not true, there's always a valid reason.
MC: For a guy that doesn't live in LA, he's sure got that LA rule, you know, about being late.
SB: But when he's there, he really is almost there.
MC: Almost all there.
SR: But you split your time in Toronto and New York?
CJ: Yeah.
SR: What's interesting to me is--
CJ: I only come to LA for revenge, generally.
SR: HAHA! What's interesting to me is that I really wanted to make a--and this was at your urging a lot--to make LA a character in the piece and LA was just a huge part of the show and you don't seem to be too fond of our fair city. And you certainly don't like spending a lot of time here, do you?
CJ: You know, with a passion. My mother hasn't forgiven the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn in 1958, so...
MC: My Father-in-Law, too.
CJ: I come from a long like of people who hate--and I haven't forgiven the Lakers for beating the Sixers in '83. And that, too. So I, you know, have vengeance in my heart.
(Everyone laughs)
CJ: But no, it's a really interesting place to shoot, from an outsiders perspective, you know, it was kinda cool to come here and go "Oh." Cause usually, you see the Hollywood sign and we talked about that.
SB: You know, I think that's a really good point: The outsider's perspective and a distance from Los Angeles. You embraced it in a way that no one from here would.
SR: Mmhmm.
SB: And that's a uniqueness that you--
MC: As an actor, you got the immediate sense that Clark really desperately wanted to go to all the places, nooks and crannies that you never saw (before).
SB: Mmhmm.
MC: You know everybody's seen the palm trees on Beverly Drive and the Hollywood sign and Beverly Hills and all that. But um, I can attest that we went to places that I certainly hadn't ever seen and I didn't wanna see.
SR: That's great. You know I remember Clark going uh, I saw him one morning at our offices, our lush offices by the Burbank Airport, that we would stage at. And--
SB: Right where they dump the fuel before they came in--
SR: Heheh, yeah. Clark went "I was driving around in my rental car last night and I found some cool areas." I think it was Peako and Hoover. I think you said "There's this intersection, Peako and Hoover. We gotta check out. And we ended up filming like 9 or 10 scenes--
CJ: I was looking for Venice Beach when I was at Peako and Hoover.
SR: --9 or 10 scenes within a block and a half of that intersection, the very first day that we worked.
CJ: Mmhmm.
SR: And you found all these locations, all really close to each other.
MC: And I tell ya, that soccer field right with the city right behind it, that was unbelievable.
CJ: I can't really take credit for a lot of that, we had a Location Manager, Gary.
SR: Yeah.
CJ: Gary, and uh, he was an ex-cop, and usually Location Managers bring out the old dusty book of locations that they shot Dragnet in. But he was an ex-cop and we'd get to a point in the script and he'd say something like "Yeah, there was a bust over there, I got a spot where we had a similar bust where we arrested this guy and it was in the kitchen and it was just like you described in yours, with the blood on the wall." And you know, so this guy had an interesting perspective on location scouting from having, you know...I would suspect that Taxi Drivers in New York would be good Location Scouts and Cops in LA would be too and this guy was an ex-cop and--
MC: Well, just the Barn itself--
SR: Gary Watt?
SB: Gary Watt.
MC: The Barn itself was just this structure that we replicated for the purposes of doing the series, but this, in the Pilot, is a real church that we sort of inundated and you know, took over.
SR: This was a few miles Southeast of Downtown and Clark, I know that you had some interaction with the people who ran this church and got to be very friendly with them.
CJ: Yeah, they were pretty sweet, we actually gutted their church and put them, for their services, in a tent outside and they had an interfaith relationship with another church so they got to have their services on Sunday and they also got into a great rib concession because one of the mothers of the church made the best ribs I've ever had in town and she was throwing down for us, and she was making a nice tidy little profit on the side with the Craft Services.
MC: I will say though, that as delicious as those ribs were, I had gas like I can't...
CJ: That was part of your character, I thought.
MC: I was just miserable, the aftereffect of those ribs. I don't know what she put on 'em, but it was...crazy.
SR: And the nice thing for the church, they had sort of a small congregation and they had roof problems.
CJ: Right.
SR: And with the location fees they got for renting this place out to us for a few weeks, it was nice to know that they were able to fix their roof.
MC: That's cool.
SR: Yeah, cause at first, I was like, boy, do they know what's in this script? I can't believe a church is letting us film this show and then um, they got a new roof for God and there's nothing wrong with that.
CJ: I was actually leaning towards doing it in a mall. There's something about a mini-mall with a temporary Police Station, which was the conceit.
SR: He's serious.
CJ: But Scott, in his wisdom, talked me out of it. And that was how we ended up in a church.
MC: Is that right?
SR: Yeah.
MC: Everything happens for a reason.
(All four are silent during the scene where Vic suggests to Danny they should have a drink later and she asks if his wife is coming)
SR: Michael, let's talk about you. You know, Scott, Clark and I were like this three-headed monster that, as we moved forward on casting, we were lucky enough to get Deb Aquila, who cast this Pilot for us. And really, I don't think we would have gotten her at all if there wasn't a threatened Writers and Actors strike about to happen in the next couple of months, so film production had really stopped. And that's why she was available.
MC: Ooooh. No kidding.
SR: And that's when she had read the script and she was really interested in doing it, so we got this really top-notch Casting Director, Deb Aquila, to work on the--
MC: And I gotta tell you, right away, I heard that Deb was casting it, that was an impressive thing right there. And then, when I read the script, it was all about the script for me, when I read this script, I was so knocked out by it, and I had been actively looking to change the course of my career and needed a role like this to break away from that stereotype that I was stuck in, of playing the soft cuddly teddy bear who's the family guy, you know--
CJ: Which you'll always be to us, anyway.
MC: I really needed to switch gears and there it was.
SR: But you'd actively been working on and developing a dirty cop story yourself.
MC: Exactly right. My wife, when she was a kid, when she was in High School, dated this guy whose brother was a rogue cop. He was the most decorated cop in all of Miami-Dade, yet he had more lawsuits pending against him for brutality and whatnot, so she told me about this guy and I started developing this script, which will go unnamed because I don't want him to find me.
CJ: And you don't need to pitch that series...
MC: No. And in any case, it's on my computer to this day. I had this treatment, I was putting in whole sequences, scenes, one of which was a sequence where this rogue cop beats up this drug dealer, takes his money and his drugs and gives them to a pregnant prostitute that he happened to know, and that was a true story.
CJ: Basically what he's saying is that you stole...
SR: I snuck in Michael's house--
CJ: You stole--
SR: Cause there was a hole in my script...
MC: What it is, it just shows what an extraordinary convergence has happened, you know I said it at the Critics Awards, but I meant it. You know, I've never put any stock in Astronomy paths
SR: You mean Astrology
MC: Astrology. The moon, that's right Astrology, not Astronomy.
SR: Because I believe in Astronomy.
MC: I believe in Astronomy.
(everyone laughs)
12:03
SR: I don't think the scientists are lying to us on that one.
MC: Right, right. Exactly. Nice to be a malaprop in the middle of your story. Great.
SR: Sorry.
MC: No, I fucked up, what can I tell you? Astrology. I never invested a lot in it, but it makes you wonder if the moon wasn't over my anus or Uranus or someone's anus, because something was lined up over my ass or I was just a lucky a**hole, I don't know what. But for this to hit my desk, right when I wanted to do it, and for it to be written a million times better, to your credit, than I could ever--
SR: You are too kind.
MC: No, than I could ever have delivered it, so it was a real turn-on, and when I went in...you know one of the funniest stories I've heard after the fact is that Clark's reaction to me coming in is, I heard that you had said "Michael Chiklis? You mean, woowoowoowoo Michael Chiklis?"
CJ: Yeah, there was woowoowoowoo and Belushi and this huge body of work, but I never saw you as Vic Mackey until you walked in the door and then I never saw anyone else as Vic Mackey.
SR: Well, lets talk about that walk in the door for a second because what amazed me in the process was the number of actors that I, as a working guy in Los Angeles, had never even heard of, who were people who wouldn't even read for the role. Or wouldn't read for certain roles: "You know if you want to offer me this, that's great and everything..." And here's Michael Chiklis who's been the lead in two different television series, you know "The Commish," which ran for five or six years?
MC: Yep.
SR: And then Daddy-O, which was on for a couple of years, you'd headed two different series, which was a ton more than a lot of these other bozos who I'd never heard of who were like "Well, you know, you want to offer me that role, alright."
CJ: The whole cast of "Dukes of Hazzards" turned us down.
SR: But you were willing to come in and read for us and kinda prove it to us. You had the goods and you came in and what made that decision? Because I imagine you got some advice from your representative...That you don't have to read for anything.
MC: Yeah. Exactly. But that was driven by my agents. My agents at the time, I was driven sort of by, "I don't want you to read because as a status thing, it's FX." And that was sort of a poo-poo to the Network, not about the material. My agent at the time was effusive about the material. But he was afraid of me going in and reading for a Netlet. And I said "Look."
SB: A netlet...That's changed, hasn't it?
MC: Yeah, that's changed dramatically since. But I knew what I had in my hands. I knew what I could do with it. And I also knew that the perception would be on the part of all of you guys that they would go "Wait a minute. The guy who played The Commish? He's like saying Offer it to me?. Is he eating multiple tabs of acid? No. No, pass." And (I thought) you guys were passing me.
SR: A lot of actors, that was their attitude.
MC: I'm a big believer in the audition process, 'cause hey, when you get it, you've won the role. Then there's no doubt in anyone's mind, and your own as well, as an actor.
SR: Absolutely. No, you went out there and won it.
(This is the scene where Vic pulls Lonnie Reborg out of the crack house)
SR: Let's talk about this scene for a second. This, to me, was one of the signature scenes of the Pilot, for me.
CJ: Let's just give a couple of seconds to Denny Forest, who's passed away subsequently. Great character actor.
MC: This gentleman that I'm manhandling right now.
CJ: Yeah. Great character actor.
SR: And that's Michael Reed-McKay, who, when he came in, we saw these sort of skinny arms and we're trying to sell a crack house. And these two guys, both of them...First of all, the location, the casting that Clark pushes for and suggests, these people who, they're just interesting characters. You look at them and they're unique. You always like to put unique people in your episodes, aren't you, Clark?
CJ: Well, I'm a firm believer that if you start with a really good script, and people who are great actors, it becomes Director-proof.
MC: Right.
CJ: And we had a really great ensemble here.
SR: Well, you managed to f*ck up a couple of times.
CJ: Yeah, well, even still.
SR: We thought we were director-proof!
CJ: Who knew?
MC: No, but it certainly hedges your bet when...Well, for me, I always say that if it's on the page, then it just becomes that much easier for the director and for the actors to achieve a good product. Now, this guy, Denny, we do have to stop on him, because his performance is extraordinary and that's what makes a different kind of Pilot to me. Where it's not just a great core cast, but your guest bring in performances like his.
CJ: It was such, such...He's so method, and he had to go so deep and he's so tortured for this...And this is pretty much the last thing he did before he died, and it's a tribute to his work, you know. He's a great actor.
(Dutch/Lonnie Interrogation scene)
SR: And, what was interesting about this scene was, we went back and forth editing this scene for a while, but I know you did your cut, Clark, and then I was showing you what we were doing and this is one of those scenes that was almost there for me but not quite for a long time and to me, the thing that cracked it, eventually, was to cut away from him less. And we have this one shot coming up where we're probably on him for like 20 seconds
MC: You're on him all this time and it's so brave, I loved this, that you guys stuck with this.
SR: And it was one of the last things we did and it was the thing for me that really cemented the scene, we just sort of stayed here with him and stayed here with him and stayed here with him.
MC: Uh!
SR: And we just refused to let the audience look away and he's going through such pain and such torture. And not to cut away was an interesting lesson to me, because so much of this show is fast cutting.
CJ: Mmmh.
SR: And when you allow yourself to slow down in a few selected point--
MC: Land!
SR: ...a lot of times, they end up having more power.
MC: It was a mentor of mine years ago who used to say, with regard to storytelling, "If everything's important, nothing's important." So you need to keep your pace going so that you have those moments that you want to land on and really really hit home and you select those and you can really make an impact with those. Now on a lighter note, at the beginning of this sequence, you see some dogs at the crack house and I gotta tell a little Clark-ism here that took on a life of its own, without him even knowing it. He said, he turned to Billy (Geirhardt) and this is very Clark Johnsonesque, for him to just be in the area that we were in and say to Billy, "Billy, Shoot the dog. Shoot the dog."
Everyone laughs.
MC: Shoot the cat!
CJ: Gwenyth, our First A.D., ran and got some meat.
MC: She started tossing meat to these Pit Bulls that were free. Those weren't even our dogs. They were just Pit Bulls.
CJ: Wandering around.
MC: And scaring the shit out of all of us, by the way. And, he...You know, my nickname is Chick and he turned it into Chicks. You know he's just--
SR: Well, he can't call you what everyone else does.
MC: Exactly, he's just, he's just...too cool to believe. "Yo, Chicks. You know, try this for me...Billy, Shoot the dog." And what it became was, any frameable image became, like, "Shoot the dog."
SB: Which all became part of the fabric of the show.
MC: Right.
SR: This is Brian Boone, the second of the three of our 'Trio of Pervs,' as I like to call them. Here in the pilot, we had Denny Forest, Brian Boone and then Jim Ortlieb at the end, and it was these three guys that really cemented that whole storyline of the missing girl.
CJ: Three really different performances.
SR: Three different performances.
MC: Really chilling, totally different. Uh!
SR: Clark, talk about one of the things that I really admire about your directing style. You always seem to be looking for what's happening on the edges of the scenes. We saw earlier, in the scene at Echo Park, you know, the cutting down of the tree. That's something the city was really doing the day we were there.
MC: Shoot the dog!
SR: Shoot the dog! And then finding these extras and the other actors and the things that are going on around the scene...you know, maybe talk about your philosophy, not just shooting the people that are talking, but instilling the world around them with a sense of reality.
CJ: It's an evolution of style, I think. With Scott on Hill Street, where the camera really started to get freed up then. And segued into the Homicide and NYPD era, where you shoot with both eyes open. And so my sort of style for this was to shoot with both eyes open but we don't need to be so active with the camera, just need to be slightly behind the action. And to be looking for things that are going on elsewhere, that can comment on what they're saying. It's just as much fun to have Jay saying something profound and to be on a background extra who's reacting to it.
SR: Now this was something that wasn't scripted, it was something that you added on the day, this cop coming in and having something for Dutch to sign. As I had written it, it was more straightforward, just talking questions and you had him sort of talking and throwing it off as he was filling out this important paperwork and it was something that made the scene totally different. For me, that's all you, brother.
CJ: Right, well,
SR: Well, it's not me.
MC: It's brushstrokes, it's beautiful.
CJ: And that's Jay, too, with getting that concept that we wanted to defuse the situation, it's good policework. There's no set rule as to who's a good Homicide Investigator. There's great ones that you know, have a completely different style and his style as we developed, evolved for him, was a more cerebral, intellectual approach like Deitrich on Barney Miller, so that helped him to disarm this character. It was a device to get him away from the moment.
MC: And Vic of course, similarly, a very intellectual approach.
CJ: Right.
MC: As in this scene.
CJ: Intellectually yanking a guy out from under a car.
22:00
SR: This scene, your hair was longer than it was for the rest of this episode, and it's always bugged me. And I saw you on that day and I said "Your hair is longer," and our hair people insisted it was the same length.
MC: It was. I have to concur.
SR: And yet, it looks thicker. It's a matching problem.
MC: It has to do with the light. Apparently...
CJ: That blue light above.
MC: Apparently, when I was in the sunlight, outdoors, you could see much more prevalently, my hair on the side than when we're in the studio. But every day, they took that #1 buzzer, and buzzed my head every morning. I mean, we did it the same way every single day.
SR: I was just, you know, you want things to be perfect. In my position, I'm thinking "I'm only going to get one chance to make this Pilot. Who knows if I'll ever get another chance?" It was little things that, the macro stuff was all great, so I had to obsess over little things like that.
SB: Like the sound of the light in this scene.
SR: Or the light. Or you can see your microphone there! Under the shirt.
MC: Right, oh that killed me. And I knew it and I was saying "You guys, the mike is...It's a tight T-shirt, you're killing me."
SR: Right, and the Studio gave me an offer, essentially at the beginning of the process, and Clark, you were probably aware of this as well, they were saying, "You can film this Pilot in 13 days in Canada, or 12 days in San Diego, or 11 days in Los Angeles. And of course we said 11 days in LA.
MC: Thank God.
SR: Thank God, but that's a quick turnaround for a pilot, and it results in little things like that the audience probably doesn't notice, but it bugs the shit out of me.
(Danny and Julien interview Fran and Hooper about the slashed tires)
CJ: Here's a great example of celebrating the LA Experience. I don't think I've seen a hotter day than the day we shot this scene. And the day that we shot the opening sequence, where the sun was unrelenting and you can't stop for a siesta for 3 hours in the middle of the day. You gotta celebrate that light. This is harsh, harsh LA light in all its glory. You won't see this kinda light anywhere else.
MC: By the way, that goes right into the point I wanted to make when I said "Thank God we didn't shoot in Canada or in San Diego." What I mean by that is, This is a show that takes place in Los Angeles. And if I saw another show that was faux Los Angeles, shot up in Vancouver...
SR: With the establishing shots that some helicopter crew did...
MC: Exactly
CJ: "I think we needed more soccer in this..."
SB: I have it for you.
MC: You can't get this. See this? This is LA and you can't get this anywhere else.
SB: (sarcastically) Oh, you can get that in Toronto.
SR laughs
MC: Yeah. Alright.
SB: Those Highrises...
MC: Those highrises right behind the soccer field, and the feel of every extra and everything...I mean one thing that's sort of been this thing that's now coming up of late, is how diverse the cast is, and all the guest actors. And I think the reason that no one ever took note of that before is because it's visceral. This is a city that is absolutely multi-cultural, and because all the people are cast so beautifully...again, we go back to Deb Aquila and her casting...
SR: And Trish Wood, who's her partner. Don't forget Trish.
MC: And Tricia, right. Absolutely. You don't...it's not obtrusive...it doesn't feel like this was stunt casting for the sake of making it diverse. It just is, in its nature. And we were true to that, and because of that it really was a great mixed bag.
SR: Scott, I'm interested in...you're a really talented, experienced director in addition to being a Producer. Is there any level of frustration for you as you produce a Pilot like this and see someone else direct it, and think "Well, that's great but i would do this different, or, I mean how do you say things as a producer that aren't like, you as a director? Talk about how you would play a scene? Is there any frustration on that level?
SB: No, and I don't think you separate the two. I think my directing experience comes into play as a producer just to shepherd. I certainly wouldn't want to change Clark's vision, or change your vision. Or change an episodic director's vision, as long as it stays inside the guidelines of what I have thought were our goals. But in this particular case, kudos to Clark, and I've said it to him personally, every time I watch Clark direct, I learn. And this was pretty thrilling, although I remember our first meeting, where you said "I really want you to meet Clark, he's got to go back to Canada. And I know your deal's not done yet, Scott. But we gotta sit down and talk to Clark. Great, so we all get together and Clark says "I have a real good feel for the show. I have a real good look and I have a sense of how I'm gonna play the show..."
SR: But he didn't really tell us what it was.
SB: Really, how would it be, Clark? Tell us, define it for us. "Well, it's uh, uh uh, and uh... Run Lola Run, maybe there's a little bit of that in there. And then, maybe..uh..." You had it, but you couldn't--
CJ: A little Birth of a Nation.
SB: No, but you.
SR: You certainly kept me in the dark. And it was a case where, once again, I was entrusting the people that had more experience than me. I didn't know what dailies would look like at all. I had no idea what dailies would look like, until I saw them.
SB: But, can I offer this? Clark, you--
MC: You must been scared shitless, man. You musta been!
SB: Michael, I was.
MC: I mean, it's your first gig, it's your baby, and it's your script.
SR: But it almost gave me the freedom: I was a nobody making a Pilot on a Network that people weren't thinking too much of. There really was no down side for me. So that was the thing that protected me. There was nothing to lose.
MC: Cool.
CJ: I've since learned to articulate some. If we had that meeting now, I probably would articulate it better. But, your initial question to Scott, I celebrated that. I saw Scott as an ally for that very reason, where finally, there's a Producer that I respect as a Director. Who's an ally as a Producer, as opposed to, you know, a suit. You know, who can help me...
SR: 'Cause you feel like you have to fight those people and other examples--
CJ: You know, cause he knows what our problems are and not that other producers don't, but we spoke the same language, so even if we disagreed, we knew what we were disagreeing about.
SB: I wanna go back for just one second, because one of the things of your directorial style, which is very rare in television, which is why you're so successful and creative as a director, is you direct "in the moment," I suspect, as you 'act in the moment.'
CJ: Mmmhmmm.
SB: And there's quite a bit of preparation, but it's a loose preparation and it's a visceral preparation and when you get into a scene, there's so much discovery for you as a director, that it's thrilling, and that's what you were able to capitalize.
MC: Right. So often, directors being an actor, involved with us, so often, directors are very rigid.
SB: Yep.
MC: They have this preconceived notion of what the scene is gonna be, so they end up sitting on the actors and that sits on their creative ability to bring what they're going to bring to the text, to the scene. So that was a joy about Clark.
SB: Absolutely.
MC: Clark knew...He always keeps the root of the scene. He knows what the scene is about, where we're going and what we're supposed to get out of the scene. But he has this amazing latitude that he gives you in place, in everything that comes into a scene. It let's you--
CJ: It's so collaborative, this art, especially TV. It gives me freedom to steal from everyone.
MC: Right, ha!
SR: It's true.
MC: It's true.
SB: Absolutely. It's true.
MC: And you know what? This goes, again, with another thing about what an interesting wonderful breeding ground Basic Cable and Cable in general is right now for great work and when earlier, you said you had nothing to lose and everything to gain, that's the same thing with Cable. So they're smart enough right now to say to a bunch of artists or collaborators, "Go and make the best show you can make." And they don't get into your face with the process and this is the result of that. Where similarly, like to Sundance Film Festival was 7 years ago. That was a great breeding ground for young filmmakers making their wares.
CJ: Let me just jump into this for a second. This is funny because this is a location that sort of came before us because of our Boom Man was staying there. He said, "I'm staying at this funky little hotel, might be good for you..."
Everyone laughs.
29:11
SR: The Bobo Hotel.
CJ: And he was staying there. We didn't use his room, because he was charging us too much.
SR: It was one of those places a couple of bloks from Pico and Hoover.
CJ: Right.
MC: This guy is so good, too.
MC: Both of these men, Micheal Jace and...
SR: Page Kennedy.
MC: ...Just terrific actors, both of them.
SR: Going back to Clark and working, because we just can't kiss his ass enough...
Everyone laughs.
SR: Because he's got a feature film career going now and don't we all want to ride those coattails.
SB: Wait until he gets along.
MC: Absolutely.
SR: What was really instructive to me was actually working with Clark in the audition process. Seeing all these actors come in and Clark, you seem to use the audition process with all these actors that came in, most of whom didn't get cast, you seemed to use that almost as rehearsals for you, how you were going to play scenes. You used actors to sort of give them suggestions that you weren't sure whether they would work or not and just see what they brought.
CJ: Again, stealing with impunity.
SR: And I know that, totally. We sort of stole some lines that people had improvved in auditions and you, I think, started to see how scenes would play in your head by seeing how scenes would work.
CJ: You know, actors bring in their choices. Good actors come in with good solid choices and sometimes they're totally wrong for the thing and sometimes not, but it gives you an opportunity to look and see how the thing would evolve.
MC: Yeah, you can go "Oh, that works."
CJ: It's different perspectives. You know someone would go "What's that in the road? A HEAD?" Well, you know, that's an interesting way of saying that line. It didn't work? You see what I mean?
SR and MC chuckle.
SR: Michael, how quickly did you bond with the other Strike Team guys? You know, in this...The thing I always admired about you from the get-go was you never disappeared into your trailer in between shooting. WIth you, it was always you and Kenny and Reed Diamond here and Walton and Dave Snell, who plays Ronnie. You guys always seemed to be hanging out, it's like "Oh! Now we gotta film!"
MC: Right, maybe it goes back to being and athlete and being on football and baseball teams and hockey teams...you know, I'm a team--
SR: I have to interrupt you really quickly to say that's my daughter Haley, by the way.
MC: And my wife handing Haley to your wife. How funny is that? And that's my daughter jumping in the pool, Autumn.
SR: There's no nepotism at all in this show.
MC: It's a family affair, yeah.
SR: I got excited there, sorry.
MC: No, no, it's, uh, you know...
CJ: And that's Scott Brazil there, hiding in a bush.
(everyone laughs)
SB: I was wondering what was taking so long.
MC: It's just, I'm not a trailer guy. It's just that I'm a lover of the filmmaking process.
CJ: Well, let's talk about those trailers for a second. Those things were nasty, anyway.
SB: That's to keep people out of them.
SR: That's why Scott the Producer is so brilliant. He gave you a shitty enough trailer so everyone would be a family on the set.
MC: See, listen. That's also the reason why, in the negotiating process, I was "I don't really care about the trailer, as long as it's something I can go in and change and come out," because I don't spend time in my trailer. I go right to the set. I'm always asking the Director of Photography or the Director or the Cameraman what he's doing, why he's doing it. Because for me, it's a great learning process because I know I'm going to get into the Directing world in coming years. And also, as far as the cameraderie with the boys, you know...It usually isn't quite this good this quick. I mean, I have pretty much an instant rapport with most people that I meet.
SR: That's good.
MC: But, these guys--
SR: Let's talk about Reed Diamond here for a second.
MC: It was a home run.
SR: It was a home run, and Clark, you had obviously worked with him on "Homicide." To me, using him was sort of an ode to "Homicide" and then killing him at the end of the episode was like saying "But we're still going to be our own show."
CJ: Right, because we thought he was going to be a Series Regular, because you assumed, right.
SR: That's the way we played it.
MC: And you put him in the front credits.
SR: And in the contract, I said, "I want to list you as one of the Series Regulars in the beginning, so anyone that has a sense of who you are feels like you're going to be a part of this."
MC: "Oh, Reed Diamond is in this..."
SR: Yeah. And he's just exactly the sort of guy, because of his Homicide experience, that you'd expect to be in this sort of TV show.
MC: Sure.
CJ: Right.
SR: And I wanted somebody who was recognizable in that, but not somebody so big where you're like "Oh, that guy's not gonna be in this TV show and I'm waiting for how he's going to disappear.
CJ: Right.
SR: I just really wanted him to feel like part of this ensemble and he fit right in.
34:05
MC: Another chilling performance by the 3rd in the Trio of Pedophiles.
SR: Trio of Pervs.
MC: Of Pervs, right. (chuckles) The Trio of Pervs, right. And the magnificently talented CCH Pounder. I've never seen an ensemble...and not just the Strike Team...I mean, Jay and I. Jay Karnes and I. And CC. I think what it is is, especially when you have...And again, it goes back to you, man. And I know this sounds like the Mutual Admiration Club, but it's true. When you have a bunch of actors that know that the script that they're working on is top-shelf, it breeds this instant excitement.
CJ: And good actors will find good writing.
MC: Absolutely. And then you get on set the first day and you have a Clark Johnson and a Scott Brazil at the helm, you go "OH, Okay. Now we're actually gonna do this well." And then everybody wants to raise their game. And then there's such an excitement that you have this team thing, because you know you could win. So, we just immediately, instantly went right to that, and bonded as a cast.
SR: You know, I sat on the set during the making of this Pilot. You know, for the most part, just watching you guys do your job. I would ocassionally chime in on things, but it was just amazing to me knowing the caliber of actors that were saying these words. And I would look and I would think "I can't believe the cast we have." I would say to myself, and it was almost too good to be true and it was a case where the Network literally gave us our first choice on every single role. Which is unheard of and unprecedented. You know, usually Networks have their own agenda, they've worked with somebody, they want whatever. You know, you have to give the props to Kevin Reilly, Peter O'Dory at FX--
MC: Absolutely.
SR: --Who knew when to let us do our thing. And when they did weigh in, their comments were really smart and intelligent and helpful to me. And they actually, they had a lot of suggestions that were quite good ones involved in the editing of this Pilot. There was a lot of scene order that's been moved around from the original script.
MC: Best Network Executives I've ever worked with.
SR: Yeah, they...I haven't had the experience you've had, Michael. Working with Network Executives. But I've heard enough stories to know just how extraordinarily lucky we are. They're smart and bright, yet they let us do our things. I got all of two very brief phone calls from them during the making of this Pilot.
MC: That's extraordinary.
SR: And they weren't all, you know...
MC: That's the nature of Network Television.
SR: Considering how important this Pilot was to that Network.
MC: Right, right. It's extraordinary! But, that also speaks to...they were liking what they were seeing, so they knew well enough to leave it alone.
36:58
(Vic interviews Dr. Grady. I got a little girl back at home. 8 year old daughter name is Cassidy...)
CJ: This is the trailer moment right here.
SR: This is the signature scene right here, of the show.
MC: I have to tell you, when I read this scene, I already was way into "I want this role," but then it became rabid. Then it became actually nervewracking because this is when you want a role so bad--
SR: And what happens if you don't get it?
MC: Right, that you can actually screw it up in the auditioning process because you want it so bad.
SB: You were foaming at the mouth a little bit.
SR: Yeah, now I know you've got 2 daughters, Michael. How much do you allow yourself to go into thinking about something happening to your actual daughters when you do a scene like this? Or is this just acting and you divorce yourself?
MC: No, I let myself go there. Particularly for this. I went, you know...Uh, there was a time in my life when I was very method oriented, and I would you know, completely...But, I've learned an economy in being able to touch that pool, that reservoir quicker and being...making myself available to it. So that I'm then able to walk away from it and then divorce myself from it. But when I'm there, when I'm working, I'm completely absolutely commited to it. And sometimes, where I don't have a point of reference, like this scene (that scene), if I think for one moment, a second, about my own daughters in this context, I'm there.
CJ: So let me just talk about CC for a second, because this is coming up. CCH Pounder is truly one of my favorite actresses in the world, but watching her hold a gun is like watching somebody...a woman in her parlor with a teacup being startled by something that happened across the room.
(everyone laughs)
SR: We had talked about having some training for our actors. You know, Jay's...Jay got better over the course of the season. Jay's not the most comfortable looking guy holding a gun, either, in the same scene, here. Benny was the best, so you put him in front.
(more laughing)
SR: I know. But, weren't we going to do some training with everyone, Scott? And then we just simply ran out of time?
CJ: There's CC. Look at CC. Oh boy. Oh boy.
SB: Yeah, we were going to do training. We were also going to try to do some Police ride-alongs sort of thing, and we were met with uh....not open arms.
SR: Was that with...
CJ: But see, these guys...With these guys, this is perfectly in keeping with their characters, because these guys probably draw their gun in real life probably once every 10 years. So once you get into major crimes like this, you're not usually doing the knockdowns. So it's okay, there's a lot of cops who...
SR: So what you're saying is that you intentionally had them hold their gun...
CJ: No, no. I'm saying, I'm saying.
MC: Well, no matter what, it worked. God, you are brilliant!
SB: It was a choice.
MC: It worked for CC's character.
CJ: Yeah. It wouldn't have worked for any of Mackey's boys.
MC: Well, I grew up with, and am very comfortable with firearms because I grew up in a hunting house in New England. It's something that I moved away from personally, but...
SB: Can you go hunting with handguns?
MC: No, but we were all things guns. I was a typical American boy, I had my first gun when I was 6, so, yeah.
SB: What was it?
MC: It was a 12-gauge Browning Semi-Automatic.
SB: A 12-Gauge. Wow.
CJ: I had one of those little guns with a cork in it. My mom took it away.
SB: It would come back, it wouldn't go too far...
MC: I went out Pheasant hunting with it, you know. My father taught me about guns. What he did was, he took me out to the gun range with that shotgun and he set up a watermelon on a haystack and he made me shoot the watermelon. And when you see what a gun does to a watermelon...And he sat me down and said "If that's someone's head, that's what happens when you shoot someone with a weapon."
CJ: So don't shoot 'em in the head, shoot 'em in the body because...
SR: Body shots, Michael.
MC: So what he was saying was, "If I ever see you point a fake gun at a person, I will break your head."
CJ: Wow.
MC: Well, that's the kind of language he used with me with regard to a gun, because...And he never did with anything else, he just wanted to impress upon me that that's--
SR: The seriousness.
MC: Yeah, you have one mistake...There's no allowing. There is no one mistake. Oh, a little dog shit.
(Dutch's Dog Shit scene)
MC: Oh, I love this shot right here, because it's a beautiful reveal, Clark. I gotta say, (talks along with Dutch) "Oh it's you, isn't it?" (in mock response to Dutch) "You got the wrong guy!"
CJ: But what's fun is, this is the way Chicks covers his character here. It's fun because he doesn't mind Jay thinking that it was him. He doesn't mind.
SR: Which plays so effectively that the Network, one of their big complaints was that half the people in their office who watched it though that Vic had put the shit in the desk and the other half, looking at Claudette's face, realized that it was her.
CJ: That's cop humor.
SB: And the other half...
CJ: 'The other half...' (chuckles)
SR: And they were saying "Is it clear? Is it clear? Is it clear?" And I know you're a big fan, Clark, of everything doesn't have to be.
MC: It doesn't have to be.
SB: And the 3rd half discovered it when they saw her dog.
MC: Right. Exactly.
SB: And that's beautiful, too.
MC: Right. And there are so many, like in the montage, there's one thing I thought we may get into trouble with. There's so much discovery in this montage here.
42:00
SR: Right. Let's--
MC: Like when you see Benny with his child, his little girl.
SR: Who's his actual daughter in real life.
MC: Oh, I didn't know that.
CJ: See, there's another example of the wonderful things you can discover. We--Scott and I--we were looking for another location, and we went up that hill. I said "What's up that hill?" "Oh, that's Chavez Ravine up there." There are these little houses up the hill that are backlit by Dodger Stadium.
MC: Right.
CJ: I mean, what Production value is that? We just looked at the schedul to see when the Dodgers were going to be home.
SB: And what luck: They were home during our schedule.
CJ: Yeah, right.
MC: You know what?
SR: Uh--
MC: Go ahead.
SR: I was just going to say, real quickly that, the way that I write, I like to listen to music as I write. But I don't like to listen to whole albums. I'll listen to one song over and over and over again when I write. And when I wrote this Pilot script, I listened to this Kid Rock song. To me, it sort of put me in that world--
MC: In the head space.
SR: A lot of scripts that I've written in my life, I can tell you what my song was that I associated with that script because it's what I listened to. And this script, I...this song was it, and I knew that this song had to be at the end.
CJ: And this is our Director of Photography playing "The Date. (Danny's)
MC: Yes.
CJ: But it was painful for you, when we almost didn't get this song, it was Scott Brazil browbeating Kid Rock.
SR: Getting the songs, paying the money and getting the rights is always difficult and I was not even sure what we would do if we couldn't get this because I had driven from my offices at "Angel" to my house, imagining this final sequence. This sequence really was in my head, whereas the rest of the thing, I didn't know how it would look. I had very specific things in mind.
MC: I gotta tell you about this scene, from the actors perspective. All of us, were at one point during the shooting of this sequence, looked at each other completely terrified because when we slipped out of that...we rolled into that shot. We killed the engine, rolled in there, and we thought, "We're five heavily armed men. We roll up, we have a ladder on the window, we are up and in this apartment in seconds, all of us. Armed to the teeth." And that's kind of an incredibly frightening thing at how devestating these guys can be. About how effective they can be, and, you know...They're completely commited, I mean...
SR: Okay, now, let's talk about this final moment coming up here. You know, I have all the time, people talk about the moment when you shoot Terry at the end.
MC: Yep.
SR: And it really is something, the way you played it, the way Clark filmed it, the way it exists, is something that I think does separate this show from a lot of Network shows. And then the question always was, "Well oh my God. Can you have a series about a guy who at the end of the Pilot does that?"
MC: Yeah, well...From my standpoint, with regard to fear of losing the audience...I thought--To be sure, it was an interesting question, what the audience's perception of it was--But, because it came from such a real place, I just trusted that you would see this guy for all of his parts. That it would really create a dilemma in the minds and hearts of the audience. As it has. I think obviously, there are some members of the audience that think "This is a bad guy, there's no question about it." And then there's others who think this guy is absolutely a hero and...most people are right in the middle, like: "I don't know what to think about this guy."
SB: But the beauty of it is, that, even as a bad guy...You wanna know what he's gonna do next. You wanna know what's coming next. And that's the art.
CJ: So watch Episode Two.
SR: I would just like to quickly say that this show and the Pilot Episode was just something that was in my imagination and it was really...I'd like to thank the three of you guys in addition to everyone else. But especially you three for making it happen and bringing it to life. And you guys all made it a ton better than just what was on the page. So thank you.
CJ: Okay!
MC: Thank YOU!
SR: Hi my name is Shawn Ryan and I am the Creator and Executive Producer of The Shield
MC: My name is Michael Chiklis but you can call me Chick and I play Vic Mackey
SB: I'm Scott Brazil, Co-Executive Producer
CJ: And I'm Clark Johnson. I directed the Pilot and I kept directing till they got sick of me.
SR: Ha ha. We never got sick of Clark. Uh, I want to talk about the origins of this piece. I had originally written the script, FX decided they wanted to make it, so they asked me to Executive Produce it, and I, uh, quickly realized that I had no idea what the hell I was doing, in terms of making a Pilot and, uh really, I think the success of this pilot is mostly due to the three of you guys and your experience and, uh, ability to make it happen. Scott, uh, you were the first one that came aboard. What's your memory, what's your recollection I guess, of getting the script, or...hearing about this? Your impressions when you first read the script?
SB: Initially, I was sent a script called "THE BARN," and I knew nothing about it and I thought it was going to be a farm show with little fuzzy animals for the Family Channel.
SR: Which maybe explains why the Network asked us to change the title of the show, eventually.
MC laughs.
SB: Ha, exactly. And I was quite surprised, because I had no frame of reference when I read it. And then I have a memory, a terrific memory of you and I talking for about 2 hours.
SR: It was longer than 2 hours. You and I met, it was supposed to be like a long meeting, I remember it was at the Fox TV Studios offices on the Fox lot and uh, I remember it more like 3 hours.
SB: It may have been, it was a terrific meeting because we got a chance to talk about how it came to pass with you, in terms of creating the show, we got a chance to talk about directors, we got a chance to talk about talent, we talked about the life of a series, it was a wonderful wonderful conversation. And then I think I went away for a month and you never called.
SR: Haah, well you were, I think, the first or second person that I met to produce it and uh, I was new to the thing and I wanted to meet as many people as I could and you were always the Front Runner in my mind and-
SB: You know I'm teasing you.
MC: I had a similar experience. 3 weeks went by and he never called, he never wrote.
SR: That's my way of, you know that's a power play on my part. You know, you get people and you know they want it, so you don't call them for 3 weeks.
MC: Right, right.
SR: I think that's like the Russian style of negotiation. But, just some background, Scott. You've directed and produced Pilots and shows for a number of years and have an amazing track record, in terms of working on pilots that then got on the air. And you're quick to point out that track record to me.
SB: It's all I have going.
SR: And really, I think I was up front about it, I'd written the script, I was a writer and um, I didn't know a lot about Production and certainly about producing a pilot, I'd never even worked on one. And uh, in many ways, you creatively got what we were going after and you added to it, but you were the one that really made it happen on the days. And I remember you and I spent a lot of time together and then we uh, started meeting with directors and that's where Mr. Clark Johnson comes into the picture. I was given a long list of directors that the network tenatively approved of...
MC: Hah!
SR: You know, until you actually say "We want to hire this person," then they had to reexamine whether that person was approved or not. But uh, it was a long list and I'd always been a huge fan of "Homicide" and your name jumped out at me, I was semi-aware that you had gotten into directing, but I was unaware at that point of how extensive your credits were and the body of your work but just because of your role in Homicide, your name jumped out at me and read it and what, I know that you had an experience with your agent out here right? Where you first became aware of the show?
CJ: Yes, uh. My agent, I was in there for something else and James D called me in his office and says "Just read. Read the first page of this." And I read the first page and I went..."Shit. I'm in. Give me a meeting. Do what you have to do. Let me go talk to that guy." Cause I was hooked. Of course, I never did read the rest of the script...
MC: Hahah! Which is evident.
CJ: But that first page!
SR: Luckily for us...
MC: Pretty evident.
SR: Um, then you and I, we had scheduled a meeting at the restaurant that my wife Cathy and I,we had got engaged at. It was near my house, and you got lost.
CJ: And I got lost.
SB: It was a first. Clark got lost.
SR: And I'm there, for like 45 minutes, after we were supposed to meet. I came to learn that you know, Clark's there when he gets there.
CJ: No, that's not true, there's always a valid reason.
MC: For a guy that doesn't live in LA, he's sure got that LA rule, you know, about being late.
SB: But when he's there, he really is almost there.
MC: Almost all there.
SR: But you split your time in Toronto and New York?
CJ: Yeah.
SR: What's interesting to me is--
CJ: I only come to LA for revenge, generally.
SR: HAHA! What's interesting to me is that I really wanted to make a--and this was at your urging a lot--to make LA a character in the piece and LA was just a huge part of the show and you don't seem to be too fond of our fair city. And you certainly don't like spending a lot of time here, do you?
CJ: You know, with a passion. My mother hasn't forgiven the Dodgers for leaving Brooklyn in 1958, so...
MC: My Father-in-Law, too.
CJ: I come from a long like of people who hate--and I haven't forgiven the Lakers for beating the Sixers in '83. And that, too. So I, you know, have vengeance in my heart.
(Everyone laughs)
CJ: But no, it's a really interesting place to shoot, from an outsiders perspective, you know, it was kinda cool to come here and go "Oh." Cause usually, you see the Hollywood sign and we talked about that.
SB: You know, I think that's a really good point: The outsider's perspective and a distance from Los Angeles. You embraced it in a way that no one from here would.
SR: Mmhmm.
SB: And that's a uniqueness that you--
MC: As an actor, you got the immediate sense that Clark really desperately wanted to go to all the places, nooks and crannies that you never saw (before).
SB: Mmhmm.
MC: You know everybody's seen the palm trees on Beverly Drive and the Hollywood sign and Beverly Hills and all that. But um, I can attest that we went to places that I certainly hadn't ever seen and I didn't wanna see.
SR: That's great. You know I remember Clark going uh, I saw him one morning at our offices, our lush offices by the Burbank Airport, that we would stage at. And--
SB: Right where they dump the fuel before they came in--
SR: Heheh, yeah. Clark went "I was driving around in my rental car last night and I found some cool areas." I think it was Peako and Hoover. I think you said "There's this intersection, Peako and Hoover. We gotta check out. And we ended up filming like 9 or 10 scenes--
CJ: I was looking for Venice Beach when I was at Peako and Hoover.
SR: --9 or 10 scenes within a block and a half of that intersection, the very first day that we worked.
CJ: Mmhmm.
SR: And you found all these locations, all really close to each other.
MC: And I tell ya, that soccer field right with the city right behind it, that was unbelievable.
CJ: I can't really take credit for a lot of that, we had a Location Manager, Gary.
SR: Yeah.
CJ: Gary, and uh, he was an ex-cop, and usually Location Managers bring out the old dusty book of locations that they shot Dragnet in. But he was an ex-cop and we'd get to a point in the script and he'd say something like "Yeah, there was a bust over there, I got a spot where we had a similar bust where we arrested this guy and it was in the kitchen and it was just like you described in yours, with the blood on the wall." And you know, so this guy had an interesting perspective on location scouting from having, you know...I would suspect that Taxi Drivers in New York would be good Location Scouts and Cops in LA would be too and this guy was an ex-cop and--
MC: Well, just the Barn itself--
SR: Gary Watt?
SB: Gary Watt.
MC: The Barn itself was just this structure that we replicated for the purposes of doing the series, but this, in the Pilot, is a real church that we sort of inundated and you know, took over.
SR: This was a few miles Southeast of Downtown and Clark, I know that you had some interaction with the people who ran this church and got to be very friendly with them.
CJ: Yeah, they were pretty sweet, we actually gutted their church and put them, for their services, in a tent outside and they had an interfaith relationship with another church so they got to have their services on Sunday and they also got into a great rib concession because one of the mothers of the church made the best ribs I've ever had in town and she was throwing down for us, and she was making a nice tidy little profit on the side with the Craft Services.
MC: I will say though, that as delicious as those ribs were, I had gas like I can't...
CJ: That was part of your character, I thought.
MC: I was just miserable, the aftereffect of those ribs. I don't know what she put on 'em, but it was...crazy.
SR: And the nice thing for the church, they had sort of a small congregation and they had roof problems.
CJ: Right.
SR: And with the location fees they got for renting this place out to us for a few weeks, it was nice to know that they were able to fix their roof.
MC: That's cool.
SR: Yeah, cause at first, I was like, boy, do they know what's in this script? I can't believe a church is letting us film this show and then um, they got a new roof for God and there's nothing wrong with that.
CJ: I was actually leaning towards doing it in a mall. There's something about a mini-mall with a temporary Police Station, which was the conceit.
SR: He's serious.
CJ: But Scott, in his wisdom, talked me out of it. And that was how we ended up in a church.
MC: Is that right?
SR: Yeah.
MC: Everything happens for a reason.
(All four are silent during the scene where Vic suggests to Danny they should have a drink later and she asks if his wife is coming)
SR: Michael, let's talk about you. You know, Scott, Clark and I were like this three-headed monster that, as we moved forward on casting, we were lucky enough to get Deb Aquila, who cast this Pilot for us. And really, I don't think we would have gotten her at all if there wasn't a threatened Writers and Actors strike about to happen in the next couple of months, so film production had really stopped. And that's why she was available.
MC: Ooooh. No kidding.
SR: And that's when she had read the script and she was really interested in doing it, so we got this really top-notch Casting Director, Deb Aquila, to work on the--
MC: And I gotta tell you, right away, I heard that Deb was casting it, that was an impressive thing right there. And then, when I read the script, it was all about the script for me, when I read this script, I was so knocked out by it, and I had been actively looking to change the course of my career and needed a role like this to break away from that stereotype that I was stuck in, of playing the soft cuddly teddy bear who's the family guy, you know--
CJ: Which you'll always be to us, anyway.
MC: I really needed to switch gears and there it was.
SR: But you'd actively been working on and developing a dirty cop story yourself.
MC: Exactly right. My wife, when she was a kid, when she was in High School, dated this guy whose brother was a rogue cop. He was the most decorated cop in all of Miami-Dade, yet he had more lawsuits pending against him for brutality and whatnot, so she told me about this guy and I started developing this script, which will go unnamed because I don't want him to find me.
CJ: And you don't need to pitch that series...
MC: No. And in any case, it's on my computer to this day. I had this treatment, I was putting in whole sequences, scenes, one of which was a sequence where this rogue cop beats up this drug dealer, takes his money and his drugs and gives them to a pregnant prostitute that he happened to know, and that was a true story.
CJ: Basically what he's saying is that you stole...
SR: I snuck in Michael's house--
CJ: You stole--
SR: Cause there was a hole in my script...
MC: What it is, it just shows what an extraordinary convergence has happened, you know I said it at the Critics Awards, but I meant it. You know, I've never put any stock in Astronomy paths
SR: You mean Astrology
MC: Astrology. The moon, that's right Astrology, not Astronomy.
SR: Because I believe in Astronomy.
MC: I believe in Astronomy.
(everyone laughs)
12:03
SR: I don't think the scientists are lying to us on that one.
MC: Right, right. Exactly. Nice to be a malaprop in the middle of your story. Great.
SR: Sorry.
MC: No, I fucked up, what can I tell you? Astrology. I never invested a lot in it, but it makes you wonder if the moon wasn't over my anus or Uranus or someone's anus, because something was lined up over my ass or I was just a lucky a**hole, I don't know what. But for this to hit my desk, right when I wanted to do it, and for it to be written a million times better, to your credit, than I could ever--
SR: You are too kind.
MC: No, than I could ever have delivered it, so it was a real turn-on, and when I went in...you know one of the funniest stories I've heard after the fact is that Clark's reaction to me coming in is, I heard that you had said "Michael Chiklis? You mean, woowoowoowoo Michael Chiklis?"
CJ: Yeah, there was woowoowoowoo and Belushi and this huge body of work, but I never saw you as Vic Mackey until you walked in the door and then I never saw anyone else as Vic Mackey.
SR: Well, lets talk about that walk in the door for a second because what amazed me in the process was the number of actors that I, as a working guy in Los Angeles, had never even heard of, who were people who wouldn't even read for the role. Or wouldn't read for certain roles: "You know if you want to offer me this, that's great and everything..." And here's Michael Chiklis who's been the lead in two different television series, you know "The Commish," which ran for five or six years?
MC: Yep.
SR: And then Daddy-O, which was on for a couple of years, you'd headed two different series, which was a ton more than a lot of these other bozos who I'd never heard of who were like "Well, you know, you want to offer me that role, alright."
CJ: The whole cast of "Dukes of Hazzards" turned us down.
SR: But you were willing to come in and read for us and kinda prove it to us. You had the goods and you came in and what made that decision? Because I imagine you got some advice from your representative...That you don't have to read for anything.
MC: Yeah. Exactly. But that was driven by my agents. My agents at the time, I was driven sort of by, "I don't want you to read because as a status thing, it's FX." And that was sort of a poo-poo to the Network, not about the material. My agent at the time was effusive about the material. But he was afraid of me going in and reading for a Netlet. And I said "Look."
SB: A netlet...That's changed, hasn't it?
MC: Yeah, that's changed dramatically since. But I knew what I had in my hands. I knew what I could do with it. And I also knew that the perception would be on the part of all of you guys that they would go "Wait a minute. The guy who played The Commish? He's like saying Offer it to me?. Is he eating multiple tabs of acid? No. No, pass." And (I thought) you guys were passing me.
SR: A lot of actors, that was their attitude.
MC: I'm a big believer in the audition process, 'cause hey, when you get it, you've won the role. Then there's no doubt in anyone's mind, and your own as well, as an actor.
SR: Absolutely. No, you went out there and won it.
(This is the scene where Vic pulls Lonnie Reborg out of the crack house)
SR: Let's talk about this scene for a second. This, to me, was one of the signature scenes of the Pilot, for me.
CJ: Let's just give a couple of seconds to Denny Forest, who's passed away subsequently. Great character actor.
MC: This gentleman that I'm manhandling right now.
CJ: Yeah. Great character actor.
SR: And that's Michael Reed-McKay, who, when he came in, we saw these sort of skinny arms and we're trying to sell a crack house. And these two guys, both of them...First of all, the location, the casting that Clark pushes for and suggests, these people who, they're just interesting characters. You look at them and they're unique. You always like to put unique people in your episodes, aren't you, Clark?
CJ: Well, I'm a firm believer that if you start with a really good script, and people who are great actors, it becomes Director-proof.
MC: Right.
CJ: And we had a really great ensemble here.
SR: Well, you managed to f*ck up a couple of times.
CJ: Yeah, well, even still.
SR: We thought we were director-proof!
CJ: Who knew?
MC: No, but it certainly hedges your bet when...Well, for me, I always say that if it's on the page, then it just becomes that much easier for the director and for the actors to achieve a good product. Now, this guy, Denny, we do have to stop on him, because his performance is extraordinary and that's what makes a different kind of Pilot to me. Where it's not just a great core cast, but your guest bring in performances like his.
CJ: It was such, such...He's so method, and he had to go so deep and he's so tortured for this...And this is pretty much the last thing he did before he died, and it's a tribute to his work, you know. He's a great actor.
(Dutch/Lonnie Interrogation scene)
SR: And, what was interesting about this scene was, we went back and forth editing this scene for a while, but I know you did your cut, Clark, and then I was showing you what we were doing and this is one of those scenes that was almost there for me but not quite for a long time and to me, the thing that cracked it, eventually, was to cut away from him less. And we have this one shot coming up where we're probably on him for like 20 seconds
MC: You're on him all this time and it's so brave, I loved this, that you guys stuck with this.
SR: And it was one of the last things we did and it was the thing for me that really cemented the scene, we just sort of stayed here with him and stayed here with him and stayed here with him.
MC: Uh!
SR: And we just refused to let the audience look away and he's going through such pain and such torture. And not to cut away was an interesting lesson to me, because so much of this show is fast cutting.
CJ: Mmmh.
SR: And when you allow yourself to slow down in a few selected point--
MC: Land!
SR: ...a lot of times, they end up having more power.
MC: It was a mentor of mine years ago who used to say, with regard to storytelling, "If everything's important, nothing's important." So you need to keep your pace going so that you have those moments that you want to land on and really really hit home and you select those and you can really make an impact with those. Now on a lighter note, at the beginning of this sequence, you see some dogs at the crack house and I gotta tell a little Clark-ism here that took on a life of its own, without him even knowing it. He said, he turned to Billy (Geirhardt) and this is very Clark Johnsonesque, for him to just be in the area that we were in and say to Billy, "Billy, Shoot the dog. Shoot the dog."
Everyone laughs.
MC: Shoot the cat!
CJ: Gwenyth, our First A.D., ran and got some meat.
MC: She started tossing meat to these Pit Bulls that were free. Those weren't even our dogs. They were just Pit Bulls.
CJ: Wandering around.
MC: And scaring the shit out of all of us, by the way. And, he...You know, my nickname is Chick and he turned it into Chicks. You know he's just--
SR: Well, he can't call you what everyone else does.
MC: Exactly, he's just, he's just...too cool to believe. "Yo, Chicks. You know, try this for me...Billy, Shoot the dog." And what it became was, any frameable image became, like, "Shoot the dog."
SB: Which all became part of the fabric of the show.
MC: Right.
SR: This is Brian Boone, the second of the three of our 'Trio of Pervs,' as I like to call them. Here in the pilot, we had Denny Forest, Brian Boone and then Jim Ortlieb at the end, and it was these three guys that really cemented that whole storyline of the missing girl.
CJ: Three really different performances.
SR: Three different performances.
MC: Really chilling, totally different. Uh!
SR: Clark, talk about one of the things that I really admire about your directing style. You always seem to be looking for what's happening on the edges of the scenes. We saw earlier, in the scene at Echo Park, you know, the cutting down of the tree. That's something the city was really doing the day we were there.
MC: Shoot the dog!
SR: Shoot the dog! And then finding these extras and the other actors and the things that are going on around the scene...you know, maybe talk about your philosophy, not just shooting the people that are talking, but instilling the world around them with a sense of reality.
CJ: It's an evolution of style, I think. With Scott on Hill Street, where the camera really started to get freed up then. And segued into the Homicide and NYPD era, where you shoot with both eyes open. And so my sort of style for this was to shoot with both eyes open but we don't need to be so active with the camera, just need to be slightly behind the action. And to be looking for things that are going on elsewhere, that can comment on what they're saying. It's just as much fun to have Jay saying something profound and to be on a background extra who's reacting to it.
SR: Now this was something that wasn't scripted, it was something that you added on the day, this cop coming in and having something for Dutch to sign. As I had written it, it was more straightforward, just talking questions and you had him sort of talking and throwing it off as he was filling out this important paperwork and it was something that made the scene totally different. For me, that's all you, brother.
CJ: Right, well,
SR: Well, it's not me.
MC: It's brushstrokes, it's beautiful.
CJ: And that's Jay, too, with getting that concept that we wanted to defuse the situation, it's good policework. There's no set rule as to who's a good Homicide Investigator. There's great ones that you know, have a completely different style and his style as we developed, evolved for him, was a more cerebral, intellectual approach like Deitrich on Barney Miller, so that helped him to disarm this character. It was a device to get him away from the moment.
MC: And Vic of course, similarly, a very intellectual approach.
CJ: Right.
MC: As in this scene.
CJ: Intellectually yanking a guy out from under a car.
22:00
SR: This scene, your hair was longer than it was for the rest of this episode, and it's always bugged me. And I saw you on that day and I said "Your hair is longer," and our hair people insisted it was the same length.
MC: It was. I have to concur.
SR: And yet, it looks thicker. It's a matching problem.
MC: It has to do with the light. Apparently...
CJ: That blue light above.
MC: Apparently, when I was in the sunlight, outdoors, you could see much more prevalently, my hair on the side than when we're in the studio. But every day, they took that #1 buzzer, and buzzed my head every morning. I mean, we did it the same way every single day.
SR: I was just, you know, you want things to be perfect. In my position, I'm thinking "I'm only going to get one chance to make this Pilot. Who knows if I'll ever get another chance?" It was little things that, the macro stuff was all great, so I had to obsess over little things like that.
SB: Like the sound of the light in this scene.
SR: Or the light. Or you can see your microphone there! Under the shirt.
MC: Right, oh that killed me. And I knew it and I was saying "You guys, the mike is...It's a tight T-shirt, you're killing me."
SR: Right, and the Studio gave me an offer, essentially at the beginning of the process, and Clark, you were probably aware of this as well, they were saying, "You can film this Pilot in 13 days in Canada, or 12 days in San Diego, or 11 days in Los Angeles. And of course we said 11 days in LA.
MC: Thank God.
SR: Thank God, but that's a quick turnaround for a pilot, and it results in little things like that the audience probably doesn't notice, but it bugs the shit out of me.
(Danny and Julien interview Fran and Hooper about the slashed tires)
CJ: Here's a great example of celebrating the LA Experience. I don't think I've seen a hotter day than the day we shot this scene. And the day that we shot the opening sequence, where the sun was unrelenting and you can't stop for a siesta for 3 hours in the middle of the day. You gotta celebrate that light. This is harsh, harsh LA light in all its glory. You won't see this kinda light anywhere else.
MC: By the way, that goes right into the point I wanted to make when I said "Thank God we didn't shoot in Canada or in San Diego." What I mean by that is, This is a show that takes place in Los Angeles. And if I saw another show that was faux Los Angeles, shot up in Vancouver...
SR: With the establishing shots that some helicopter crew did...
MC: Exactly
CJ: "I think we needed more soccer in this..."
SB: I have it for you.
MC: You can't get this. See this? This is LA and you can't get this anywhere else.
SB: (sarcastically) Oh, you can get that in Toronto.
SR laughs
MC: Yeah. Alright.
SB: Those Highrises...
MC: Those highrises right behind the soccer field, and the feel of every extra and everything...I mean one thing that's sort of been this thing that's now coming up of late, is how diverse the cast is, and all the guest actors. And I think the reason that no one ever took note of that before is because it's visceral. This is a city that is absolutely multi-cultural, and because all the people are cast so beautifully...again, we go back to Deb Aquila and her casting...
SR: And Trish Wood, who's her partner. Don't forget Trish.
MC: And Tricia, right. Absolutely. You don't...it's not obtrusive...it doesn't feel like this was stunt casting for the sake of making it diverse. It just is, in its nature. And we were true to that, and because of that it really was a great mixed bag.
SR: Scott, I'm interested in...you're a really talented, experienced director in addition to being a Producer. Is there any level of frustration for you as you produce a Pilot like this and see someone else direct it, and think "Well, that's great but i would do this different, or, I mean how do you say things as a producer that aren't like, you as a director? Talk about how you would play a scene? Is there any frustration on that level?
SB: No, and I don't think you separate the two. I think my directing experience comes into play as a producer just to shepherd. I certainly wouldn't want to change Clark's vision, or change your vision. Or change an episodic director's vision, as long as it stays inside the guidelines of what I have thought were our goals. But in this particular case, kudos to Clark, and I've said it to him personally, every time I watch Clark direct, I learn. And this was pretty thrilling, although I remember our first meeting, where you said "I really want you to meet Clark, he's got to go back to Canada. And I know your deal's not done yet, Scott. But we gotta sit down and talk to Clark. Great, so we all get together and Clark says "I have a real good feel for the show. I have a real good look and I have a sense of how I'm gonna play the show..."
SR: But he didn't really tell us what it was.
SB: Really, how would it be, Clark? Tell us, define it for us. "Well, it's uh, uh uh, and uh... Run Lola Run, maybe there's a little bit of that in there. And then, maybe..uh..." You had it, but you couldn't--
CJ: A little Birth of a Nation.
SB: No, but you.
SR: You certainly kept me in the dark. And it was a case where, once again, I was entrusting the people that had more experience than me. I didn't know what dailies would look like at all. I had no idea what dailies would look like, until I saw them.
SB: But, can I offer this? Clark, you--
MC: You must been scared shitless, man. You musta been!
SB: Michael, I was.
MC: I mean, it's your first gig, it's your baby, and it's your script.
SR: But it almost gave me the freedom: I was a nobody making a Pilot on a Network that people weren't thinking too much of. There really was no down side for me. So that was the thing that protected me. There was nothing to lose.
MC: Cool.
CJ: I've since learned to articulate some. If we had that meeting now, I probably would articulate it better. But, your initial question to Scott, I celebrated that. I saw Scott as an ally for that very reason, where finally, there's a Producer that I respect as a Director. Who's an ally as a Producer, as opposed to, you know, a suit. You know, who can help me...
SR: 'Cause you feel like you have to fight those people and other examples--
CJ: You know, cause he knows what our problems are and not that other producers don't, but we spoke the same language, so even if we disagreed, we knew what we were disagreeing about.
SB: I wanna go back for just one second, because one of the things of your directorial style, which is very rare in television, which is why you're so successful and creative as a director, is you direct "in the moment," I suspect, as you 'act in the moment.'
CJ: Mmmhmmm.
SB: And there's quite a bit of preparation, but it's a loose preparation and it's a visceral preparation and when you get into a scene, there's so much discovery for you as a director, that it's thrilling, and that's what you were able to capitalize.
MC: Right. So often, directors being an actor, involved with us, so often, directors are very rigid.
SB: Yep.
MC: They have this preconceived notion of what the scene is gonna be, so they end up sitting on the actors and that sits on their creative ability to bring what they're going to bring to the text, to the scene. So that was a joy about Clark.
SB: Absolutely.
MC: Clark knew...He always keeps the root of the scene. He knows what the scene is about, where we're going and what we're supposed to get out of the scene. But he has this amazing latitude that he gives you in place, in everything that comes into a scene. It let's you--
CJ: It's so collaborative, this art, especially TV. It gives me freedom to steal from everyone.
MC: Right, ha!
SR: It's true.
MC: It's true.
SB: Absolutely. It's true.
MC: And you know what? This goes, again, with another thing about what an interesting wonderful breeding ground Basic Cable and Cable in general is right now for great work and when earlier, you said you had nothing to lose and everything to gain, that's the same thing with Cable. So they're smart enough right now to say to a bunch of artists or collaborators, "Go and make the best show you can make." And they don't get into your face with the process and this is the result of that. Where similarly, like to Sundance Film Festival was 7 years ago. That was a great breeding ground for young filmmakers making their wares.
CJ: Let me just jump into this for a second. This is funny because this is a location that sort of came before us because of our Boom Man was staying there. He said, "I'm staying at this funky little hotel, might be good for you..."
Everyone laughs.
29:11
SR: The Bobo Hotel.
CJ: And he was staying there. We didn't use his room, because he was charging us too much.
SR: It was one of those places a couple of bloks from Pico and Hoover.
CJ: Right.
MC: This guy is so good, too.
MC: Both of these men, Micheal Jace and...
SR: Page Kennedy.
MC: ...Just terrific actors, both of them.
SR: Going back to Clark and working, because we just can't kiss his ass enough...
Everyone laughs.
SR: Because he's got a feature film career going now and don't we all want to ride those coattails.
SB: Wait until he gets along.
MC: Absolutely.
SR: What was really instructive to me was actually working with Clark in the audition process. Seeing all these actors come in and Clark, you seem to use the audition process with all these actors that came in, most of whom didn't get cast, you seemed to use that almost as rehearsals for you, how you were going to play scenes. You used actors to sort of give them suggestions that you weren't sure whether they would work or not and just see what they brought.
CJ: Again, stealing with impunity.
SR: And I know that, totally. We sort of stole some lines that people had improvved in auditions and you, I think, started to see how scenes would play in your head by seeing how scenes would work.
CJ: You know, actors bring in their choices. Good actors come in with good solid choices and sometimes they're totally wrong for the thing and sometimes not, but it gives you an opportunity to look and see how the thing would evolve.
MC: Yeah, you can go "Oh, that works."
CJ: It's different perspectives. You know someone would go "What's that in the road? A HEAD?" Well, you know, that's an interesting way of saying that line. It didn't work? You see what I mean?
SR and MC chuckle.
SR: Michael, how quickly did you bond with the other Strike Team guys? You know, in this...The thing I always admired about you from the get-go was you never disappeared into your trailer in between shooting. WIth you, it was always you and Kenny and Reed Diamond here and Walton and Dave Snell, who plays Ronnie. You guys always seemed to be hanging out, it's like "Oh! Now we gotta film!"
MC: Right, maybe it goes back to being and athlete and being on football and baseball teams and hockey teams...you know, I'm a team--
SR: I have to interrupt you really quickly to say that's my daughter Haley, by the way.
MC: And my wife handing Haley to your wife. How funny is that? And that's my daughter jumping in the pool, Autumn.
SR: There's no nepotism at all in this show.
MC: It's a family affair, yeah.
SR: I got excited there, sorry.
MC: No, no, it's, uh, you know...
CJ: And that's Scott Brazil there, hiding in a bush.
(everyone laughs)
SB: I was wondering what was taking so long.
MC: It's just, I'm not a trailer guy. It's just that I'm a lover of the filmmaking process.
CJ: Well, let's talk about those trailers for a second. Those things were nasty, anyway.
SB: That's to keep people out of them.
SR: That's why Scott the Producer is so brilliant. He gave you a shitty enough trailer so everyone would be a family on the set.
MC: See, listen. That's also the reason why, in the negotiating process, I was "I don't really care about the trailer, as long as it's something I can go in and change and come out," because I don't spend time in my trailer. I go right to the set. I'm always asking the Director of Photography or the Director or the Cameraman what he's doing, why he's doing it. Because for me, it's a great learning process because I know I'm going to get into the Directing world in coming years. And also, as far as the cameraderie with the boys, you know...It usually isn't quite this good this quick. I mean, I have pretty much an instant rapport with most people that I meet.
SR: That's good.
MC: But, these guys--
SR: Let's talk about Reed Diamond here for a second.
MC: It was a home run.
SR: It was a home run, and Clark, you had obviously worked with him on "Homicide." To me, using him was sort of an ode to "Homicide" and then killing him at the end of the episode was like saying "But we're still going to be our own show."
CJ: Right, because we thought he was going to be a Series Regular, because you assumed, right.
SR: That's the way we played it.
MC: And you put him in the front credits.
SR: And in the contract, I said, "I want to list you as one of the Series Regulars in the beginning, so anyone that has a sense of who you are feels like you're going to be a part of this."
MC: "Oh, Reed Diamond is in this..."
SR: Yeah. And he's just exactly the sort of guy, because of his Homicide experience, that you'd expect to be in this sort of TV show.
MC: Sure.
CJ: Right.
SR: And I wanted somebody who was recognizable in that, but not somebody so big where you're like "Oh, that guy's not gonna be in this TV show and I'm waiting for how he's going to disappear.
CJ: Right.
SR: I just really wanted him to feel like part of this ensemble and he fit right in.
34:05
MC: Another chilling performance by the 3rd in the Trio of Pedophiles.
SR: Trio of Pervs.
MC: Of Pervs, right. (chuckles) The Trio of Pervs, right. And the magnificently talented CCH Pounder. I've never seen an ensemble...and not just the Strike Team...I mean, Jay and I. Jay Karnes and I. And CC. I think what it is is, especially when you have...And again, it goes back to you, man. And I know this sounds like the Mutual Admiration Club, but it's true. When you have a bunch of actors that know that the script that they're working on is top-shelf, it breeds this instant excitement.
CJ: And good actors will find good writing.
MC: Absolutely. And then you get on set the first day and you have a Clark Johnson and a Scott Brazil at the helm, you go "OH, Okay. Now we're actually gonna do this well." And then everybody wants to raise their game. And then there's such an excitement that you have this team thing, because you know you could win. So, we just immediately, instantly went right to that, and bonded as a cast.
SR: You know, I sat on the set during the making of this Pilot. You know, for the most part, just watching you guys do your job. I would ocassionally chime in on things, but it was just amazing to me knowing the caliber of actors that were saying these words. And I would look and I would think "I can't believe the cast we have." I would say to myself, and it was almost too good to be true and it was a case where the Network literally gave us our first choice on every single role. Which is unheard of and unprecedented. You know, usually Networks have their own agenda, they've worked with somebody, they want whatever. You know, you have to give the props to Kevin Reilly, Peter O'Dory at FX--
MC: Absolutely.
SR: --Who knew when to let us do our thing. And when they did weigh in, their comments were really smart and intelligent and helpful to me. And they actually, they had a lot of suggestions that were quite good ones involved in the editing of this Pilot. There was a lot of scene order that's been moved around from the original script.
MC: Best Network Executives I've ever worked with.
SR: Yeah, they...I haven't had the experience you've had, Michael. Working with Network Executives. But I've heard enough stories to know just how extraordinarily lucky we are. They're smart and bright, yet they let us do our things. I got all of two very brief phone calls from them during the making of this Pilot.
MC: That's extraordinary.
SR: And they weren't all, you know...
MC: That's the nature of Network Television.
SR: Considering how important this Pilot was to that Network.
MC: Right, right. It's extraordinary! But, that also speaks to...they were liking what they were seeing, so they knew well enough to leave it alone.
36:58
(Vic interviews Dr. Grady. I got a little girl back at home. 8 year old daughter name is Cassidy...)
CJ: This is the trailer moment right here.
SR: This is the signature scene right here, of the show.
MC: I have to tell you, when I read this scene, I already was way into "I want this role," but then it became rabid. Then it became actually nervewracking because this is when you want a role so bad--
SR: And what happens if you don't get it?
MC: Right, that you can actually screw it up in the auditioning process because you want it so bad.
SB: You were foaming at the mouth a little bit.
SR: Yeah, now I know you've got 2 daughters, Michael. How much do you allow yourself to go into thinking about something happening to your actual daughters when you do a scene like this? Or is this just acting and you divorce yourself?
MC: No, I let myself go there. Particularly for this. I went, you know...Uh, there was a time in my life when I was very method oriented, and I would you know, completely...But, I've learned an economy in being able to touch that pool, that reservoir quicker and being...making myself available to it. So that I'm then able to walk away from it and then divorce myself from it. But when I'm there, when I'm working, I'm completely absolutely commited to it. And sometimes, where I don't have a point of reference, like this scene (that scene), if I think for one moment, a second, about my own daughters in this context, I'm there.
CJ: So let me just talk about CC for a second, because this is coming up. CCH Pounder is truly one of my favorite actresses in the world, but watching her hold a gun is like watching somebody...a woman in her parlor with a teacup being startled by something that happened across the room.
(everyone laughs)
SR: We had talked about having some training for our actors. You know, Jay's...Jay got better over the course of the season. Jay's not the most comfortable looking guy holding a gun, either, in the same scene, here. Benny was the best, so you put him in front.
(more laughing)
SR: I know. But, weren't we going to do some training with everyone, Scott? And then we just simply ran out of time?
CJ: There's CC. Look at CC. Oh boy. Oh boy.
SB: Yeah, we were going to do training. We were also going to try to do some Police ride-alongs sort of thing, and we were met with uh....not open arms.
SR: Was that with...
CJ: But see, these guys...With these guys, this is perfectly in keeping with their characters, because these guys probably draw their gun in real life probably once every 10 years. So once you get into major crimes like this, you're not usually doing the knockdowns. So it's okay, there's a lot of cops who...
SR: So what you're saying is that you intentionally had them hold their gun...
CJ: No, no. I'm saying, I'm saying.
MC: Well, no matter what, it worked. God, you are brilliant!
SB: It was a choice.
MC: It worked for CC's character.
CJ: Yeah. It wouldn't have worked for any of Mackey's boys.
MC: Well, I grew up with, and am very comfortable with firearms because I grew up in a hunting house in New England. It's something that I moved away from personally, but...
SB: Can you go hunting with handguns?
MC: No, but we were all things guns. I was a typical American boy, I had my first gun when I was 6, so, yeah.
SB: What was it?
MC: It was a 12-gauge Browning Semi-Automatic.
SB: A 12-Gauge. Wow.
CJ: I had one of those little guns with a cork in it. My mom took it away.
SB: It would come back, it wouldn't go too far...
MC: I went out Pheasant hunting with it, you know. My father taught me about guns. What he did was, he took me out to the gun range with that shotgun and he set up a watermelon on a haystack and he made me shoot the watermelon. And when you see what a gun does to a watermelon...And he sat me down and said "If that's someone's head, that's what happens when you shoot someone with a weapon."
CJ: So don't shoot 'em in the head, shoot 'em in the body because...
SR: Body shots, Michael.
MC: So what he was saying was, "If I ever see you point a fake gun at a person, I will break your head."
CJ: Wow.
MC: Well, that's the kind of language he used with me with regard to a gun, because...And he never did with anything else, he just wanted to impress upon me that that's--
SR: The seriousness.
MC: Yeah, you have one mistake...There's no allowing. There is no one mistake. Oh, a little dog shit.
(Dutch's Dog Shit scene)
MC: Oh, I love this shot right here, because it's a beautiful reveal, Clark. I gotta say, (talks along with Dutch) "Oh it's you, isn't it?" (in mock response to Dutch) "You got the wrong guy!"
CJ: But what's fun is, this is the way Chicks covers his character here. It's fun because he doesn't mind Jay thinking that it was him. He doesn't mind.
SR: Which plays so effectively that the Network, one of their big complaints was that half the people in their office who watched it though that Vic had put the shit in the desk and the other half, looking at Claudette's face, realized that it was her.
CJ: That's cop humor.
SB: And the other half...
CJ: 'The other half...' (chuckles)
SR: And they were saying "Is it clear? Is it clear? Is it clear?" And I know you're a big fan, Clark, of everything doesn't have to be.
MC: It doesn't have to be.
SB: And the 3rd half discovered it when they saw her dog.
MC: Right. Exactly.
SB: And that's beautiful, too.
MC: Right. And there are so many, like in the montage, there's one thing I thought we may get into trouble with. There's so much discovery in this montage here.
42:00
SR: Right. Let's--
MC: Like when you see Benny with his child, his little girl.
SR: Who's his actual daughter in real life.
MC: Oh, I didn't know that.
CJ: See, there's another example of the wonderful things you can discover. We--Scott and I--we were looking for another location, and we went up that hill. I said "What's up that hill?" "Oh, that's Chavez Ravine up there." There are these little houses up the hill that are backlit by Dodger Stadium.
MC: Right.
CJ: I mean, what Production value is that? We just looked at the schedul to see when the Dodgers were going to be home.
SB: And what luck: They were home during our schedule.
CJ: Yeah, right.
MC: You know what?
SR: Uh--
MC: Go ahead.
SR: I was just going to say, real quickly that, the way that I write, I like to listen to music as I write. But I don't like to listen to whole albums. I'll listen to one song over and over and over again when I write. And when I wrote this Pilot script, I listened to this Kid Rock song. To me, it sort of put me in that world--
MC: In the head space.
SR: A lot of scripts that I've written in my life, I can tell you what my song was that I associated with that script because it's what I listened to. And this script, I...this song was it, and I knew that this song had to be at the end.
CJ: And this is our Director of Photography playing "The Date. (Danny's)
MC: Yes.
CJ: But it was painful for you, when we almost didn't get this song, it was Scott Brazil browbeating Kid Rock.
SR: Getting the songs, paying the money and getting the rights is always difficult and I was not even sure what we would do if we couldn't get this because I had driven from my offices at "Angel" to my house, imagining this final sequence. This sequence really was in my head, whereas the rest of the thing, I didn't know how it would look. I had very specific things in mind.
MC: I gotta tell you about this scene, from the actors perspective. All of us, were at one point during the shooting of this sequence, looked at each other completely terrified because when we slipped out of that...we rolled into that shot. We killed the engine, rolled in there, and we thought, "We're five heavily armed men. We roll up, we have a ladder on the window, we are up and in this apartment in seconds, all of us. Armed to the teeth." And that's kind of an incredibly frightening thing at how devestating these guys can be. About how effective they can be, and, you know...They're completely commited, I mean...
SR: Okay, now, let's talk about this final moment coming up here. You know, I have all the time, people talk about the moment when you shoot Terry at the end.
MC: Yep.
SR: And it really is something, the way you played it, the way Clark filmed it, the way it exists, is something that I think does separate this show from a lot of Network shows. And then the question always was, "Well oh my God. Can you have a series about a guy who at the end of the Pilot does that?"
MC: Yeah, well...From my standpoint, with regard to fear of losing the audience...I thought--To be sure, it was an interesting question, what the audience's perception of it was--But, because it came from such a real place, I just trusted that you would see this guy for all of his parts. That it would really create a dilemma in the minds and hearts of the audience. As it has. I think obviously, there are some members of the audience that think "This is a bad guy, there's no question about it." And then there's others who think this guy is absolutely a hero and...most people are right in the middle, like: "I don't know what to think about this guy."
SB: But the beauty of it is, that, even as a bad guy...You wanna know what he's gonna do next. You wanna know what's coming next. And that's the art.
CJ: So watch Episode Two.
SR: I would just like to quickly say that this show and the Pilot Episode was just something that was in my imagination and it was really...I'd like to thank the three of you guys in addition to everyone else. But especially you three for making it happen and bringing it to life. And you guys all made it a ton better than just what was on the page. So thank you.
CJ: Okay!
MC: Thank YOU!