The Glades |

Laurie's Blog

VIDEO

• BONUS | 2:37

  

  Jim Longworth, Enemy

• BONUS | 1:32

  

  Sexy and Confident

• BONUS | 1:21

  

  Holds Grudges

• BONUS | 2:39

  

  Ogletree's Return

• BONUS | 2:41

  

  Nudist Colony

• BONUS | 2:00

  

  Emotional Growth

• BONUS | 2:33

  

  Obstacles

• BONUS | 2:44

  

  Obnoxious But Endearing

• RECAP | 1:04

  

  Jim & Callie's Relationship

• BEHIND-THE-SCENES | :32

  

  Art Direction

• BEHIND-THE-SCENES | 1:06

  

  Police Station

• RECAP | 1:02

  

  Breakout

It wasn’t easy getting there. Two cancelled flights and a failed standby attempt went by before we finally got on a flight the morning after we were supposed to leave, and even then we had to fly to the wrong city and drive from there. But that’s the boring part, or at least I hope you’ll still think that by the time you read the rest of this.

We’ve all been pretty excited about The Glades over here. We built a gorgeous site for it and have been begging, borrowing, and stealing to get pictures, information, inside contacts, and scripts ahead of time so we could figure out what else should go on the site. We’ve had good dramas here before but this one has a nice playful side to it that gives us a little more creative freedom.

Now for the true confession: I’m a big nerd. I admit it! We could have gone to the set anytime in July or August, but the day I got a look at the directors list, I knew when we we were going. Why? Because Jonathan Frakes was on it. Please tell me you know who Jonathan Frakes is. You do, right?

Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes.
Getty Images

Jonathan Frakes played Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has been making a name for himself directing ever since. I am a fan. I’m also in charge of the A&E website, and being in charge has its advantages: I told Frank (art director) and Samantha (Glades site producer) that they could interview anyone they wanted, but the director was mine. Frank called dibs on Kiele Sanchez, which would have worked out great had she actually been on set the days we were there. Poor Frank.

Alas, it was not to be.

After some missteps finding the set, we were finally rescued by Marc Weinstein, whose title on the call sheet is “man in charge of every’ting impo’tant”, since he’s something of a jack-of-all-trades, do-whatever-is-necessary kind of guy. One of the show's producers gave him that title, and it really does seem apt.

Marc Weinstein, tour guide extraordinaire, at The Glades production office.

Marc is a grip who started out installing some much-needed air conditioning on the sets and stayed to do whatever was needed, which the day of our arrival included finding us, then taking us to the production office so we could get interviews with Uriah Shelton (who plays Jeff Cargill) and Jordan Wall (Daniel Green).

They were both incredibly nice and gave us great interviews. Uriah is so far beyond what you’d expect from a “child” actor. He’s smart, articulate, friendly, gracious, and put up with all of our questions and requests. (When I told his mom how nice he was, she smiled, and said, ‘Well he had better be!”) He was actually in school at the time; he has an on-set tutor and the walls were covered with hand-written sheets of geometry formulas and Mandarin words. He talked a lot about how much he liked his co-stars.

Uriah surrounded by his homework for the day.

A little Mandarin, anyone?

Yes, he’s learning to speak Chinese. He also does a pretty funny imitation of co-star Carlos Gomez.

Jordan was just as nice and just as accommodating. He answered all of our questions and then did an imitation of Matt Passmore that took a turn for the weird and made it really hard not to laugh loud enough for the camera to hear. He didn't mean any of it, and told us how much he liked Matt, and it was really funny.

Once we were done and had met some more people at the production office, Marc took a close look at us and determined that we needed to go get some lunch. I think we were wilting. We promptly headed over to the set and the catering area.

Now I have had many a meal on set of different shows. I used to be in television production and they usually bring in lunches and often dinners, depending on how late the day goes, and the food is more or less what you’d expect from meals produced for large numbers of people. But this was no production meal. This was hand-cooked, delicious, amazing food fit for a restaurant with tablecloths & napkins, which is how my 6 year-old determines a place is “fancy”. I still sometimes find myself reminiscing about the crab cakes we had. (I like food, okay?)

While we were eating we found ourselves seated across the table from Stephen Weinberg, the actor who was playing Allan Slater, that episode’s victim, and he was a “pisser”, as my husband would say. He was getting a lot of mileage out of playing the dead guy, the jokes were rolling a mile a minute about how his wife says he’s like a dead guy in bed, etc. He just kept ‘em coming.

“I did a lot of method acting. I looked at other...dead people.” This went on for half the interview.

Method acting pays off. Stephen Weinberg as Allan Slater, murder victim.

Bellies full, we headed over to the set to see what goodness awaited us. Thanks to Marc, we got to talk to just about everyone. Assistant Property Master Shawn Logue showed us Matt’s badge & gun. He was emphatic about the fact that they use blanks.

The craft services guys, Freddie Turett and Mark Katz, offered up a truck full of snacks and one of them talked about his days working on “I Love Lucy”.

These guys had tales to tell.

I thought the hat warranted a close-up.

The craft services truck feels just like home, doesn’t it?

Essentials for a Florida shoot. No wonder these guys were so popular.

Ed Tapia, one of the co-producers, gave us an interview too (and true to form, took several calls on his cell in the middle).

We also got an insider’s look at the caprices of Florida weather. It can be sunny and raining at the same time, which gets very confusing, and leaves spots on your sunglasses. It also makes shooting a challenge, a sentiment echoed by pretty much everyone we spoke to.

Now on to my personal highlight: the interview with Jonathan Frakes. Marc wasn’t sure he’d be able to swing it, but they finished shooting early (which Mr. Frakes says is one of his specialties, coming in on time). They had just finished shooting the love scene at the beginning of the "Marriage Is Murder" episode, so he had been on a closed set all afternoon. Marc jumped in and made the request. Jonathan agreed to do an interview, but not on video. I whipped out my trusty digital tape recorder and followed him up a few flights of stairs to find a reasonably quiet location, since the crew was noisily packing up all the equipment from that day’s shoot.

Well, he couldn’t have been nicer. In addition, he was completely focused on The Glades as a series, and not just on his piece of it. The first thing he wanted to know was what rating the show would have to get in its second week to be considered a hit. (The show had just premiered a few days earlier.) He had a lot to say about Matt Passmore, including the fact that his own mom had called to talk about how much she liked him, and that it was noticeable to anyone who watched the show:

“He’s gorgeous without being disarming, he’s accessible, he’s got a twinkle in his eye, sort of a Machiavellian twinkle, I mean he’s just, he’s playing it dry, he’s got wonderful comic timing, he’s sexy. He’s the whole package, he’s like a movie star.”

He does look like a movie star.

I asked him how he got the gig, although I knew he’d been accumulating credits directing episodes of Leverage, V, and The Good Guys, among other shows. “I come in on time,” he said with a big laugh. “And I’m a reformed actor, so I think, assuming that people work the way I do, I think it’s good for the actors to know there’s another member of the brotherhood around keeping their eye on it so it’s not all about the technology. Stay on the story, stay on the characters.”

As someone who has seen his directing work on the various Star Treks and V, as well as a few other shows, I mentioned that he has a very visual style, much more than I’d expect from your basic actor-director.

“You steal things that you’ve seen that you like and you try to find a way to put ‘em into your shows,” he told me. “Framing, staging, lighting. I steal from the good ones. That’s what I think that most people do.”

I asked if there was any sort of signature style he was bringing to the show. After some thought, he told me, “The camera doesn’t stop. A lot of the things that (Michael) Lohmann the DP and I like are the same. We both like a lot of foreground; we like to keep the camera moving. If the people are still we move, or the people move, but we, we’re very big on that, especially when there’s so much information or exposition. You won’t see a lot of people sitting around talking to each other, I promise you that.”

Director of Photography Michael Lohmann and Jonathan Frakes discuss what they're seeing on the monitor.

I also wanted to know what it was like for him getting his first directing job, on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

“I had sort of the double-edged sword that when I expressed interest in directing while Star Trek was still a tv series, Rick Berman -- who was our executive producer who runs the show and is also a friend, whose wife is the godmother to our son – said, “If I give you one, you’ve got to be SO prepared.” He told me he ended up spending about 300 hours in the editing room on the show before they ever let him step up to direct. It shows, and he went on after that to direct more Next Generation episodes as well as Deep Space Nine, Voyager, two of the Star Trek movies, and a handful of Roswells.

And now that the Star Trek floodgates had been opened, I asked if anyone on The Glades crew had come up to him to confess their love of Star Trek and excitement about having him on the set.

“Sure,” he said with a grin. “I worry if they don’t.” He laughed. “I’d be upset if they didn’t. It’s part of the gift that keeps on giving. That was 182 episodes, 7 seasons, 4 movies. And it changed my life, changed all of our lives that were on the show. We’re very blessed to have been part of it.”

I brought up the very obvious on-set chemistry he and his castmates had on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He smiled. “I’ve been on shows where that’s not the case. On our show for some reason, the chemistry of that on-stage family, I mean, we still get together, we all stood up at each other’s weddings, we’re godparents to each other’s kids. Patrick just got knighted so we had this wonderful dinner where we all got together for Sir Patrick night. I just got texted from Patrick with a question, he just got nominated for an Emmy, and wanted to make sure I was going to be at the convention we’re doing together in Vegas.” He mentioned plans he had with Brent Spiner, and that Marina Sirtis was sending him a script and is best friends with his wife. “It’s sick how intermingled this is,” he concluded.

I asked if he’d seen that sort of cast chemistry on other shows, and he couldn’t have segued more perfectly back to The Glades. “I think that Carlos and Matt and Jordan, the guy who plays Daniel, that triangle has real magic and also, Matthew’s relationship with Kiele, that has a great dynamic. What’s really special, I’ve noticed, is the off-camera relationship that he has with Jeff, to whom he’s the surrogate father. Uriah. Matt is to Uriah as Longworth is to Jeff, on camera and off, and it’s so palpable that Matt really enjoys this young man’s company, and vice versa.” Uriah had said the same thing in his interview with us.

I wanted to talk more Trek, and find out how I, too, could start receiving texts from Patrick Stewart, but somewhere, from I know not where, I found some self-restraint. I didn’t even ask if they were having dinner before the Emmys, and what the name of the restaurant might be, and if it took reservations.

And then on a completely human, non-Star-Trek, non-Glades level, we commiserated on the difficulties of being away from our (respective) kids. I was only dealing with two days. “Try three weeks,” he said. He was feeling guilty for making his wife hold the fort for so long, and missing his family like crazy. If there's something unlikable about Jonathan Frakes, I defy you to find it.

With the interview done, I thanked him profusely, then guiltily asked if I could take his picture. I try not to be a cheesy fan, but occasionally I just have to do something for the little kid inside of me.

Oh yeah, and then there’s that bit where I went to pick up the tape recorder, and dropped it. Batteries flew. I managed to scoop up the pieces and then walked back downstairs in terror that none of the interview had been recorded and my co-workers, both of whom report to me, were going to have a great story for the rest of our team back in New York. (“Our boss did a whole interview without recording it!”) Fortunately, the interview survived the fall and so did the tape recorder. Phew!

We got a few more shots on set and then went back to the production office. Marc gave us a tour of the warehouse where they shoot the scenes at Callie’s & Jim’s houses, as well as the police station.

Callie’s house, in its home inside the warehouse.

Jim’s kitchen, still under construction. Somehow I don’t see him as a guy who does a lot of cooking.

The police station where Jim, Carlos, Daniel and Colleen Manus work. Looks like the real thing, down to the last detail.

I had an interesting talk with the Leah the Locations Manager, I still think that has to be one of the hardest jobs there is. They don’t just scout locations for shooting, they also have to negotiate with the location owner, and figure out not just where to shoot, but where to set up catering, rest areas, dressing rooms, parking, and everything else you can think of. I could never do it. I feel like I would always forget some detail and next thing you know, there’s no toilet and a bunch of angry crew members are pooping in my car to get even.

And that was it for my set visit. Frank and Sam stayed an extra day to get more interviews and take more pictures, and I headed home to my family, to my desk at A&E, and to send my Jonathan Frakes photo to anyone who’s known me for more than five minutes, or made the mistake of asking, “What’s new?”