Dan Tanna Spenser
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« Antworten #1 am: 01. Februar 2013, 22:51:36 » |
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Tom Selleck Talks 'Jesse Stone,' 'Blue Bloods' and a 'Magnum' Movie
Interview vom 27.07.2010
Just as it did when (yes, we know, the fictional) Jack Bauer was hot on the trail of terrorist baddies, New York City will again feel a little bit safer this fall when 'Magnum P.I.' legend Tom Selleck begins another regular primetime gig as New York City police chief Frank Reagan, in CBS' cop family drama 'Blue Bloods.' The Emmy and Golden Globe winner also recently starred in 'Jesse Stone: No Remorse,' the sixth entry in CBS' series of movie adaptations of the late Robert B. Parker's novels about alcoholic LAPD homicide detective-turned-Massachusetts police chief Stone. With 'No Remorse' released on DVD today, Selleck took time to chat with TV Squad about his affection for the Stone character, filming his new TV series in NYC, whether or not Thomas Magnum will ever reunite with pals Higgins, T.C. and Rick, and whether or not he will ever consider a run for political office.
I had watched 'No Remorse' when it aired in May, and I just watched the DVD again this week, and I have to say, I'm hooked on the whole series now. Thank you! [Laughing] A lot of people are, I'm happy to say. The DVDs we re-edit for more of a feature film look, and I think that's important ... it doesn't go dark for a commercial break or anything. And people seem to be really hooked on the character, and obviously, it's a character-driven piece. It's a thrill for me, because I love playing him.
The 'Stone' movies are beautifully shot, too. They don't look like the average TV movie. Well, that was always the goal. When I sold this idea to CBS, I said, 'Look, I don't have any problem with your TV movies. I just don't want to make them. I have my own thoughts, and if you'll give me enough creative control, I can deliver something a little different.' So we tell stories like you would in a theater, not in a home, and we try and make them look very much like a feature film, so they're shot extremely well, and they're very pretty. I think all those things make an audience -- when they're watching it on TV, for instance -- I think that it stops them, and they go, 'Gee, I haven't seen this before.' And that's really good, because there were certain elements of the television movie that were getting pretty predictable.
One of the other things that make the movies so endearing, and in this one in particular, is the humor. The running joke about Jesse's cell phone number was great. Well, he's a bit of a Luddite, and I think he's resisted all this stuff, but there are people out there who do that. I think everybody, except really young kids, I guess, who grew up with them, when cell phones first really became popular, and I go from my own experience, I said, 'Well, I'm going to get one, but I'm not going to give the number to anybody. I'll just use it to make calls when I'm late and stuff,' because otherwise it'd be a big invasion of privacy. And gradually, you end up giving the number to everybody, and your life changes. So I think people get a big kick out of that. Robert Parker, who just passed away, a good friend, always called it Jesse's sense of irony. He didn't really call it a sense of humor, but without his sense of irony or sense of humor, if you will, I don't think the character's nearly as watchable. He's not really a moper. He's a thinker. And he fights feeling sorry for himself, which is why people root for him. Because if it was a show full of self-pity, [without] humor -- and often Jesse's humor is at the expense of himself -- I don't think he'd be as watchable.
That must make playing the character extra-challenging ... it would be tough to get people to watch six movies about a guy who sits around thinking all the time.
[Laughing] It started early. Our director -- we've had the same director for all six, Robert Harmon -- he really gave me the confidence. I thought, 'Jeez, Jesse can't just come home, sit, think and drink.' And there's another character in the room anytime he's home, which is -- and audiences are dedicated to him -- and that's Reggie, his dog. I call Reggie his conscience and roommate, not (just) a golden retriever. And Harmon felt that the introspective nature of the character made that stuff really work. I think it makes the audience follow the show through Jesse's eyes. We very seldom in the 'Jesse Stone' movies ever get ahead of Jesse. We don't cut away to a villain that Jesse doesn't know about, you know? So the mystery, and they are mysteries, unfold through Jesse's eyes, and I think that's why those moments play so well. And people just love Reggie. I mean, he's a regular character. He would greatly missed if he wasn't in the show. Now that you're doing the series, 'Blue Bloods,' for CBS, will you be doing more 'Jesse Stone' movies? Yes, and it's important to tell people that, because the one thing I said to CBS was, 'I'm not going to do this series at the expense of Jesse Stone.' So there's more Jesses to come. In fact, we've already shot the next one. It's called 'Innocents Lost,' and it's another original story [not based on a Parker novel]. So that's 'Jesse Stone' number seven, and it's about a little girl. That's where the title comes from. And that one is in the can, ready to air, and we're writing number eight, which we don't have a title for yet. So yes, there's going to be more 'Jesse Stones.' Are you enjoying the writing aspect of it? I mean, you're producing, you're starring, you're writing them? Yeah, well, I had a hand in rewriting extensively 'Thin Ice,' and as an executive producer, I've rewritten most of the 'Jesses.' The drafts from our first draft to subsequent shooting drafts, my partner on them, Michael Brandman, had a big hand in rewrites, too. Starting with 'No Remorse,' we started from a blank page. What I'm finding is, a lot of the writers we can afford to hire have written too many TV movies, and they kind of write what the network would like. And I keep saying, 'Look, we have the approvals here. Write for us, and write for the character ... make ours a little different.' And we just got to the point where we couldn't get writers to take their network cap off. So we started doing it ourselves.
How did you first get involved with the Parker books? Were you a fan as a reader? I was a fan of Robert Parker's. And I almost did – in the '80s, I was offered one of Robert Parker's books as a feature film, called 'Early Autumn,' one of the 'Spenser' novels. And basically, it was written by an Academy Award-nominated writer, Jay Presson Allen, and I was committed to it, but like so many things, I was shooting 'Magnum, P.I.' and only had three months off, and we couldn't schedule a director and get the movie done in that time, and I missed the opportunity. And my friend, the late Bob Urich, used to kid me a lot about that, because of course he ended up doing the series of Spenser, 'Spenser: For Hire.'
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