Jeff Wachtel, President Original Programming Co-Head, Original Programming, Universal Cable Productions, television Critics Association this way, “White Collar [is] a smart and sophisticated crime-action series featuring unlikely partnership of a career criminal and a career FBI agent. What might seem … a somewhat familiar premise is given a witty and wonderful spin by out-of-the-box writing, world-class performances, and dynamic direction.”
The cast includes Willie Garson (plays Mozzley), Matt Bomer (plays Neal Caffrey), Tim DeKay (plays Peter Burke), and Tiffani Thiessen (plays Elizabeth Burke).
White Collar is a Different Kind of Cop Show
Jeff Eastin, the executive producer and writer, commented, “It really is a show about the two guys and their interaction. And what's great about USA [Network] is it allows us to really explore the characters. This is not just a procedural cop show. We really get to dive in and discover things about these characters that you wouldn't [find] on a normal show.”
Eastin acknowledged that the main idea of the story has been done before. “There [are] a couple of pitfalls when you walk into this [story]. The great thing about this premise is it has been around for a while, so you get to see what's failed. Two of the things that really hit me were, yes, one, you don't want one of the guys to look dumb because the other guy looks smart. So for me, these two guys are always the two smartest guys in the room. …Their skill sets are going to be slightly different, so Tim's going to be better at [some things] and Matt's going to be better at [other things]. But they're always going to be the two smartest guys in the room.
“The other thing is when I looked at a lot of the stuff, it was, like, ‘How in the world do you pull this off?’ And all the shows, whether it's 48 Hours, they always end up in the same place. It's like at the very end of the show, now they're buddies, and you spend that initial two hours with these guys just butting heads. It works great for movies. And for TV, these are two guys you want to go home with and spend your Friday nights with at 10 o'clock starting October 23rd.” He chuckled as he put in the plug for the premier date.
“I think one of the things that humanizes [my] character is that he generally comes kind of from a quixotic place,” explained Matt Bomer. “I mean, he loves to test the boundaries with him. He's kind of like a four-year-old in that he doesn't have a lot of impulse control. He's always testing boundaries with him.” In the series Neal Caffrey is the criminal sprung from prison in order to help the FBI solve a crime. He takes the offer because he has an ulterior motive. He wants to find his former girlfriend, which is something he cannot do while in prison.
When the writer was asked about Tiffani Theissen’s character of Elizabeth, Jeff Eastin was adamant that she would not just be a doting wife that is more like an appendage. He wanted to base her on the strength of another wife – Abigail Adams in the John Adams miniseries. “What I loved about Abigail Adams in that show was you had someone who was incredibly supportive of her husband but was a really strong person in her own right. That was sort of the catalyst to start molding Elizabeth.”
Eastin also said there will be a strong dynamic between the three main characters. Elizabeth genuinely likes Neal, but her husband is apprehensive about the convict.
Diahann Carroll and New York City Add to the Show
Veteran actress Diahann Carroll is also part of the cast. She will appear in about half of the episodes. Her part in the series as well as the fact that the show is shot in New York City is a bonus for the cast. “She's so beautiful to look at in person as well as on screen,” claimed Thiessen. “She's amazing.”
“One of the best moments for me in the pilot,” said Tim DeKay, “was [when] we're on a rooftop, and I have a scene with Diahann Carroll. And there is Diahann Carroll, right? You're doing a scene with her at a table with real food, which is always good, and in the background is the Empire State Building and just this beautiful skyline. And it's one of those moments where you just have to step back as an actor and say, ‘Hmm, this is pretty cool.’ So that's my quintessential moment in New York City.”
According to Thiessen, “This is my first time for a long time period that I'll be shooting there. And, as hard as it is for all of us to leave our families at home in Los Angeles … New York City is a very exciting city.”
“It's an unbelievable blessing to get to shoot there,” said Bomer. “New York just becomes a character and a fixture in the show. It has a mood and a tone to the city that you can't find or replicate anywhere else.”
White Collar premiers Friday, October 23, 2009 at 10 PM ET/PT on USA.
