Results tagged “jessel”

This might be the first time a British actor has played a Law & Order regular: Linus Roache will be playing the new Executive District Attorney. (Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy is getting a promotion to DA, since Fred Thompson has left the show to pursue a presidential campaign.) We foresee sexual tension between his character and Alana de la Garza's Connie Rubirosa! Is it a coincidence that Roache is the second star from short-lived NBC show Kidnapped to join the L&O cast - Jeremy Sisto is the new detective, accompanying Jesse L. Martin. Martin is only signed on for about half the season, so there may yet another cast change. Wolf said that he wants to attract a younger demographic and teased some of what Jack McCoy may face. From the Daily News:

Sam is not going to be the pragmatist the elected politicians have been. He's also going to be someone who goes through changes in his own attitude because he is doing a different job, and a lot of it is going to be fascinating because we talked openly about what happens to men of a certain age and a certain stature when the next generation comes in. There's a lot to play here.

Maybe McCoy can tangle with community boards - Waterston testified at a community board hearing about naming a street after Jerry Orbach in March!

The NY Times City section has a long feature about Law & Order's dramatization of the Adrienne Shelly murder. It was inevitable that the police procedural warhorse would cover one of the more bizarre and tragic murders in recent memory, and a casting notice for someone to play the illegal immigrant laborer who assaults an woman after she complains about construction noise confirmed that L&O would be tackling the story.

- Nicolette Sheridan does not look over-Botoxed with fish lips!

New York magazine has a chest-thumpingly sweet ode to New York, listing 124 Reasons to Love New York City; it remind Gothamist of how we react when people ask us why we live here - our eyes go glassy, we focus on a point in the distance, we develop a lump in our throat, as we do not understand why people would even question our living here - and then you can't shut us up for the next forty-five minutes ("The subways! The diversity! The food! The culture! The guy who fixes my shoes so they look new every single time!"). Anyway, while we question some of the reasons (there's a quote from Goldie Hawn - please, get a quote from a year-round New Yorker!), we do love that one of Michael DeFeo's flowers - and DeFeo himself - grace the cover and are reason #124 to love New York. PS - his book, Alphabet City, is a great gift idea for both kids and adults.

While we're not thrilled that the movie version of the musical Rent was shot mostly in San Francisco, Gothamist strongly urges you to go to Bryant Park at lunchtime to hear the cast members of the movie sing songs from the musical in a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS event. Most of the musical's performers are reprising their roles - Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel, Wilson Jermaine Herredia, Tracie Thoms, Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin (we love you, Detective Green) - plus Rosario Dawson (playing Mimi, the role originated by Daphne Rubin-Vega). They performed on the Today Show, and damn it, we get tear up when we hear "Seasons of Love."

Gothamist thought that Detective Green's shooting in tonight's episode of Law & Order was just a neat way to let Jesse L. Martin leave the show temporarily while he shoots Rent, but someone on Flickr says that tonight will be his last episode. The episode features a shocking crime, which is a bullet to the chest of Detective Green. Say it ain't so! It's not like L&O producer Dick Wolf would want to show his hand, but this is too obvious. When Jill Hennessy's Claire Kincaid died at the end of season six, we didn't know. And while we knew Serena Southerlyn was leaving, we didn't know she would be a lesbian! Gothamist doesn't want to see Detective Green in a bodybag. And we don't want a Paul Sorvino/Phil Cerreta-like shooting in a buy-and-bust, where he ends up deciding to leave homicide investigations. No!

Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes sure does have a lot of enemies. One of his rivals is pointing out many of his top assistant DA's don't live in Kings County, which might violate their "duty as public servants to live in the city where they work," as the Post puts it. John O'Hara filed a complaint with the Conflict of Interest Board; the Post notes that O'Hara has been "prosecuted three times for the felony crime of voting from an address that wasn't his primary residence," so it's a tit-for-tat deal. O'Hara hopes that many defense lawyers will try to get non-Brooklyn-residing assistant DA's recused from cases. As for the other boroughs, both Bronx and Staten Island ADA's live in their boroughs while Queens and Manhattan ADA's can live outside the city. Manhattan DA's were given an exception to the rule that says "at face value...assistants should be living in the five boroughs," according to the Staten Island DA's office. Interestingly, there was an interview with Annie Parisse about playing new assistant D.A. Alexandra Borgia on Law & Order. Parisse's backstory for Borgia is that she's "...unmarried...I live by myself in Brooklyn. I have a cat. I think my family is maybe a little hoity-toity and that I didn't want anything to do with that. A loner, who's maybe even socially defensive and not trusting." No word on if she's a lesbian; we'll probably find out on her last episode. Anyway, who knew that top ADA's made over $100,000? We always thought Jack McCoy made less than that for some reason.

It's unfortunate that we have to read all these wonderful stories about Jerry Orbach in the many obituaries today, but Gothamist is heartened by the fact that many people, from fans to critics, as well as his peers, found him to be a great actor and a wonderful person. Gothamist thinks that was part of why we love Jerry so much, whether he was Detective Lennie Briscoe or Lumiere or Harry McGraw: He was wise and approachable. A few of the quotes we like:

In other Law & Order news, Michael Imperioli, aka "Christufuh" on the Sopranos, will be guest-starring three of the last four episodes of the season. He'll be playing a detective who Detective Fontana, played by Dennis Farina, is paired with while Detective Green is filming Rent in San Francisco (yes, yes, it's actually Jesse L. Martin). This is the first time on Law & Order that there's been a guest detective (Law & Order: Criminal Intent did have a guest second banana detective to Vincent D'Onofrio's Detective Goren when Kathryne Erbe was pregnant), and we'll have to finally summon up the courage to bug Imperioli the next time we see him in TriBeCa.

Chung chung! It's the moment Gothamist has been waiting for - at least since May 20 - it's the season premiere of Law & Order. And since it's the much ballyhooed CSI:NY vs. Law & Order smackdown on Wednesday at 10PM, NBC is rolling out TWO episode of L&O tonight, starting at 9PM. The first episode is "Paradigm":

Dennis Farina joins the cast as Detective Joe Fontana, a stylish veteran uneasily paired with Detective Green (Jesse L. Martin) when a former female Guardsman from the second Gulf War is found murdered -- and evidence points to the vengeful Iraqi sister of a an ex-inmate at infamous Abu Ghraib prison. However, when D.A.s McCoy and Southerlyn begin to prosecute, they discover that the suspect's lawyer boldly plans to defend his client as an "enemy soldier" -- subject only to the terms of the Geneva Convention. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg guest-stars as himself. .

Yes, the Mayor does guest star! Here's the Mayor's press release about his second appearance on the show [Gothamist on his first appearance].

...but it might be set at "Hudson University," or another fictional city school. Reader Nicola gave us the scoop and these great pictures from yesterday's downtown filming:

L&O was filming around NYU for what I can only assume was their 'Ripped from the Headlines: NYU student take the plunge' episode. Jesse L. Martin was there and Dennis Farina too. (Trailers also read 'Assistant ME', and a Sergeant who's name I couldn't place) First, they filmed a crime scene on 5th Ave, by Washington Square Park and the Washington Mews, then it was over to the Duane Reade on West 4th between Mercer and Broadway. This set I actually saw - a young blonde guy had jumped (or was he pushed???) out of window and had fallen spectacularly onto a new Jaguar, smashing the windshield. Now, they are filming over at 380 Lafayette...

We had wondered if the on the NYU suicides would be referred to on the show...now we're curious if there will be a subplot about a student who lives in the school library or a pot-dealing freshman. Maybe conspiracy with the NYU Trolley or a reference to new first years, Mary-Kate and Ashley, who are now in town (via Stereogum) could be other things actors playing students say. Anyway, from the pictures, it looks like the L&O crew took over Great Jones Street as well, what with Acme in the background of this photo and the Time Cafe in the third photo.

Gothamist on: news of Farina's casting: Jerry Orbach's last episode and filming his last scenes; debate over the best L&O cast and a visit to the L&O set. And based on this NBC photograph, Gothamist surmises that the episoide may be Abu-Gharib related; also, between Martin and Farina is Robert John Burke, the wonderful Hal Hartley regular.

And we're psyched that Jesse L. Martin is looking to sign on for a few more seasons. He's now going to be the longest running "young, good-looking detective" in the formula.

Last night's season finale of Law & Order featured the final appearance of Jerry Orbach as eternally wisecracking Detective Lennie Briscoe. In a divergence from the usual L&O practice of not dwelling on the police-or-law characters, attention was drawn to how Briscoe was leaving the precinct, Green's reaction, opening the door for working with the D.A.'s office, and Briscoe packing up his desk. As a result, Gothamist feels the cases were a little rushed (a couple loose ends and, Elizabeth Rohm, even though your hair is looking fabulous these days, could you be any more shrill?), if fun for the Strangers on a Train reference. And Lennie's pithy one-liner to the woman having an affair with the delivery guy - "Guess he was delivering more than just packages, huh?" - was a great last shot.

Gothamist also liked Wilson's mention of the seminal series of books (which embraced pre-high school angst without the drama of Sweet Valley High), The Baby-Sitters' Club, which is basically like Rich Dad, Poor Dad for kids, teaching kids how to make tons of money by selling superior baby-sitting skills.

Other examples noted are Whoopi getting mad at the President for using the bathroom at her hotel and Larry David's would-be affair being halted on Curb Your Enthusiasm because the woman had a framed picture of Bush, which was a classic moment. Let's face it, any framed pictures of a politican, of any party, without your date in the picture, is almost grounds for being a dating dealbreaker. Or at least, this is what Gothamist experienced when someone saw our Dennis Kucinich glamour shot displayed prominently in the home.

What about the show, you ask. There is speculation that Detective Green will get promoted and will take on the "wise veteran" dynamic of the group. While Gothamist has utmost faith in Dick Wolf and his producers decisions (even though we don't forgive them for giving us Serena Boring Bones Southerlyn), we foresee a rocky start for the newbie to fill Lennie's shoes.