Autre articlePreviously on “Criminal Minds,” a star abruptly quit the series, putting the show’s future in peril. This season on “Criminal Minds,” a crisis is averted as a familiar face steps into a new starring role.
Just two months ago the future looked bleak for “Criminal Minds” after one of its stars, Mandy Patinkin, unexpectedly failed to attend the first script read-through of the season and then abruptly quit. Edward Bernero, the executive producer of the show, which concerns the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the F.B.I., which hunts serial criminals, faced having to write Mr. Patinkin out and recast his role, all while shooting new episodes.
“That first week, we really weren’t sure what was going to happen,” Mr. Bernero said. Speaking of Mr. Patinkin, who played Special Agent Jason Gideon, Mr. Bernero recalled that “we took him out of the first episode and when we finally got a call that he wasn’t coming back, the first thing we did was put together a list of people.”
“And Joe Mantegna,” he continued, “was at the top of that list.”
While Harvey Keitel and Geena Davis were among those considered as replacements, Mr. Bernero said that “the offer we were really serious about was Joe.” Reviewing his credentials, Mr. Bernero said that Mr. Mantegna had “a great television career — he’s Emmy-nominated for ‘Starter Wife’ — and he’s had an amazing movie career.”
Even on his first day on the set, Mr. Mantegna seemed comfortable playing Special Agent David Rossi, formerly retired from the bureau and one of the unit’s original members, who has since gone on to write books, give lectures and make money. Dressed in a stylish sport coat and well-tailored jeans, Mr. Mantegna’s Rossi conveys confidence and coolness as he is introduced to some of the other agents, somehow making it seem as if he has never worked anywhere else.
“There’s a mystery to Joe as an actor that can lull you into a false sense of security,” said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. “When you go back to those ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ days, you see that he can sharpen the blade as good as the next guy. He likes the show’s material and is truly professional. And he brings some hidden dangers to the character. He’s more complex than he lets on.”
When deciding how to replace Gideon, Mr. Bernero said he sought to create a character who was that agent’s antithesis. “In looking over the world of television shows, the show I think that replaced characters the best of all time was ‘M*A*S*H,’ ” Mr. Bernero said. “ ‘M*A*S*H’ always replaced a character with an exact opposite. When McLean Stevenson left, who played a total anti-authority guy, they replaced him with Sherman T. Potter, who was a regular Army stick-in-the-mud. They filled the same role, but with someone who was the opposite. That’s what we wanted to do.”
The early episodes don’t reveal entirely why Rossi has left his cushy world to return to his old government job. But it is evident from the first time he appears on screen, in the episode scheduled for Oct. 31, that he is no Gideon. While Gideon, a sensitive, professorial type and fatherly figure, never cared much about his appearance, Rossi likes to look sharp. And unlike Gideon, Rossi tries to stay above emotion in a conversation, carefully measuring his words before speaking.
Mr. Mantegna said he was confident about joining the hit television series and didn’t share any of the concerns expressed by Mr. Patinkin about the show’s difficult and often violent subject matter. “Over the course of my career, I’ve been shot and I’ve been maimed,” he said with a wry smile. “At least this time it’s happening to someone else. I really don’t have much problem detaching myself from my work.”
Mr. Mantegna said he was not interested in discussing Mr. Patinkin’s departure. “It’s not on my radar,” he said. “I don’t know what the old ballgame was, and I don’t care. It’s the first day of school, but I’ve been going to school for a long time.”
Through his agent, Mr. Patinkin declined to discuss his departure from the show or his replacement.
The way Mr. Bernero wrote Gideon out of the series — he is gone after this season’s first two episodes — allowed the cast and crew to continue filming and didn’t slow down the production schedule. It also avoided any potentially awkward reunions with Mr. Patinkin, who had been with the show from its start, when he shot his final scenes last month.
“The first script we were shooting right out of the gate happened to be perfectly designed to drop Mandy out of it,” said Glenn Kershaw, a producer and director on the show. “We then put together an entirely different company, and I spent a day directing Mandy up at the Disney Ranch. He only had to face me, since we’re starting with a flashback about why Mandy is writing this letter, and that cuts into the case from last year. Ironically, the day I was shooting Mandy’s scenes, I got a call up that Joe had been signed.”
Despite a resolve to move forward, there are still some concerns among the cast about how viewers will respond to a post-Patinkin series. “Yeah, there’s the Mandy factor, but this is not the Mandy show,” said Shemar Moore, who plays Special Agent Derek Morgan. “We all know what Mandy brought, and it was a wonderful ingredient, but it wasn’t an overwhelming, necessary ingredient for this show to work. This show works with or without any of us.”
Fans of the show are “going to compare Joe Mantegna to Mandy — whether he’s better, whether he’s different,” Mr. Moore added.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he continued. “We’re going to have to weather that storm.”
Source :
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/arts/television/05crim.html?ref=television 
Sam 11 Aoû 2007 - 18:49
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