Post by TVFan on Jan 20, 2005 11:45:48 GMT -5
From the Fresno Bee[/u][/url].
A lock for 'Cold Case'
Kathryn Morris is the perfect lead in this show about old mysteries.
By Rick Bentley / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Tuesday, January 4, 2005, 12:54 PM)
CENTURY CITY — The women of the prime-time soap opera "Desperate Housewives" have become the toast of Sunday night television.
But there's another hot show on Sunday night. Lost in the fury surrounding "Desperate Housewives" is "Cold Case," which has been on CBS a year longer. Kathryn Morris, the star of "Cold Case," took her Sunday night show to the top rungs of the network ratings. She was solving murder mysteries before the "Desperate Housewives" moved into their suburban nightmare.
While there are four women sharing screen time, as well as the work load, over on Wisteria Lane, Morris has been luring an average of 17 million viewers to her series each week all by herself. Even other criminal investigative shows, such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "NCIS," feature ensemble casts.
Male detectives on "Cold Case" are little more than a support staff as the CBS Sunday drama revolves around the dogged determination of Morris' character.
Morris admits she was slightly intimidated about being the lone star of a network television show.
"But it really felt like it was right for me," Morris says with a big grin.
The smile is a little surprising. Her television character rarely finds reason to be happy.
When Morris smiles, her faces scrunches up so much it is impossible to see her eyes. That's a shame because her Arctic ice blue eyes, framed by her who-really-cares haircut, have a way of being both disarming and piercing.
The reason the role seemed so right for the 35-year-old Dallas native was that she wanted to play the kind of television character that doesn't pop up much in the male-driven world of criminal investigation. "The character has emotional strength and weight but doesn't have to be pushy or bossy. She's the kind of female hero which I don't really think we have," Morris says. "She's not one- dimensional. A lot of times those roles, the finely crafted roles, are saved for the guys.
"This character just had endless possibilities for such a journey: to not be perfect and not be imperfect."
Executive producer Meredith Stiehm wrote for "NYPD Blue" for four years. That ABC series has always featured female detectives.
"But I felt like the women characters weren't as dimensional as the male characters," Stiehm says. "One of the things I focused on in creating this series was a female detective that was our lead and not just the partner of a male detective."
Stiehm and fellow executive producers Jonathan Littman and Shaun Cassidy went outside the normal stable of television actresses to find Morris.
She has appeared in a few made-for-television movies and in an episode of "Xena." Morris' film work includes "Minority Report," "AI: Artificial Intelligence" and "As Good As It Gets."
Even though she wasn't a star, Littman says the producers were interested in Morris for the starring role of Det. Lilly Rush from the start of the casting process.
"When you look at her, how terrific an actress she is, it was a no-brainer from that point on," Littman says.
Choosing the lead may have been easy, but the show's concept is anything but the makings of a surefire hit. "Cold Case" deals with the investigation of crimes that have remained unsolved for as much as 50years, with many scenes shot as flashbacks.
Stiehm says Rush's line in the very first episode, "People shouldn't be forgotten," speaks volumes about why the character is so devoted to solving cases that have been collecting dust for years.
And that line reveals a little bit about Rush.
"I think she sees herself as someone who is marginal and could have fallen through the cracks," Stiehm says. "She wants to fight for somebody and redeem them."
One thing the producers have taken from many of the mostly male detective shows is the almost snaillike approach to revealing any personal facts.
In a season and a half, viewers have found out that there was a dramatic incident in Rush's life when she was younger.
And she has a sister with whom she has been estranged until recently.
$%&^ Wolf, the man behind the "Law & Order" franchise, always has professed that too much home life of the main characters distracts from the case at hand. But "NYPD Blue" has never hesitated to focus on the personal lives of its characters.
Stiehm wants to reveal the secrets of Lilly Rush very slowly. For her, the show is about the unsolved murder cases.
"It's dangerous when you do too much character stuff too quickly because you start running out of stories and your credibility starts faltering when you give someone four tragedies in a season," Stiehm says.
That approach was one of the attractions to the role for Morris.
She did not want to get involved in a series that was more like a soap opera when it came to her character.
In keeping her private life private, Morris likes that Rush is a bit of a "convenient fibber."
"I wonder what is going to happen when in her personal life she has to be up close and personal with a man or with a family or just people," Morris says with a sly grin. "I would love to see the glimpses, doled out sparingly, of how she deals with live people. That's what's fascinating to me."
But she's not desperate for too much to be revealed.
A lock for 'Cold Case'
Kathryn Morris is the perfect lead in this show about old mysteries.
By Rick Bentley / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Tuesday, January 4, 2005, 12:54 PM)
CENTURY CITY — The women of the prime-time soap opera "Desperate Housewives" have become the toast of Sunday night television.
But there's another hot show on Sunday night. Lost in the fury surrounding "Desperate Housewives" is "Cold Case," which has been on CBS a year longer. Kathryn Morris, the star of "Cold Case," took her Sunday night show to the top rungs of the network ratings. She was solving murder mysteries before the "Desperate Housewives" moved into their suburban nightmare.
While there are four women sharing screen time, as well as the work load, over on Wisteria Lane, Morris has been luring an average of 17 million viewers to her series each week all by herself. Even other criminal investigative shows, such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "NCIS," feature ensemble casts.
Male detectives on "Cold Case" are little more than a support staff as the CBS Sunday drama revolves around the dogged determination of Morris' character.
Morris admits she was slightly intimidated about being the lone star of a network television show.
"But it really felt like it was right for me," Morris says with a big grin.
The smile is a little surprising. Her television character rarely finds reason to be happy.
When Morris smiles, her faces scrunches up so much it is impossible to see her eyes. That's a shame because her Arctic ice blue eyes, framed by her who-really-cares haircut, have a way of being both disarming and piercing.
The reason the role seemed so right for the 35-year-old Dallas native was that she wanted to play the kind of television character that doesn't pop up much in the male-driven world of criminal investigation. "The character has emotional strength and weight but doesn't have to be pushy or bossy. She's the kind of female hero which I don't really think we have," Morris says. "She's not one- dimensional. A lot of times those roles, the finely crafted roles, are saved for the guys.
"This character just had endless possibilities for such a journey: to not be perfect and not be imperfect."
Executive producer Meredith Stiehm wrote for "NYPD Blue" for four years. That ABC series has always featured female detectives.
"But I felt like the women characters weren't as dimensional as the male characters," Stiehm says. "One of the things I focused on in creating this series was a female detective that was our lead and not just the partner of a male detective."
Stiehm and fellow executive producers Jonathan Littman and Shaun Cassidy went outside the normal stable of television actresses to find Morris.
She has appeared in a few made-for-television movies and in an episode of "Xena." Morris' film work includes "Minority Report," "AI: Artificial Intelligence" and "As Good As It Gets."
Even though she wasn't a star, Littman says the producers were interested in Morris for the starring role of Det. Lilly Rush from the start of the casting process.
"When you look at her, how terrific an actress she is, it was a no-brainer from that point on," Littman says.
Choosing the lead may have been easy, but the show's concept is anything but the makings of a surefire hit. "Cold Case" deals with the investigation of crimes that have remained unsolved for as much as 50years, with many scenes shot as flashbacks.
Stiehm says Rush's line in the very first episode, "People shouldn't be forgotten," speaks volumes about why the character is so devoted to solving cases that have been collecting dust for years.
And that line reveals a little bit about Rush.
"I think she sees herself as someone who is marginal and could have fallen through the cracks," Stiehm says. "She wants to fight for somebody and redeem them."
One thing the producers have taken from many of the mostly male detective shows is the almost snaillike approach to revealing any personal facts.
In a season and a half, viewers have found out that there was a dramatic incident in Rush's life when she was younger.
And she has a sister with whom she has been estranged until recently.
$%&^ Wolf, the man behind the "Law & Order" franchise, always has professed that too much home life of the main characters distracts from the case at hand. But "NYPD Blue" has never hesitated to focus on the personal lives of its characters.
Stiehm wants to reveal the secrets of Lilly Rush very slowly. For her, the show is about the unsolved murder cases.
"It's dangerous when you do too much character stuff too quickly because you start running out of stories and your credibility starts faltering when you give someone four tragedies in a season," Stiehm says.
That approach was one of the attractions to the role for Morris.
She did not want to get involved in a series that was more like a soap opera when it came to her character.
In keeping her private life private, Morris likes that Rush is a bit of a "convenient fibber."
"I wonder what is going to happen when in her personal life she has to be up close and personal with a man or with a family or just people," Morris says with a sly grin. "I would love to see the glimpses, doled out sparingly, of how she deals with live people. That's what's fascinating to me."
But she's not desperate for too much to be revealed.
