George Eads, 'C.S.I'

George Eads, 'C.S.I'
Thursday 12 October, 2000
Cheryl Klein
Zap2it.com

"C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS' new drama about a Las Vegas forensics unit, is one slick show. Thanks in part to executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the series boasts special effects reminiscent of "Three Kings" - bullets ricocheting inside a chest cavity, hair shafts waving their follicles incriminatingly. Add noir-ish flashbacks and the occasional raven-haired stripper and, well, a little rough-around-the-edges charm would be a welcome contrast.

Enter George Eads, the Texan actor who played "Savannah?s" bad guy and "Grapevine's" mischief maker, and who now plays ambitious young investigator Nick Stokes. Make no mistake - Eads can be plenty slick, thanks to clean cut good looks and an ability to hold his own around a blood splatter. (That phrase, "blood splatter," seems to come up a lot when talking to the cast member. It's a dirty job, but William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger and company do it stylishly).

But on screen Eads broadcasts both playfulness and compassion, as his character listens without judgment to a repenting, recently robbed adulterer. Maybe it's because Nick Stokes loves his job. And maybe its because Eads loves his.

GROWING UP

"I finally get to play an adult, who is smart," Eads sums up, southern accent rolling into the speaker of his cell phone. "I'm 33 years old. I'd like to play a grown man, not some guy who is out to get the girl or the single guy with the smart-ass comments." Call it the curse of the frat boy (which Eads once was, but is by no means just).

A high school football player who discovered his flair for the spoken word in college speech classes that led to a major in public relations -? "I really loved being in front of people, taking a serious issue, breaking it down and making them laugh. I don't know what an educated word for that would be, other than a big old fat ham" - Eads battles against the frustrating, if enviable, pretty boy pigeonhole.

"I know it's a cliche among actors," Eads sighs, "but I really got into it because of my passion for acting, you know?"

It's a cliche among gushy journalists to talk about how down to earth their subject is, but, as any good CSI would point out, the facts speak for themselves: The guy keeps a notebook by his bed so he can write down ideas for scenes in the middle of the night, for goodness sake.

"I get a little wordy and off the subject and a little strange when it comes to talking about myself," Eads confesses. "I guess I'll get better at it, but it kind of seems like, well, why would anybody want to know what I thought?"

Okay, we'll stick to the work. Eads didn't need to go on the requisite ride-along to prepare for the part, since he'd been doing it much of his life. His father has been a district attorney in Texas for two decades, and a young George would frequently hitch rides with the highway patrol. He's probed law enforcement officials about "what the jobs do to them personally, why their dispositions are the way they are."

The way they are, Eads says, is often fairly stoic, a necessity in a job where the customers are corpses.

"A common denominator seems to be a hard time with stability in relationships, because you're so desensitized by all the violence that's around," Eads observes. He recalls the aftermath of a particularly bloody massacre his father witnessed in the '80s. "He said the thing that bothered him the most was that he wasn't bothered by it, you know what I mean?"

While a world of poker faces sounds like a stark contrast to the drama queen thespian realm, Eads points out, "It's kind of opposite in one way, but in another way it's kind of similar because (CSIs) have to act like things don't bother them when maybe they do."

A little comic relief helps: "I talked to one of the criminalist tech advisors on the set and I said to her, 'You're standing around with a dead body. Are there ever any lewd comments made that are inappropriate?' She said, 'Oh, God, you should hear us!?"

OPENING CBS' EYE

So far, viewers are listening. In its two weeks on the air (Fridays at 9 p.m.), "C.S.I." has boasted the top ratings of the night, on any network. So even though Eads had reservations about doing a show with the network that canceled the uniquely quirky "Grapevine" - "The word 'conservative' would pop in my head, or the word 'older demographic'" - he is confident.

"I've been on a set like 'Savannah', where maybe for whatever reason you could feel the ship sinking and you're getting close to being canceled," says Eads, who's also enjoyed the well-oiled comfort of a multiple-episode stint on "ER." "This show reminds me of a show that's a hit."

It's not just the soundtrack or the camera tricks or the PT Cruiser that decorates the set in an upcoming episode. "There's a chemistry," Eads says, even though "we're all individuals." For a show about dead bodies, the network that favors senior citizens has a live one on its hands.