White Collar premieres on USA Netowrk Friday, 10/23 at 10 PM.The show about the unlikely partnership of a con artist and an FBI agent who have been playing cat and mouse for years.
It’s time to set your Tivo or DVR boys and girls.
Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer), a charming criminal mastermind, is finally caught by his nemesis, FBI Agent Peter Burke (Tim DeKay.) When Neal escapes from a maximum-security prison to find his long-lost love, Peter nabs him once again. Rather than returning to jail, Neal suggests an alternate plan: He’ll provide his criminal expertise to assist the Feds in catching other elusive criminals in exchange for his eventual freedom. Initially wary, Peter quickly finds that Neal provides insight and intuition that can’t be found on the right side of the law.
This is part one of a two-part interview/podcast that was done last week with Jeff Eastin, the writer, creator and executive producer for White Collar. With significant experience with series creation for NBC and other entertainment entities, this is one that is different from anything else he has done. The series is actually shot in New York City and it makes the series more authentic. Eastin was incredibly generous with his time and provided extremely thoughtful answers to each journalist on the call.Moderator One moment, please, for our first question which is from the line of Stevie Wilson from the LA-Story.com. Please, go ahead.
Ms. Wilson Hi, Jeff, how’re you doing today?
Mr. Eastin I’m good. How’re you?
Ms. Wilson Good, now that you have segued from writer to producer, how’re you juggling everything that you’re doing because that’s quite a bit given that this is a new series.
Mr. Eastin Yes, it’s been a little insane. I’ve done it a couple times before, so it’s not exactly a new experience. I gained some pretty valuable experience on the other shows that didn’t survive, so I’m hoping that I can use that information to actually keep this one on the air.
Ms. Wilson Given what we saw on the preview copy of this, you had commented on your twitter that you thought that the “All In” sequence or episode was a really good performance. What made you think that?
New Trailer
Mr. Eastin That particular episode, it’s sort of interesting. The way we’ve done it is there’s a certain amount of mythology regarding Kate and the man with the ring that we set up in the pilot, and the “All In” episode was one of the episodes that we sort of had built in some major mistrust between Peter and Neal. The episodes prior to that we play with the idea, but there’s also a great deal of Neal sort of tracking Kate down on his own, and this is one of the episodes where we kind of brought it together where there’s some distrust between Peter and Neal that really comes heavily into play.
For me anyway, one thing I’m very proud of this show is I think it’s an interesting tone, but I think especially with Matt Bomer and Tim DeKay that there’s a really nice sense of humor to the show. In that particular episode, “All In,” this level of mistrust that we took it to kind of added an extra layer to it which I was a little worried going in. I didn’t know how it would play against the humor. I was just really, really happy to see that I think it actually kicked it up, that it actually really gave this extra layer to the humor and kind of dimensionalized the show in a way that I hadn’t seen before.
Ms. Wilson Cool, thank you very much.
Mr. Eastin No problem.
Moderator Our next question is from the line of Kenn Gold with MediaBlvd. Please, go ahead.
Mr. Gold Hi, Jeff, thanks a lot for your time today. I really appreciate it. We’re hearing really good things about the series and looking forward to it.
Mr. Eastin Thanks.
Mr. Gold My question for you, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the genesis of the concept and, I guess, going from the idea to an actual TV series and just kind of that process and how that came about.
Mr. Eastin Sure, well, the idea really came about, this was prestrike, pre-WGA strike, and I had been kind of playing around with a couple of ideas. I’m a huge Shield fan, and I had worked with a friend of mine. We sort of bounced ideas off each other, a guy, Travis Romero.
I was a huge Shield fan. By way, don’t tell me because I didn’t end up getting to see the final season which I heard was awesome. I’d been playing around with an idea that I’d called ‘redemption’ at the time. The idea was sort of a much darker, sort of a Vic Mackey, what would happen if he’d killed his partner and gone to prison. Then, they have to let him out of prison to work with a detective to solve the crime. Then, when it came to that, they decide to put a tracking anklet on him and keep him out. That idea percolated around for a little bit in my head, and somebody had pointed out there was a show called Life that’s on that they said, “Hey, that’s pretty much exactly the same idea.” I had kind of shelved it a little bit.
At that point (I believe this was just before the strike), Travis and I were sitting around discussing kind of what wasn’t on the air. The one thing that I hadn’t seen for awhile was kind of the buddy show which I was a big fan of. I did an early draft of Rush Hour 3. I did True Life 2 draft for Cameron which was back before Arnold got elected, and that was sort of in my wheelhouse, just the buddy thing. I loved, absolutely loved, Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours. I said, “You know, there’s nothing really on TV like this anymore.” We kind of looked around and said, “No, there really isn’t.” We kind of dusted off the redemption idea and said, “What if we took this and turned it into a comedy?”
At that point, I kind of just started in my head trying to figure out who the characters are, and for me, Matt Nix, who created Burn Notice, and I are pretty decent friends. He’d seen the pilot, and he called me and said, “Hey, dig the pilot. I just realized,” he said, “Peter Burke, your FBI agent,” he goes, “He’s you.” I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “That’s your alter ego.” He’s like, “Michael Weston, my alter ego, and I think Peter’s your alter ego.”
I thought about it for a little bit, and I realized he’s right. With me, Peter, who’s sort of more the straight man, is the guy that I am, but I’ve always been fascinated by the guy who Neal Caffrey is. I’ve had friends like this. Guys who you could literally parachute them in any place in the world with literally nothing with, just the clothes on their back and by the end of the night, they’d be driving a Bentley and having dinner with the princess in the castle.
I’m not that guy, and I’ve always sort of been fascinated by people who could pull that off. That was sort of the genesis of the Neal character. Taking a guy who literally just by smiling could pretty much knock down any wall, and the idea of pairing him up with somebody who’s kind of the exact opposite seemed like a pretty natural. That’s pretty much how the characters evolved. Walked into USA and said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea for a show,” and that was how it started.
Mr. Gold Okay, great, thank you. The follow up, within the casting, you’ve got a really interesting, talented cast here. How did you go about mapping, I guess, those characters into casting and choose these particular actors?
Mr. Eastin Casting was an incredibly long process. I want to say it was around six months. USA, they move, especially initially, they move very slowly. They grind very fine. There were some frustrating things going on early in casting. There was a sort of sense, like, let’s just get this thing going. The good thing about the search, it took a very long time, but in the end it was worth it.
We’d started out, and my concept of Neal was what we really sort of thought was a little bit maybe an impossible task. Jeff Artel had said, “You know, what we’d love is a young Warren Beatty.” Warren Beatty when he did that screen test back when he was, like 19, 20 years old. There was something just very electric and magnetic about him. That said, I was really hoping we could fine an unknown for the role, and that’s a really tough thing to do, somebody very talented, that good looking with that much charisma. Usually those guys are probably working, and they’re probably doing features.
We started looking, and I was aware of Matt. I’d heard his name before. I’d seen maybe one or two episodes of Chuck where I kind of had registered him as somebody that was pretty good. He came in and, to our credit, my casting director, Gayle Pillsbury, keep in mind I bet we saw 300 guys pretty easily, and that’s who I saw for the producer’s session. They saw more guys in the non-producer session, and then kind of whittled it down, and Matt was a good looking guy, but there’s a lot of good looking guys in L.A.
As we went through the process, I remember I walked in and Matt, he’s kind of an unassuming guy in person. If you guys were on set and met him, you’d probably realize he’s not particularly flamboyant. He’s kind of a reserved guy. I saw this guy. You know, he’s a good-looking guy, just kind of keeping to himself on the couch, and I didn’t really clock him as being a breakout star. Gayle, my casting director came over and said, “I want you to keep an eye on this guy.” She said, “He is a star.” I said, “Okay, fine.”
Came in, he did the read, and I was really impressed, but again, it’s one of those days where I think we probably saw 20 or 30 guys that day. I put Matt in the pile of people to come back, and every time we saw him, he just would get a little bit better and a little bit better. He’s a very good dramatic actor, and I wasn’t 100% sure he could do the comedy, so we sat down and we talked about it before we took him to network and we sort of discussed the comedy. He’s very intellectual when it comes to acting and sort of really processed it.
Went in the next day, and this was, again, very deep in the process. I think we’d probably been holding onto him for probably two months and bringing him in and bringing him in. We went into network, and USA’s one of the best networks in the world to go into as far as casting goes. We walked in, and it was very inviting, very friendly room, and Matt just started the scene, and there was just that moment where everybody said, yes, this is it. Wow, this is the guy. That’s it. That’s how we found Matt.
Tim, I think we drug … a little longer for no other reason than just we wanted to be sure. When he and Matt read together, I think everybody in the room turned to everybody else and said, yes, we found the pair. I think we probably drug them around a little bit more in terms of bringing him in a couple more times, but I think it was really just, is this the show? Is this the way we want to go? After, I think, two times at network, we said yes, this is the way we want to go.
Ultimately, no matter what I write, no matter where the location is, it’s really the show comes down to those two guys. I’m really happy now because I think probably the best thing we’ve got in the entire series right now is those two guys sitting in a car on a stakeout talking. It’s two guys sitting in a car talking and it’s that compelling, knock wood. I think we may have something good here.
Mr. Gold Okay, great, thank you very much.
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Moderator Our next question is from the line of Troy Rogers with Thedeadbolt.com. Please, go ahead.
Mr. Rogers Hi, Jeff, thanks for taking the time.
Mr. Eastin Okay, I’m glad to be here.
Mr. Rogers Excellent, now, one of the things I wondered right away was if Neal has all of Peter’s FBI connections behind him and he has …, was there ever a worry for you that people would wonder how come he can’t find Kate right away?
Mr. Eastin There was a little bit of concern with that. The theory we’re working on is because Neal trained Kate, she’s very good at this. The other thing is you’re assuming the FBI doesn’t necessarily know where she’s at already and maybe isn’t telling Neal. That’s one of the other things we’re playing with.
Mr. Rogers Oh, so they’re using her against him kind of thing?
Mr. Eastin Could be.
Mr. Rogers The other thing I wanted to know, what were some of the challenges you guys faced filming in New York?
Mr. Eastin Surprisingly few. I’d never been to New York before. I literally wrote the show using Google Street View. When I decided that I wanted to do a show about white collar crime, New York seemed like the obvious place to do it, and Street View makes a pretty good tour guide. I went through and kind of mapped the whole show out on Google, went through it, and I (to be honest) didn’t see it. I figured we’d be shooting in Toronto or Vancouver, but I figured why not try it.
Then, USA and Fox came together. I got the call originally on the pilot, and they said, “Hey, guess what? We’re shooting in New York.” “Really, okay.” …, but we said we’d take it. We ended up shooting in December which was not when we intended, but I think we did a pretty good job of hiding the Christmas decorations which were on every street corner at that point.
We got there, and I was worried because I’d shot another show in Hawaii, and Hawaii was really tough, surprisingly. The traffic on Oahu was absolutely crazy, and you would sort of be staked down to a particular location. Once you got there in the morning, you’re not moving until night, and I’d worried about that in New York.
A couple things worked for us there. One is the best thing about New York is just the production value you get. All we have to do is open a door or point a camera at a window, and we’ve got absolutely brilliant production value, right there, just by pointing at the city which is really nice. The other thing is the crew. I’ve never seen crew this good in my life. I have my producer in New York, Jeff King, knows the city really well and has been able to do an absolutely amazing amount for a basic cable budget.
The one thing I’m really proud about of the show is that he’s got a really great look. Bronwen Hughes, who directed the pilot, she’s from New York and did a really great job of just making the show look good. New York’s actually been great. I went into it a just a little bit worried. It costs a little bit more to shoot there, but in the end, it ends up on screen.
Mr. Rogers Excellent, thanks, Jeff. Good luck with the show.
Mr. Eastin Thank you.
Thank you to Jeff Eastin, USA Network and Electric Artists for providing the opportunity to speak to Eastin and get you some material to see and hear about the premiere of White Collar.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this interview/podcast which will be featured tomorrown 10/23 — and please do set your dvr, tivo or any other device you use to record tv shows. You don’t want to miss this.
Stevie Wilson
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