Dallas native walks a new beat in 'NYC 22'by David Martindale, special to DFW.com
Stark Sands admits that there is pressure acting in a TV series with Robert De Niro as the boss.
But Sands, a Dallas native who plays a rookie police officer in the new series NYC 22, has been fortunate so far.
There has been no disheartening feedback from De Niro, the Oscar-winning acting legend and the show's executive producer, that "the Sands kid" is doing it all wrong.
Not that he really had any reason to worry. Unlike his character, Sands is no rookie.
The Highland Park High School grad (Class of '97) earned a Tony nomination for his performance in the 2007 revival of Journey's End and, more recently, co-starred in the Tony-winning 2010 Broadway musical American Idiot. Television viewers might know him better as Lt. Fick in HBO's Generation Kill.
читать дальшеIn NYC 22, which premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on CBS, Sands plays Kenny McLaren, a fourth-generation cop who has a lot to learn.
"It's an interesting mix of action and character-relationship stuff," Sands says.
The series was created by Richard Price, a novelist and screenwriter whose feature-film credits include The Color of Money, Clockers and Freedomland. The ensemble cast also includes Terry Kinney ( Oz), Adam Goldberg ( Saving Private Ryan) and Leelee Sobieski ( Public Enemies).
And then there's De Niro -- "not a bad name to throw into the mix," Sands says.
The show focuses on six rookie officers who walk a beat in Manhattan's 22nd Precinct. It's a premise that gives NYC 22 a distinctly different vibe from most current crime dramas, which focus primarily on detectives and forensics experts.
McLaren and his fellow rookies, after all, are anything but experts.
In fact, when Sands was cast, his first impulse was to try to learn all there was to know about being a New York cop. To his surprise, he was instructed by the producers to go easy on the homework.
"Which makes sense once you think it through," Sands says. "After all, we're rookies. We're not supposed to know everything. We're learning as we go and we make mistakes along the way.
"We did go through a sort of mini police academy. We learned things like the proper way to stand during the morning muster and how to draw your weapon. But it was only the basics."
Amateurs wanted
It was a new way of doing things for Sands, who was accustomed to research, research, research.
"When we did Generation Kill, there was a two-week boot camp where the guys learned how to look and act like a Marine," Sands recalls. "But in this case, we went the opposite direction.
"And I will admit: I was thrown by it at first. Like, in the pilot episode, we come upon a gang fight and have to break it up. Well, I'm used to choreography. I'm used to someone saying, 'OK, first you'll take your baton and hit this guy in the shoulder. Then you'll hit that guy in the knee.' And then we practice it.
"But this time, we didn't do any of that and I was freaking out. I wanted to be authentic. But I hadn't even been taught how to swing a baton."
When Sands expressed his concerns on the set, the production team set him straight.
"They said, 'Look at the people playing gang members.' Then they said, 'Who here is a stunt man?' About half of them raised their hands. And they said, 'OK, you can hit any of those guys wherever you want, in any way and in any fashion that you like, and it will be fine.'
"And once I saw the episode, once I saw the final product, I understood. The look in our faces is one of real fear. We don't know what we're doing. We're in over our heads.
"And that is the essence of the show, at least in the first season."
Title changes
Whether there will be a second season remains to be seen, of course, but the network strongly believes in the show. Perhaps that's why CBS changed the show's original title, Rookies.
"I think everyone was in agreement that there wasn't a lot of longevity in that title," Sands says. "When you want a show to run for years and years, we can't be rookies forever."
(Though an ABC cop series with that name, starring Kate Jackson, ran from 1972 to 1976.)
The show also was briefly called The Two-Two, but that didn't stick.
"Maybe because it sounded too much like a ballerina's costume," Sands jokes. "But whatever the reason is, I'm happy with the title we have now." source