High Five-0 | CBS Watch
With a sizzling cast, blistering action scenes and tropical setting, CBS’ new hit drama brings the heat—and gets ready to turn it up for Season 2
AT FIRST, it seems like just another perfect day in Honolulu: wind rustling the palm trees, waves lapping against the shore of Fisherman’s Wharf, ceaseless blue sky overhead. Then, out of nowhere: “Fire in the hole!” And a moment later, a car on the pier explodes in a huge fireball, sending black smoke billowing upward and frightened tourists running for cover. Trouble in paradise!
Welcome to the set of Hawaii Five-0, CBS’ hit new reboot about attractive cops in an attractive place solving unattractive crimes. Whether it’s car bombs or corruption, terrorism or treason, the guys and gal of Five-0—ex-Navy SEAL Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), New Jersey transplant Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan), local detective Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) and rookie Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park)—bend the rules to break a case every week. And break a few records, too: With an average of 13 million viewers per episode, Hawaii Five-0 is the highest-rated new drama on TV and the most-DVR’ed show of the season.
“I THINK WE HAVE something going for us because we’re shooting in Hawaii, and there’s something about this place that’s eternal,” says Kim. “In the dead of winter, people will always want to see a beautiful location with good-looking people in bikinis. Every episode is like a postcard.” Of course, it isn’t just location, location, location. “We’re in a genre that people are familiar with—the procedural cop show—but we’ve got a combination of good stories, comedy and interesting characters.”
Not like there was any, uh, pressure for the show to succeed. The pilot only cost millions of dollars, Star Trekkies Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are executive producers, and the legacy of a treasured franchise hangs in the balance. “I just ignored it,” O’Loughlin says of the sky-high expectations, reverting to his very un-McGarrett Aussie accent. “Our studio execs are really good, we have awesome producers and we’ve got a team of strong people. So the end product is, within the parameters of network TV, really good.”
Given that the road to primetime supremacy is paved with failed remakes (see Rider, Knight), the trick was to do not so much a redo as a reinvention. Which meant casting, from scratch, a team that clicked right away. A team with chemistry—easier said than done.
So producers found four actors from four different places—O’Loughlin from Three Rivers and The Backup Plan, Caan from Entourage and Ocean’s 11, Kim from Lost and Park from Battlestar Galactica—which neatly paralleled the premise of the pilot: a fearsome foursome of do-gooders who unite to keep Hawaii safe. O’Loughlin would bring the brawn, Caan the banter, Kim the brains, Park the body. Add water and sand, and—boom!—the show became greater than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps the most gun-shy about doing it was O’Loughlin, who’s already been on two canceled CBS shows (the aforementioned Three Rivers and 2007’s vampire drama Moonlight). Only after meeting Kurtzman, pilot director Len Wiseman and executive producer Peter Lenkov did O’Loughlin decide to don his Five-0 police badge. Then came the task of finding his Danno.
O’Loughlin read with a whole raft of actors—“a lot of really amazing, really well-known guys”—and still found himself flying to the Pacific Rim without having met his new co-star. “All of a sudden we were here in Hawaii, at the table read for the pilot, and they’relike, ‘Oh, this is Scott,’ ” O’Loughlin recalls. “And I was like, ‘Uh, hi, Scott.’ He’d just landed, and we got in the van and drove to the table read. He was texting his new girlfriend at the time, and I was like, ‘Really?’ ” O’Loughlin chuckles at the memory of it. “But I realized in that moment that, OK, this is cool. We just riffed. The bromance began.”
The buddy cop rat-a-tat between McGarrett and Danno is one of the things that makes the show fun to watch, and it carries on between takes, when they like to cover their mics and—safely out of earshot—natter like frat boys. Here’s one of the (printable) exchanges:
Caan: [Sniffs, pinches the bridge of his nose.]
O’Loughlin: You sick?
Caan: No.
O’Loughlin: Don’t be sick.
Caan: I’m not sick! I have, like, nonstop throat issues.
O’Loughlin: Do you gargle sea salt? Kills bacteria.
Caan: [Loudly] Oh, can someone please get me hot water with salt in it? No, I’m kidding. Please don’t.
Caan and O’Loughlin also hang out off set—until they get sick of each other, anyway—and bond over training, mixed martial arts and surfing (duh). “You know: gardening, macramé, book clubs, that kind of stuff,” jokes O’Loughlin.
Park and Kim, on the other hand, prefer finding tasty restaurants to tasty waves. But from time to time, all four of them will grab a bite together “off campus.” While we won’t say what O’Loughlin likes to tease Caan about, he enjoys gently ribbing Kim about his large hair and Park about being a diva. “And they give me crap about everything ’cause I’m impossible to work with,” says O’Loughlin. The four Five-0-ers even live right near each other in Honolulu—not that photographers bother to lurk. Local paparazzi, perhaps aware of how much money the show pumps into the Hawaiian economy, are “not nearly as bad as in L.A.,” says Caan. “It’s mellow.”
For such a laid-back island, the vibe on set is all business, all the time. For a simple shot of extras running from the car bomb on the wharf, the director does four or five takes to nail it. On any given day, the cast and crew will wake up at 5 a.m., and they all log up to 80-hour workweeks without batting an eye. Call it … Hawaii Eight-0?
To keep things light during those long days, Caan brings his dog to set (a 4-year-old blue heeler border collie named Dot), Kim tweets on his iPad and O’Loughlin hams it up. While shooting a soundstage scene in his Chevy Silverado later in the day, he spontaneously breaks into song and honks in rhythm: “Every time you goooooo / To the place that we knowwwwww … Beep, beep!” Park, for her part, likes to tease members of the crew. When four crew dudes move a tent to shield us from the sun at Fisherman’s Wharf and proceed to stand there, holding it in place, she crosses her arms and declares mock-seriously, “I’m still waiting for you guys to take your shirts off.”
The show is dead serious, however, about safety—and authenticity. Five-0’s military technical advisor is an ex-Navy SEAL, and O’Loughlin did weapons training with a team of SEALs to prep for the part of Lt. Cmdr. McGarrett. “I ducked and weaved the hazing,” says O’Loughlin, “but I’m sure they can’t wait to do it: ‘That McGarrett, he’s a [wuss].’ Which I am, by the way. I’m an actor!” That said, O’Loughlin is willing to do as many stunts as they let him. For one of the high-octane dirt biking scenes, crew members handed him the fastest Honda they had and a pair of sunglasses, and told him to do his worst. “It was incredible,” he says.
Caan, who hurt his knee early on in the production, has no interest in such shenanigans: He spent most of his 20s making bad decisions in the pursuit of a good time. “I’ve done so many stupid things in my life that at this point, if I don’t have to risk getting hurt, I won’t,” he says, smirking. “I’ve fallen off horses, motorcycles, cliffs, skateboards, surfboards, busted my head open, and gotten stitches and surgeries all over my body. They don’t pay me enough to hurt myself on this show.”
O’Loughlin may be the natural leader, on screen and off, but it’s Caan—with his wisecracks and desert-dry sense of ennui—who snagged a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. Unsurprisingly, he shrugs off any label of breakout star. “I’m just trying to have fun,” he says. “It’s a nice thing when people say nice things about you. … I didn’t realize I was insecure until I turned 30. I always thought I was the [bomb], and then I turned 30 and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got all kinds of fears and insecurities.’ So, it’s a nice thing.”
As for any romance between Danno and Kono, it’s more likely to snow in Waikiki. “I killed that idea early on,” laughs Park. “It’s good to drop a couple hints and then go nowhere with it. The tension is what’s interesting— we learned that from [The X-Files’] Scully and Mulder.”
Instead, writers toyed with the notion of hanky-panky between one team member and another’s ex. One early but scuttled idea: “What if McGarrett hooks up with Danny’s ex-wife and didn’t know who she was?” says Park. “That would be so awkward!”
There’s also plenty of potential in the new blood coming on the show: Larisa Oleynik (10 Things I Hate About You) will play a recurring role as an ex-CIA operative who helps McGarrett chase his nemesis. Not to mention the steady parade of guest stars. To its credit, Hawaii Five-0 has managed—without veering into cheap stunt-cast territory—to book some buzzy cameos so far (Dane Cook? Check. Nick Lachey? Check. Diddy? Check … to see what his name is first). “What do we call him?” asks O’Loughlin of the rap mogul’s upcoming appearance. “P? Sean? Puff? Diddly Doo Doo?”
Nicknames aside, Park digs the chance to meet guest stars in the flesh. “We all have stereotypes about other people that we hear in the press or we know of and it’s great to meet them and be like, ‘That guy’s awesome’ or ‘She’s down to earth’ or ‘I can’t breathe, their ego is filling the room.’ ” She smiles. “There hasn’t been anyone like that … yet.”
Maybe next year. Now that the show’s been unofficially renewed for a second season—righteous!—the cast can concentrate on wrapping Season 1 with a bang, not a whimper. “Unless they’ve been lying to me,” says O’Loughlin, “there’s going to be some awesome twists and a fracture and deconstruction of the team, which is really interesting. That level of conflict when we come back for Season 2 is going to be great.”
Of course, for all the show’s sin, skin and movielike production values, future generations might very well marvel at its early millennium-ness—just as we do now about the retrotastic look of the original series. “In 20 or 30 years,” laughs Kim, “people will watch this show and go, ‘Wowww, can you believe that?’ ”
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
'Hawaii Five-0' Companion Series Coasts to the Web
'Hawaii Five-0' Companion Series Coasts to the Web
'Hawaii Five-0' Companion Series Coasts to the Web
March 28, 2011
-By Mike Shields
Hoping to ride the wave of good ratings to more viewers—on TV and the Web—CBS has launched Hawaii: Undiscovered, an original companion Web series to its reboot of 70s classic Hawaii Five-O.
Each of the eight episodes will highlight unique aspects of life on the island of Oahu tied (naturally) to plot points from the prime-time hit, which airs Mondays at 10:00 p.m. EST. For example, in one episode, host Jim Brasher (of Yahoo: Weekend Edition) will interview Hans “The Man” Hedemann, who serves as Five-O star Grace Park’s surfing instructor. Other episodes will dive deep with both a shark diving expert and a Navy Seal trainer, and feature both cast member interviews and behind the scenes clips.
Though Hawaii: Undiscovered will primarily live on CBS.com, the network also plans to distribute the show across the CBS Audience Network, which includes sites like CNET and CBSSports.com. New episodes will be posted each Monday at 3 p.m. EST; CBS will begin promoting the Web show during Monday’s (Mar. 28) episode of the TV series.
Chevrolet has signed on to exclusively sponsor Hawaii: Undiscovered; some episodes of the series will feature the Chevrolet Cruze.
Hawaii: Undiscovered is at least the third original Web series to come as the result of a CBS partnership with a major auto brand. Back in 2008, the now defunct Saturn brand underwrote the scripted, book-club-themed series Novel Adventures. More recently, CBS streamed several seasons of Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side, which was sponsored by both Saturn and the GMC Acadia.
According to CBS Interactive’s Joe Ferreira, Hawaii: Undiscovered is the first of at least half a dozen original Web series in development for the network.
“We’re going to be doing more of these,” he said. “In the past we’d do 2 or 3 a year. Now you’ll see us do 6 to 10 Web shows. There is more money in the marketplace, more consumption and more fans. And we want to be a leader in this space.”
'Hawaii Five-0' Companion Series Coasts to the Web
March 28, 2011
-By Mike Shields
Hoping to ride the wave of good ratings to more viewers—on TV and the Web—CBS has launched Hawaii: Undiscovered, an original companion Web series to its reboot of 70s classic Hawaii Five-O.
Each of the eight episodes will highlight unique aspects of life on the island of Oahu tied (naturally) to plot points from the prime-time hit, which airs Mondays at 10:00 p.m. EST. For example, in one episode, host Jim Brasher (of Yahoo: Weekend Edition) will interview Hans “The Man” Hedemann, who serves as Five-O star Grace Park’s surfing instructor. Other episodes will dive deep with both a shark diving expert and a Navy Seal trainer, and feature both cast member interviews and behind the scenes clips.
Though Hawaii: Undiscovered will primarily live on CBS.com, the network also plans to distribute the show across the CBS Audience Network, which includes sites like CNET and CBSSports.com. New episodes will be posted each Monday at 3 p.m. EST; CBS will begin promoting the Web show during Monday’s (Mar. 28) episode of the TV series.
Chevrolet has signed on to exclusively sponsor Hawaii: Undiscovered; some episodes of the series will feature the Chevrolet Cruze.
Hawaii: Undiscovered is at least the third original Web series to come as the result of a CBS partnership with a major auto brand. Back in 2008, the now defunct Saturn brand underwrote the scripted, book-club-themed series Novel Adventures. More recently, CBS streamed several seasons of Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side, which was sponsored by both Saturn and the GMC Acadia.
According to CBS Interactive’s Joe Ferreira, Hawaii: Undiscovered is the first of at least half a dozen original Web series in development for the network.
“We’re going to be doing more of these,” he said. “In the past we’d do 2 or 3 a year. Now you’ll see us do 6 to 10 Web shows. There is more money in the marketplace, more consumption and more fans. And we want to be a leader in this space.”
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
High Five-0 | CBS Watch
High Five-0 | CBS Watch
High Five-0
Hud Morgan
ShareThis
With a sizzling cast, blistering action scenes and tropical setting, CBS’ new hit drama brings the heat—and gets ready to turn it up for Season 2
AT FIRST, it seems like just another perfect day in Honolulu: wind rustling the palm trees, waves lapping against the shore of Fisherman’s Wharf, ceaseless blue sky overhead. Then, out of nowhere: “Fire in the hole!” And a moment later, a car on the pier explodes in a huge fireball, sending black smoke billowing upward and frightened tourists running for cover. Trouble in paradise!
Welcome to the set of Hawaii Five-0, CBS’ hit new reboot about attractive cops in an attractive place solving unattractive crimes. Whether it’s car bombs or corruption, terrorism or treason, the guys and gal of Five-0—ex-Navy SEAL Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), New Jersey transplant Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan), local detective Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) and rookie Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park)—bend the rules to break a case every week. And break a few records, too: With an average of 13 million viewers per episode, Hawaii Five-0 is the highest-rated new drama on TV and the most-DVR’ed show of the season.
“I THINK WE HAVE something going for us because we’re shooting in Hawaii, and there’s something about this place that’s eternal,” says Dae Kim. “In the dead of winter, people will always want to see a beautiful location with good-looking people in bikinis. Every episode is like a postcard.” Of course, it isn’t just location, location, location. “We’re in a genre that people are familiar with—the procedural cop show—but we’ve got a combination of good stories, comedy and interesting characters.”
Not like there was any, uh, pressure for the show to succeed. The pilot only cost millions of dollars, Star Trekkies Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are executive producers, and the legacy of a treasured franchise hangs in the balance. “I just ignored it,” O’Loughlin says of the sky-high expectations, reverting to his very un-McGarrett Aussie accent. “Our studio execs are really good, we have awesome producers and we’ve got a team of strong people. So the end product is, within the parameters of network TV, really good.”
Given that the road to primetime supremacy is paved with failed remakes (see Rider, Knight), the trick was to do not so much a redo as a reinvention. Which meant casting, from scratch, a team that clicked right away. A team with chemistry—easier said than done.
So producers found four actors from four different places—O’Loughlin from Three Rivers and The Backup Plan, Caan from Entourage and Ocean’s 11, Dae Kim from Lost and Park from Battlestar Galactica—which neatly paralleled the premise of the pilot: a fearsome foursome of do-gooders who unite to keep Hawaii safe. O’Loughlin would bring the brawn, Caan the banter, Dae Kim the brains, Park the body. Add water and sand, and—boom!—the show became greater than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps the most gun-shy about doing it was O’Loughlin, who’s already been on two canceled CBS shows (the aforementioned Three Rivers and 2007’s vampire drama Moonlight). Only after meeting Kurtzman, pilot director Len Wiseman and executive producer Peter Lenkov did O’Loughlin decide to don his Five-0 police badge. Then came the task of finding his Danno.
O’Loughlin read with a whole raft of actors—“a lot of really amazing, really well-known guys”—and still found himself flying to the Pacific Rim without having met his new co-star. “All of a sudden we were here in Hawaii, at the table read for the pilot, and they’relike, ‘Oh, this is Scott,’ ” O’Loughlin recalls. “And I was like, ‘Uh, hi, Scott.’ He’d just landed, and we got in the van and drove to the table read. He was texting his new girlfriend at the time, and I was like, ‘Really?’ ” O’Loughlin chuckles at the memory of it. “But I realized in that moment that, OK, this is cool. We just riffed. The bromance began.”
The buddy cop rat-a-tat between McGarrett and Danno is one of the things that makes the show fun to watch, and it carries on between takes, when they like to cover their mics and—safely out of earshot—natter like frat boys. Here’s one of the (printable) exchanges:
Caan: [Sniffs, pinches the bridge of his nose.]
O’Loughlin: You sick?
Caan: No.
O’Loughlin: Don’t be sick.
Caan: I’m not sick! I have, like, nonstop throat issues.
O’Loughlin: Do you gargle sea salt? Kills bacteria.
Caan: [Loudly] Oh, can someone please get me hot water with salt in it? No, I’m kidding. Please don’t.
Caan and O’Loughlin also hang out off set—until they get sick of each other, anyway—and bond over training, mixed martial arts and surfing (duh). “You know: gardening, macramé, book clubs, that kind of stuff,” jokes O’Loughlin.
Park and Dae Kim, on the other hand, prefer finding tasty restaurants to tasty waves. But from time to time, all four of them will grab a bite together “off campus.” While we won’t say what O’Loughlin likes to tease Caan about, he enjoys gently ribbing Dae Kim about his large hair and Park about being a diva. “And theygive me crap about everything ’cause I’m impossible to work with,” says O’Loughlin. The four Five-0-ers even live right near each other in Honolulu—not that photographers bother to lurk. Local paparazzi, perhaps aware of how much money the show pumps into the Hawaiian economy, are “not nearly as bad as in L.A.,” says Caan. “It’s mellow.”
For such a laid-back island, the vibe on set is all business, all the time. For a simple shot of extras running from the car bomb on the wharf, the director does four or five takes to nail it. On any given day, the cast and crew will wake up at 5 a.m., and they all log up to 80-hour workweeks without batting an eye. Call it … Hawaii Eight-0?
To keep things light during those long days, Caan brings his dog to set (a 4-year-old blue heeler border collie named Dot), Dae Kim tweets on his iPad and O’Loughlin hams it up. While shooting a soundstage scene in his Chevy Silverado later in the day, he spontaneously breaks into song and honks in rhythm: “Every time you goooooo / To the place that we knowwwwww … Beep, beep!” Park, for her part, likes to tease members of the crew. When four crew dudes move a tent to shield us from the sun at Fisherman’s Wharf and proceed to stand there, holding it in place, she crosses her arms and declares mock-seriously, “I’m still waiting for you guys to take your shirts off.”
The show is dead serious, however, about safety—and authenticity. Five-0’s military technical advisor is an ex-Navy SEAL, and O’Loughlin did weapons training with a team of SEALs to prep for the part of Lt. Cmdr. McGarrett. “I ducked and weaved the hazing,” says O’Loughlin, “but I’m sure they can’t wait to do it: ‘That McGarrett, he’s a [wuss].’ Which I am, by the way. I’m an actor!” That said, O’Loughlin is willing to do as many stunts as they let him. For one of the high-octane dirt biking scenes, crew members handed him the fastest Honda they had and a pair of sunglasses, and told him to do his worst. “It was incredible,” he says.
Caan, who hurt his knee early on in the production, has no interest in such shenanigans: He spent most of his 20s making bad decisions in the pursuit of a good time. “I’ve done so many stupid things in my life that at this point, if I don’t have to risk getting hurt, I won’t,” he says, smirking. “I’ve fallen off horses, motorcycles, cliffs, skateboards, surfboards, busted my head open, and gotten stitches and surgeries all over my body. They don’t pay me enough to hurt myself on this show.”
O’Loughlin may be the natural leader, on screen and off, but it’s Caan—with his wisecracks and desert-dry sense of ennui—who snagged a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. Unsurprisingly, he shrugs off any label of breakout star. “I’m just trying to have fun,” he says. “It’s a nice thing when people say nice things about you. … I didn’t realize I was insecure until I turned 30. I always thought I was the [bomb], and then I turned 30 and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got all kinds of fears and insecurities.’ So, it’s a nice thing.”
As for any romance between Danno and Kono, it’s more likely to snow in Waikiki. “I killed that idea early on,” laughs Park. “It’s good to drop a couple hints and then go nowhere with it. The tension is what’s interesting— we learned that from [The X-Files’] Scully and Mulder.”
Instead, writers toyed with the notion of hanky-panky between one team member and another’s ex. One early but scuttled idea: “What if McGarrett hooks up with Danny’s ex-wife and didn’t know who she was?” says Park. “That would be so awkward!”
There’s also plenty of potential in the new blood coming on the show: Larisa Oleynik (10 Things I Hate About You) will play a recurring role as an ex-CIA operative who helps McGarrett chase his nemesis. Not to mention the steady parade of guest stars. To its credit, Hawaii Five-0 has managed—without veering into cheap stunt-cast territory—to book some buzzy cameos so far (Dane Cook? Check. Nick Lachey? Check. Diddy? Check … to see what his name is first). “What do we call him?” asks O’Loughlin of the rap mogul’s upcoming appearance. “P? Sean? Puff? Diddly Doo Doo?”
Nicknames aside, Park digs the chance to meet guest stars in the flesh. “We all have stereotypes about other people that we hear in the press or we know of and it’s great to meet them and be like, ‘That guy’s awesome’ or ‘She’s down to earth’ or ‘I can’t breathe, their ego is filling the room.’ ” She smiles. “There hasn’t been anyone like that … yet.”
Maybe next year. Now that the show’s been unofficially renewed for a second season—righteous!—the cast can concentrate on wrapping Season 1 with a bang, not a whimper. “Unless they’ve been lying to me,” says O’Loughlin, “there’s going to be some awesome twists and a fracture and deconstruction of the team, which is really interesting. That level of conflict when we come back for Season 2 is going to be great.”
Of course, for all the show’s sin, skin and movielike production values, future generations might very well marvel at its early millennium-ness—just as we do now about the retrotastic look of the original series. “In 20 or 30 years,” laughs Dae Kim, “people will watch this show and go, ‘Wowww, can you believe that?’ ”
High Five-0
Hud Morgan
ShareThis
With a sizzling cast, blistering action scenes and tropical setting, CBS’ new hit drama brings the heat—and gets ready to turn it up for Season 2
AT FIRST, it seems like just another perfect day in Honolulu: wind rustling the palm trees, waves lapping against the shore of Fisherman’s Wharf, ceaseless blue sky overhead. Then, out of nowhere: “Fire in the hole!” And a moment later, a car on the pier explodes in a huge fireball, sending black smoke billowing upward and frightened tourists running for cover. Trouble in paradise!
Welcome to the set of Hawaii Five-0, CBS’ hit new reboot about attractive cops in an attractive place solving unattractive crimes. Whether it’s car bombs or corruption, terrorism or treason, the guys and gal of Five-0—ex-Navy SEAL Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), New Jersey transplant Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan), local detective Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) and rookie Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park)—bend the rules to break a case every week. And break a few records, too: With an average of 13 million viewers per episode, Hawaii Five-0 is the highest-rated new drama on TV and the most-DVR’ed show of the season.
“I THINK WE HAVE something going for us because we’re shooting in Hawaii, and there’s something about this place that’s eternal,” says Dae Kim. “In the dead of winter, people will always want to see a beautiful location with good-looking people in bikinis. Every episode is like a postcard.” Of course, it isn’t just location, location, location. “We’re in a genre that people are familiar with—the procedural cop show—but we’ve got a combination of good stories, comedy and interesting characters.”
Not like there was any, uh, pressure for the show to succeed. The pilot only cost millions of dollars, Star Trekkies Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are executive producers, and the legacy of a treasured franchise hangs in the balance. “I just ignored it,” O’Loughlin says of the sky-high expectations, reverting to his very un-McGarrett Aussie accent. “Our studio execs are really good, we have awesome producers and we’ve got a team of strong people. So the end product is, within the parameters of network TV, really good.”
Given that the road to primetime supremacy is paved with failed remakes (see Rider, Knight), the trick was to do not so much a redo as a reinvention. Which meant casting, from scratch, a team that clicked right away. A team with chemistry—easier said than done.
So producers found four actors from four different places—O’Loughlin from Three Rivers and The Backup Plan, Caan from Entourage and Ocean’s 11, Dae Kim from Lost and Park from Battlestar Galactica—which neatly paralleled the premise of the pilot: a fearsome foursome of do-gooders who unite to keep Hawaii safe. O’Loughlin would bring the brawn, Caan the banter, Dae Kim the brains, Park the body. Add water and sand, and—boom!—the show became greater than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps the most gun-shy about doing it was O’Loughlin, who’s already been on two canceled CBS shows (the aforementioned Three Rivers and 2007’s vampire drama Moonlight). Only after meeting Kurtzman, pilot director Len Wiseman and executive producer Peter Lenkov did O’Loughlin decide to don his Five-0 police badge. Then came the task of finding his Danno.
O’Loughlin read with a whole raft of actors—“a lot of really amazing, really well-known guys”—and still found himself flying to the Pacific Rim without having met his new co-star. “All of a sudden we were here in Hawaii, at the table read for the pilot, and they’relike, ‘Oh, this is Scott,’ ” O’Loughlin recalls. “And I was like, ‘Uh, hi, Scott.’ He’d just landed, and we got in the van and drove to the table read. He was texting his new girlfriend at the time, and I was like, ‘Really?’ ” O’Loughlin chuckles at the memory of it. “But I realized in that moment that, OK, this is cool. We just riffed. The bromance began.”
The buddy cop rat-a-tat between McGarrett and Danno is one of the things that makes the show fun to watch, and it carries on between takes, when they like to cover their mics and—safely out of earshot—natter like frat boys. Here’s one of the (printable) exchanges:
Caan: [Sniffs, pinches the bridge of his nose.]
O’Loughlin: You sick?
Caan: No.
O’Loughlin: Don’t be sick.
Caan: I’m not sick! I have, like, nonstop throat issues.
O’Loughlin: Do you gargle sea salt? Kills bacteria.
Caan: [Loudly] Oh, can someone please get me hot water with salt in it? No, I’m kidding. Please don’t.
Caan and O’Loughlin also hang out off set—until they get sick of each other, anyway—and bond over training, mixed martial arts and surfing (duh). “You know: gardening, macramé, book clubs, that kind of stuff,” jokes O’Loughlin.
Park and Dae Kim, on the other hand, prefer finding tasty restaurants to tasty waves. But from time to time, all four of them will grab a bite together “off campus.” While we won’t say what O’Loughlin likes to tease Caan about, he enjoys gently ribbing Dae Kim about his large hair and Park about being a diva. “And theygive me crap about everything ’cause I’m impossible to work with,” says O’Loughlin. The four Five-0-ers even live right near each other in Honolulu—not that photographers bother to lurk. Local paparazzi, perhaps aware of how much money the show pumps into the Hawaiian economy, are “not nearly as bad as in L.A.,” says Caan. “It’s mellow.”
For such a laid-back island, the vibe on set is all business, all the time. For a simple shot of extras running from the car bomb on the wharf, the director does four or five takes to nail it. On any given day, the cast and crew will wake up at 5 a.m., and they all log up to 80-hour workweeks without batting an eye. Call it … Hawaii Eight-0?
To keep things light during those long days, Caan brings his dog to set (a 4-year-old blue heeler border collie named Dot), Dae Kim tweets on his iPad and O’Loughlin hams it up. While shooting a soundstage scene in his Chevy Silverado later in the day, he spontaneously breaks into song and honks in rhythm: “Every time you goooooo / To the place that we knowwwwww … Beep, beep!” Park, for her part, likes to tease members of the crew. When four crew dudes move a tent to shield us from the sun at Fisherman’s Wharf and proceed to stand there, holding it in place, she crosses her arms and declares mock-seriously, “I’m still waiting for you guys to take your shirts off.”
The show is dead serious, however, about safety—and authenticity. Five-0’s military technical advisor is an ex-Navy SEAL, and O’Loughlin did weapons training with a team of SEALs to prep for the part of Lt. Cmdr. McGarrett. “I ducked and weaved the hazing,” says O’Loughlin, “but I’m sure they can’t wait to do it: ‘That McGarrett, he’s a [wuss].’ Which I am, by the way. I’m an actor!” That said, O’Loughlin is willing to do as many stunts as they let him. For one of the high-octane dirt biking scenes, crew members handed him the fastest Honda they had and a pair of sunglasses, and told him to do his worst. “It was incredible,” he says.
Caan, who hurt his knee early on in the production, has no interest in such shenanigans: He spent most of his 20s making bad decisions in the pursuit of a good time. “I’ve done so many stupid things in my life that at this point, if I don’t have to risk getting hurt, I won’t,” he says, smirking. “I’ve fallen off horses, motorcycles, cliffs, skateboards, surfboards, busted my head open, and gotten stitches and surgeries all over my body. They don’t pay me enough to hurt myself on this show.”
O’Loughlin may be the natural leader, on screen and off, but it’s Caan—with his wisecracks and desert-dry sense of ennui—who snagged a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. Unsurprisingly, he shrugs off any label of breakout star. “I’m just trying to have fun,” he says. “It’s a nice thing when people say nice things about you. … I didn’t realize I was insecure until I turned 30. I always thought I was the [bomb], and then I turned 30 and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got all kinds of fears and insecurities.’ So, it’s a nice thing.”
As for any romance between Danno and Kono, it’s more likely to snow in Waikiki. “I killed that idea early on,” laughs Park. “It’s good to drop a couple hints and then go nowhere with it. The tension is what’s interesting— we learned that from [The X-Files’] Scully and Mulder.”
Instead, writers toyed with the notion of hanky-panky between one team member and another’s ex. One early but scuttled idea: “What if McGarrett hooks up with Danny’s ex-wife and didn’t know who she was?” says Park. “That would be so awkward!”
There’s also plenty of potential in the new blood coming on the show: Larisa Oleynik (10 Things I Hate About You) will play a recurring role as an ex-CIA operative who helps McGarrett chase his nemesis. Not to mention the steady parade of guest stars. To its credit, Hawaii Five-0 has managed—without veering into cheap stunt-cast territory—to book some buzzy cameos so far (Dane Cook? Check. Nick Lachey? Check. Diddy? Check … to see what his name is first). “What do we call him?” asks O’Loughlin of the rap mogul’s upcoming appearance. “P? Sean? Puff? Diddly Doo Doo?”
Nicknames aside, Park digs the chance to meet guest stars in the flesh. “We all have stereotypes about other people that we hear in the press or we know of and it’s great to meet them and be like, ‘That guy’s awesome’ or ‘She’s down to earth’ or ‘I can’t breathe, their ego is filling the room.’ ” She smiles. “There hasn’t been anyone like that … yet.”
Maybe next year. Now that the show’s been unofficially renewed for a second season—righteous!—the cast can concentrate on wrapping Season 1 with a bang, not a whimper. “Unless they’ve been lying to me,” says O’Loughlin, “there’s going to be some awesome twists and a fracture and deconstruction of the team, which is really interesting. That level of conflict when we come back for Season 2 is going to be great.”
Of course, for all the show’s sin, skin and movielike production values, future generations might very well marvel at its early millennium-ness—just as we do now about the retrotastic look of the original series. “In 20 or 30 years,” laughs Dae Kim, “people will watch this show and go, ‘Wowww, can you believe that?’ ”
Monday, March 21, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
'Five-0' crew imparts wisdom to aspiring local actors
By Mike Gordon
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 06, 2011
Call it a close-up without the camera or an audition without a speaking part at stake, but the recent panel discussion from the casting gatekeepers of "Hawaii Five-0" definitely gave aspiring local actors an inside track on how to land a part on the successful TV series.
They packed the 300-seat Tenney Theatre to capacity for the first of a series of similar events promised by the "Five-0" team. The show's current visionary, executive producer Peter Lenkov, has wanted to create events like it ever since he arrived in Hawaii to shoot the pilot a year ago.
Lenkov told the actors he wanted to nurture their talent and felt he could tap into the steady pool of guest actors and directors who would be coming to Hawaii for "Five-0."
"Why not get these people to contribute back to the community and get the local talent camera-ready for our show?" he said.
So far, the CBS series has cast 120 Hawaii actors through its first 20 episodes. But there's a downside to that, Lenkov said. "We feel that at some point we will run out of local talent," he said. "And that's one of the reasons for this panel."
Lenkov and "Five-0" regular Daniel Dae Kim (Chin Ho Kelly) organized the event that brought together actors Alex O'Loughlin (Steve McGarrett) and Grace Park (Kono Kalakaua), co-executive producer and director Brad Turner, guest director Duane Clark and Rachel Sutton, the show's casting agent.
"I think there is a ton of guest-starring roles for local people," Sutton said. "There are heaps and heaps and heaps of local roles."
The invitation-only audience arrived nearly two hours ahead of time and came prepared with professional photos of themselves for the casting agent. The group was as diverse as a carnival crowd: beautiful young men and women, silver-haired seniors and an array of everyday humanity — tall, short, round, hairy.
J. Philip Koontz of Ewa Beach sat near the front, eager for advice. Unlike most of the audience, he had already had a small part on "Five-0." He'd also had a recurring role on ABC's "Lost," which shot in Hawaii for six seasons.
"I just want some more insight," he said. "This is my career."
Hawaii's actors are ready for the demands of working on "Five-0," Koontz said.
"I think there's a misconception that the level of talent compared to Los Angeles is not good here, and that's not true," he said.
Throughout the nearly four-hour event, the panel's loudest message was that actors need training. Actor Joe Wilson felt the same way.
"I think the actors who train regularly and work on their craft are way more prepared," he said.
Patience was another drumbeat from the "Five-0" panel — and Wilson knows a bit about that. He's auditioned three times for "Five-0" without landing a part, despite regular work with an acting coach and experience on "Lost" as well as three feature films shot in Hawaii last year: "Soul Surfer," "The Descendants" and "Battleship."
"We have a core group of actors here who are exceptional, and we're all waiting for our shot," said Wilson, a Hawaii Kai resident who also sells yachts.
Everyone there saw it as an opportunity. The chance to informally question a director or casting agent is invaluable for actors, said Scott Robertson, a former child actor who once appeared in an episode of "The Brady Bunch." Now an associate professor of computer science at the University of Hawaii, Robertson is trying to get back on television and has auditioned for "Five-0" four times.
"It's really hard to see what is going on, on the other side of the audition," he said. "You always see it from your side, not theirs. It's important to know what they think."
O'Loughlin offered an array of tips as he waxed poetic about his days as a young actor, which included background work on the Tom Cruise movie "Mission: Impossible II."
Everything you do is an experience you can draw upon for a role, he said. Never mind that the project you're in isn't good; shine as bright as you can. And find the truth.
"We are either in the truth or we're not," O'Loughlin said. "The truth is difficult to get to. This conversation we are having is the truth. We get to this place and the cameras are rolling, we're great."
The Australian actor underscored the sincerity of the show's effort to encourage local actors with a slight departure from the panel's mantra of preparation. He wanted the local actors to know why he wants to inspire them: He feels welcome in Hawaii.
"We all come together whatever color our skin is," O'Loughlin said. "I don't want to feel that because I am a haole that I am less kamaaina than everybody else here. I am buying a house here. I am going to be raising a family. This is my home. My heart's here now."
He stared hard at the sea of faces as if the camera was rolling in an audition.
"This is us trying to unify Hawaii and make everybody a part of our show," he said. "And we need your help as much as you need ours."
AND that's a wrap.
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser's film and television writer. E-mail him at mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
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