Post by Ryebeach on Sept 20, 2004 21:35:45 GMT -5
Just found this article from August. Nothing too new in it and parts of it sound familiar but a good pat on the back to KM and the casting director.
www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/0828morris.html
Viewers warm up to 'Cold Case' star
Cliff Lipson/CBS
Kathryn Morris
Mike Duffy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Aug. 27, 2004 06:00 PM
On the Planet Cop Shop, it's a man's, man's, man's world.
Gruff and volatile or no-nonsense laconic. Those are the traditional, testosterone-fueled rules of most police procedurals. Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order," Vic Mackey on "The Shield."
When female crime solvers are involved, they're usually a supporting sleuth to the main man.
But then there's Det. Lily Rush of "Cold Case," a refreshing exception to the crime drama boys club.
She's the lone woman on the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide squad. The inscrutable, slightly obsessive and neurotic Rush, played with an appealing sardonic edge by Kathryn Morris, is clearly hooked on her mission to crack unsolved murder cases.
Lily Rush is just one of the distinctive elements that have quickly transformed "Cold Case" into a CBS Sunday night success story after only one season.
"I've had so many people come up and just share how it's so nice to see a female in a man's world, to see a female who cares about people that nobody else cares about," says Morris, one of TV's new breakout prime-time personalities, while speaking to reporters in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
"It's not just about being a cop," says Morris. "It's almost like I've become a spokesperson for the single working woman. I find that very interesting and very challenging."
"Cold Case," which averaged 14.4 million viewers and finished No. 16 in its opening season, has used rerun season to recruit new viewers while rising to No. 7 in the summer ratings. It's part of the CBS police procedural hit machine that also includes "Without a Trace" and the "CSI" juggernaut.
A third member of that hot franchise, "CSI: New York," debuts in September.
All of these CBS shows have been fashioned by the production company of Hollywood uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who for most of his career has been known for big box-office feature films like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Remember the Titans."
"Jerry once said, 'People watch TV with their thumb. They keep flipping around. You've got to stop them, and you've got to get their thumb off the clicker,' " recalls Jonathan Littman, Bruckheimer's partner and "Cold Case" executive producer. "You do that with a look, and then you hold them with great stories and great actors."
"Cold Case" - which sports the noirish, gritty sleek Bruckheimer visual palette that feels more like a movie than standard TV - is also blessed with its own unique storytelling style.
As Lily and her partner Det. Scotty Valens (Danny Pino) sift through the clues from each week's unsolved case - piecing together mysterious moments from lives chaotically altered or snuffed out - "Cold Case" floats back years and sometimes decades to breathe haunting life into the past with often-mesmerizing flashbacks.
"It's a concept that has a lot of possibilities and you can travel from episode to episode," says executive producer Meredith Stiehm. "You can do something from the '70s one episode and something from the year 2000 in the next. ... The variety that it offers is more appealing than the same old thing every week."
It was Episode 6 last fall, remembers Stiehm, when "Cold Case" really found its groove in a story about the gay-bashing murder of a college baseball player in the 1960s.
"That's the one we still hold up as the one to emulate, the one that really works and had the effect we wanted for the show," says Stiehm. "It was a story that couldn't have been told back then that we could tell now in hindsight because we have terms like 'gay-bashing.' "
Whether it's traveling back to the 1960s to dramatize a hate crime or landing in the disco era '70s to discover the truth about a deadly nightclub fire, the cases from decades ago seem to work the best.
"You really feel how time has affected a case or affected characters," says Stiehm.
"Cold Case" casting director Rebecca Mangieri has displayed an amazing flair for finding young actors to appear in the flashbacks, performers who eerily resemble their older counterparts in the present-day scenes.
"She has become an expert on matching faces," says Stiehm. "She's not happy when we love somebody who has a really strange look that is very hard to match."
When even Mangieri can't work match game magic, "Cold Case" resorts to the standard show business magic of old age makeup so the younger actors can play both roles.
While offering its spellbinding trips between past and present, one case file Stiehm is in no hurry to solve is that of Lily Rush.
"I like to sort of learn things sparingly, and I sort of like this mystery of Lily Rush along with the mystery of whatever the case is that week," says Stiehm. Though we will meet new people in Rush's life this season, don't expect some sort of revelation carnival.
But Morris believes that bits of personal emotional history can indeed help the storytelling.
"I think some of our best episodes are when the detectives have a real point of view about the case," says Morris. "And when we also have personal stuff going on that's filtering into the pressure at work."
Just don't plan on seeing tartly understated Rush suddenly go all fuzzy wuzzy. Little Mary Sunshine she's not.
"Cold cases are not exactly the most chipper kind of work," notes Morris. Lily's "not that perky about it because it's very serious."
But Det. Lily Rush, terse and buttoned-down though she may be at times, does have a heart and caring soul. You can sense it in her connections to the murder victim's friends and family. And you can feel it during those emotional closing moments each week when when Lily makes brief eye contact with the younger, visualized spirit of the murder victim.
"I think she's sort of just available to vibes," says Morris, sounding not one bit like her hard-shelled alter ego. "If you have ever had someone close to you die, sometimes I think some people ... just sort of feel those things. I think (Lily's) much more comfortable with that than with real life people and up-close, emotional relationships. She'll feel closer to those people than she probably would in personal relationships or maybe even to the other detectives."
Det. Lily Rush, a cold case on "Cold Case?"
Not a chance. Like Kathryn Morris says, the woman's available to vibes.
That's not cold, that's cool.
www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/0828morris.html
Viewers warm up to 'Cold Case' star
Cliff Lipson/CBS
Kathryn Morris
Mike Duffy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Aug. 27, 2004 06:00 PM
On the Planet Cop Shop, it's a man's, man's, man's world.
Gruff and volatile or no-nonsense laconic. Those are the traditional, testosterone-fueled rules of most police procedurals. Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue," Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order," Vic Mackey on "The Shield."
When female crime solvers are involved, they're usually a supporting sleuth to the main man.
But then there's Det. Lily Rush of "Cold Case," a refreshing exception to the crime drama boys club.
She's the lone woman on the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide squad. The inscrutable, slightly obsessive and neurotic Rush, played with an appealing sardonic edge by Kathryn Morris, is clearly hooked on her mission to crack unsolved murder cases.
Lily Rush is just one of the distinctive elements that have quickly transformed "Cold Case" into a CBS Sunday night success story after only one season.
"I've had so many people come up and just share how it's so nice to see a female in a man's world, to see a female who cares about people that nobody else cares about," says Morris, one of TV's new breakout prime-time personalities, while speaking to reporters in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
"It's not just about being a cop," says Morris. "It's almost like I've become a spokesperson for the single working woman. I find that very interesting and very challenging."
"Cold Case," which averaged 14.4 million viewers and finished No. 16 in its opening season, has used rerun season to recruit new viewers while rising to No. 7 in the summer ratings. It's part of the CBS police procedural hit machine that also includes "Without a Trace" and the "CSI" juggernaut.
A third member of that hot franchise, "CSI: New York," debuts in September.
All of these CBS shows have been fashioned by the production company of Hollywood uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who for most of his career has been known for big box-office feature films like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Remember the Titans."
"Jerry once said, 'People watch TV with their thumb. They keep flipping around. You've got to stop them, and you've got to get their thumb off the clicker,' " recalls Jonathan Littman, Bruckheimer's partner and "Cold Case" executive producer. "You do that with a look, and then you hold them with great stories and great actors."
"Cold Case" - which sports the noirish, gritty sleek Bruckheimer visual palette that feels more like a movie than standard TV - is also blessed with its own unique storytelling style.
As Lily and her partner Det. Scotty Valens (Danny Pino) sift through the clues from each week's unsolved case - piecing together mysterious moments from lives chaotically altered or snuffed out - "Cold Case" floats back years and sometimes decades to breathe haunting life into the past with often-mesmerizing flashbacks.
"It's a concept that has a lot of possibilities and you can travel from episode to episode," says executive producer Meredith Stiehm. "You can do something from the '70s one episode and something from the year 2000 in the next. ... The variety that it offers is more appealing than the same old thing every week."
It was Episode 6 last fall, remembers Stiehm, when "Cold Case" really found its groove in a story about the gay-bashing murder of a college baseball player in the 1960s.
"That's the one we still hold up as the one to emulate, the one that really works and had the effect we wanted for the show," says Stiehm. "It was a story that couldn't have been told back then that we could tell now in hindsight because we have terms like 'gay-bashing.' "
Whether it's traveling back to the 1960s to dramatize a hate crime or landing in the disco era '70s to discover the truth about a deadly nightclub fire, the cases from decades ago seem to work the best.
"You really feel how time has affected a case or affected characters," says Stiehm.
"Cold Case" casting director Rebecca Mangieri has displayed an amazing flair for finding young actors to appear in the flashbacks, performers who eerily resemble their older counterparts in the present-day scenes.
"She has become an expert on matching faces," says Stiehm. "She's not happy when we love somebody who has a really strange look that is very hard to match."
When even Mangieri can't work match game magic, "Cold Case" resorts to the standard show business magic of old age makeup so the younger actors can play both roles.
While offering its spellbinding trips between past and present, one case file Stiehm is in no hurry to solve is that of Lily Rush.
"I like to sort of learn things sparingly, and I sort of like this mystery of Lily Rush along with the mystery of whatever the case is that week," says Stiehm. Though we will meet new people in Rush's life this season, don't expect some sort of revelation carnival.
But Morris believes that bits of personal emotional history can indeed help the storytelling.
"I think some of our best episodes are when the detectives have a real point of view about the case," says Morris. "And when we also have personal stuff going on that's filtering into the pressure at work."
Just don't plan on seeing tartly understated Rush suddenly go all fuzzy wuzzy. Little Mary Sunshine she's not.
"Cold cases are not exactly the most chipper kind of work," notes Morris. Lily's "not that perky about it because it's very serious."
But Det. Lily Rush, terse and buttoned-down though she may be at times, does have a heart and caring soul. You can sense it in her connections to the murder victim's friends and family. And you can feel it during those emotional closing moments each week when when Lily makes brief eye contact with the younger, visualized spirit of the murder victim.
"I think she's sort of just available to vibes," says Morris, sounding not one bit like her hard-shelled alter ego. "If you have ever had someone close to you die, sometimes I think some people ... just sort of feel those things. I think (Lily's) much more comfortable with that than with real life people and up-close, emotional relationships. She'll feel closer to those people than she probably would in personal relationships or maybe even to the other detectives."
Det. Lily Rush, a cold case on "Cold Case?"
Not a chance. Like Kathryn Morris says, the woman's available to vibes.
That's not cold, that's cool.