SLEUTH AND CONSEQUENCES
Entertainment Weekly
October 1, 2004
by Lynette Rice
The cast of TV’s No. 1 drama, ‘CSI,’ talks about the bumpy salary renegotiations last summer and how they’ll keep the hit series fresh in season 5. (Hint: more dead bodies.)
It’s month two of production on the new season of ‘CSI,’ and everyone involved is sweating bullets and bugging out. Today’s script calls for the actors to investigate a murder in a house that’s been tented and bombed with insecticide, so dead termites and cockroaches are scattered all over the set – in the case, a private home in a Los Angeles suburb. Meanwhile, the temperatures outside just topped 100 degrees, and the director keeps shutting off the air conditioner because it makes too much darn noise.
But that’s not really what has everyone on edge. See, star Billy Petersen is about to give an interview, and when the veteran actor talks, people don’t just listen – they worry. Like last March, when Petersen told ‘Playboy’ how he thinks his boss, Viacom copresident Leslie Moonves, would make a great guest corpse, or how CBS’ decision to launch the spin-off ‘CSI: Miami’ would damage the franchise: “It is the difference between organic chicken and chicken jerky.” With that, Petersen proved he was not someone who was going to toe the company line, no matter how much said company pays him (that is, $500,000 an episode).
Now Petersen’s agreed to talk again. But first, the star takes note of his publicist, producing partner, and assistant, who’ve all suddenly parked themselves just a few feet away. “See those women?” he says, chuckling. “They’re sticking close by to hear what I have to say.”
They should be, as the interview is taking place only a month after Petersen’s costars George Eads and Jorja Fox were fired – and then rehired – during an ugly contract dispute. But hey, there has also been a lot of good news for the ‘CSI’ franchise lately: In May, the unbeatable original finished its fourth season as the No. 1 drama, averaging 25.6 million viewers, and over the summer ‘CSI’ managed to kill the competition again in reruns (an increasingly rare feat, even for hit TV shows). Meanwhile, production began on a second spin-off, ‘CSI: NY,’ starring Gary Sinise and Melina Kanakaredes, and in September, ‘CSI’ launched in syndication on Spike TV. But before we get to all of that, Billy, tell us: How did you find out that George and Jorja had been fired by CBS?
“I read it in ‘Variety,’” he snaps. “[CBS execs] don’t call anybody up! They call the press so they can be the first [to say], ‘This is what I’m doing.’ It’s very George Bush-like. It’s very much how George and Dick Cheney operate.”
One of the women shifts uncomfortably in her chair. This is going to be a ‘long’ afternoon.
When ‘CSI’ wrapped last season, executive producer Carol Mendelsohn gave herself exactly two and a half weeks to rest in peace before thinking about death again. Then she consorted with criminologists and kicked it with some coroners, looking for inspiration for the show’s fifth-season premiere. She ultimately found it in ‘CSI’’s pilot, created by Anthony Zuiker, in which viewers were introduced to the world of forensic medicine through the eyes of Gil Grissom (Petersen) and his new (and soon-to-be-killed) recruit, Holly Gribbs.
To reward longtime fans, Mendelsohn and fellow exec producer Danny Cannon decided to craft a season-opening homage that would offer a fresh perspective on forensics through techie-turned-CSI Greg Sanders (Eric Szmanda) while nodding to some ongoing themes: Gil’s tendency to be a hard-ass with his team, Warrick’s (Gary Dourdan) past problem with gambling, Sara’s (Jorja Fox) battle with booze, and Catherine’s (Marg Helgenberger) former life as a stripper. “Everybody had a part in it, but nobody carried the episode,” recalls Mendelsohn. “Our season was predicated on having the entire team back.”
Little did she know that the team was doing some plotting of its own. In late May, all eight stars – Petersen, Helgenberger, Fox, Eads, Szmanda, Dourdan, Paul Guilfoyle, and Robert David Hall – asked CBS for raises, even though their contracts weren’t set to expire for at least three years. “If you’d heard what these supporting players were asking, you would have laughed,” says Moonves, who declined to give specific amounts (as did the actors). The network, already reeling from the costly renegotiation with ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ stars Brad Garrett, Doris Roberts, Peter Boyle, and Patricia Heaton last season, began preparing for the worst – especially since Dourdan and Helgenberger are represented by Garrett’s bulldog attorney, Michael Gendler.
While securing Petersen with a lucrative new contract that included new producing and syndication fees, CBS offered the others, insiders say, “fair and equitable raises.” Then – to avoid last minute sick-outs like the ones that happened with the ‘Raymond’ cast – the network required many of the supporting actors to promise in writing that they would show up on time when production resumed July 14. Supposedly, everyone signed. But like any good ‘CSI’ episode, what came next was a plethora of twists and flat-out mysteries. Fox’s camp, for example, insists the actress signed and sent in her letter on time (though, unlike her colleagues who faxed them, she opted to snail-mail hers). Insiders say, however, that CBS received the letter late, and at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 14, the actress was fired from her $100,000-per-episode job.
Fox was at home when she got the call from her rep. “I sat on it because I kept thinking there was still talking to be done,” she remembers. “I wouldn’t say I was in denial, but I thought, ‘This can be fixed.’ When it hit the press late Thursday, that’s when I started to worry it was really happening. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to accept the fact I’d lost my job or whether I was supposed to be figuring out a way to get it back. It was all very confusing and fast.”
The firing happened equally fast for Eads, who also earned 100 grand per episode. He was let go almost three hours after he failed to make his 6:30 a.m. call time on July 15 (though he did phone the set at 10:30 a.m. to report he had overslept). “The morning it happened, I had so many people say [to CBS], ‘He’s just late!’ Well, it was already done,” says Eads. “I’ve never been fired from a job. I always try to treat people with professional courtesy and I try not ever to be late. Sometimes being late just happened.” But CBS viewed his tardiness – and Fox’s allegedly overdue letter – as negotiation ploys. “We were already renegotiating with all of them,” explains Moonves. “We were giving them all raises that were fair. We even renegotiated with [‘CSI: Miami’ star] David Caruso this year! I’m not opposed to that if it’s done within the right parameters.”
The cast, however, never felt like they were overstepping their boundaries. “This show’s doing pretty darn good,” explains Eads. “So to spin off [shows] in your image, I don’t know – I don’t feel like [we were] rewarded for it.” Szmanda found himself defending the renegotiations to his friends back home in Wisconsin. “They can’t understand why we would ask for more money when they make a fraction of what we get paid per episode,” he says. “Our show makes millions of dollars an episode, and you would think a piece of the pie would be shared with all the people involved. But that’s not necessarily true anymore.” Surprisingly, Petersen remained mum during the negotiations. He never called Moonves to make a plea for his costars, though Dourdan did. “Gary called as a peacemaker, which I appreciated,” Moonves says. “I think Billy thought he should stay out of it.” Explains Petersen: “I didn’t have to get on the phone. I certainly wasn’t going to go to work without George and Jorja, so then it was up to [CBS] to figure it out.”
With production delayed one week, CBS started to explore contingency plans, like hiring new actors and having Fox’s character disappear into rehab after she was picked up for driving drunk last season. Ultimately, no auditions were needed: CBS decided to let the letter incident go, and Fox was hired back – albeit at the same pay she earned ‘before’ the negotiations. Eads was also hired back at the same pay after making amends with Moonves during a personal call. “George was apologetic,” says Moonves. “When he apologized, I was fine. I’m very happy he’s on the show.”
“This show isn’t about George Eads, man,” the actor says later, wiping his hand over his close-cropped hair (he shave it after hair extensions damages his locks while playing Evel Knievel in a TNT biopic this summer). “The more popular you get, you’re foolish enough to believe your own press. Next thing you know, you’re a little bit too cocky. So I got a lightning-fast education on Hollywood.”
Both Dourdan, who also earns $100K per episode, and Helgenberger, who earns $200K, are still being schooled: Their negotiations for a pay raise remain unresolved. (Moonves wouldn’t comment on the talks.) “If your team comes home with the winning ring five years in a row, you take care of them,” argues Dourdan. “You look after your original team, you don’t go buy a new one,” he adds, in a obvious swipe at CBS’ spin-off fever. Helgenberger is equally tense: “One moment you are on something inspired and innovative, and the next minute you are the quasi-blond chick on one of those crime-solving shows,” she says. “I’m a little bit nauseous from having been force-fed some humble pie.”
Not far from the Los Angeles house set, Helgenberger wraps one day inside a tanning salon that subbed for a dermatologist’s office. After playing out a scene in which the CSIs question a doctor who’s accused of overdosing his clients with antiaging elixirs, the actress takes a moment to reflect on the gross subject matter. “A lot of weird s— comes up in this episode,” she says. “A woman drinks her own urine because it supposedly has healing powers – and arsenic in small doses is known to be age-defyling.”
Weird or not, Helgenberger’s actually grateful for the story line, because it provides a rare glimpse into the psyche of her character. When fellow CSI Nick (Eads) notices Catherine staring at several young, beautiful women in the doctor’s office, he tells her, “You don’t need any of this stuff.”
“It’s Vegas,” Catherine replies. “Everybody needs this stuff.”
Though the exchange lasts just a few seconds, Helgenberger will take any chance she has to let Catherine emote. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s not exactly working on the ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ of crime shows: ‘CSI’’s ides of a serialized story is catching a holdover killer from Season 3. The ‘just the flesh wounds, ma’am’ approach is part of what fans love about procedural crime shows like ‘CSI’ or ‘Law & Order,’ but for an actress shooting her 96th episode, it can start to feel a little – what’s the word? – boring.
“That’s the greatest challenge – how do you keep being inspired when most of the time you’re just regurgitating scientific facts?” says Helgenberger. “That’s the only question people keep asking me: ‘What’s going on with Catherine?’ I never get asked what kinds of crimes I’m going to be solving this year. I get really bored just having to hold the flashlight up higher – which is one of the directions I get.” The ennui extends to the rest of the ensemble as well. “They’ll mention that I have a wife and three kids,” adds Hall, who plays coroner Dr. Robbins. “Last year, my character went to a strip club – that was great! The more they toss in, the happier I am. But they’re not going to fix what ain’t broke.” Petersen, naturally, is even more blunt: “I try and stay awake, and for me, that’s fresh at this point,” he says sarcastically.
Mendelsohn feels their pain. Not only did she help create ‘CSI: Miami’ in 2002, she now has the Herculean task of trying to keep the sheen on the original franchise as ‘CSI: NY’ launches this fall. Producers and technical advisers on all three shows made sure to avoid copycat crimes, but there are only so many way for wolves to eat a man’s head. Mendelsohn has several plans in the works to keep the series fresh this season: On Nov. 18, ‘CSI’ will celebrate its 100th episode with a mistaken-identity mystery involving the transgender community, and Aisha Tyler (‘Friends’) also joins the cast for at least three episodes as Mia Dickerson, Greg’s replacement in the lab. There’s even been talk of taking the ‘CSI’ers to London so Grissom could make like Sherlock Holmes for an across-the-pond murder. Another possible story line involves Grissom falling in love with a dead woman, a la the 1944 film noir ‘Laura’ – though Mendelsohn has yet to break either of those scripts. “I think fans are evenly split. Some want to occasionally go home with them, while others write to say, ‘Please, I don’t want to see anybody kiss,’” says Mendelsohn. “That same feeling is reflected on the writing staff. We continually try to evolve and grow the show.”
Back inside the yellow tape, Petersen seems eager to try anything new – if only because there are so many forensic TV shows now that are “doing the show we did two years ago.” Including, of course, ‘CSI: NY.’ Petersen remains very skeptical about the spin-offs. “You risk becoming McDonald’s,” he says. “It either changes or grows, or it stays the same – and then you can pretty much tune in on any night and get a forensics drama that’s the same.” Now that he’s one of ‘CSI’’s exec producers, Petersen is on the lookout for ways to break formula – perhaps, he suggests, by telling an episode from the killer’s or the victim’s point of view. “There’s a million different things. You can always turn the screw.” For now, he’ll have to stick with Grissom’s point of view, as he readies himself for another take inside the hot house. A makeup artist tries to touch up his face, but Petersen waves her off; as it is, there’s little light on the crime scene, where he’s about to crunch on dead cockroaches and talk about sulfuryl fluoride gas. But before he goes, Petersen has one more thing he’d like to get off his chest: “People underestimate the [television] audience in this country constantly,” he says. “There’s no doubt in my mind that anybody in this country can get this show, and knowing that, I think it’s our task to make it smarter and make them work harder to get it. Otherwise, they’ll flip over and watch Donald Trump.”
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