 |
| 'NYPD Blue's' Gosselaar Preps for Duty Zap 2 It Dot Com Vanessa Sibbald Wednesday, October 31 It's not easy being a former child star, emphasis on the former. Sure, it might have been fun at the time, but when you're too old to play teen roles, few actors are lucky enough to make the transition to adult careers. Lucky for Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who starred for six years on the high school-turned-college series "Saved by the Bell," he seems to be weathering the transition. On Nov. 6, Gosselaar steps into what he calls his "first adult role" joining the cast of ABC's "NYPD Blue." The actor, who since his "Bell" days has appeared on the more-adult series "Hyperion Bay" and "D.C." landed the part of John Clark, Jr. after a failed attempt to join the cast of "NYPD Blue" creator Steven Bochco's new show, "Philly." "It was sort of like, 'Well you didn't get 'Philly,' but let us know if you get an offer on another show because we'd like to work with you.' And I thought, well that's a nice way of saying that I didn't get the show," Gosselaar tells Zap2it.com. "A couple weeks later he called up [my agent] and said, 'We'd like to have him as an addition to 'NYPD Blue.''" Although when Gosselaar was first invited to be on the long-running police drama the role wasn't even written yet. About a month before the show went into production, series regular Rick Schroder left the series and Gosselaar found himself written in as Det. Sipowicz's (Dennis Franz) new partner. "At the time he was departing the show, I was still coming on as an addition," Gosselaar explains. "At no point did it seem like, 'Ok, Rick's leaving and you're taking his role as a replacement.'" The fact that both Gosselaar and Schroder, who appeared on "Silver Spoons," were both child stars has, predictably, kicked off a flurry of comparisons in the media, but Gosselaar isn't worried. "It could be worse. We could have come from pornography or something, that would be very crappy," he jokes. "It's really not that bad. So we're child stars? I think it's actually pretty cool that we're two of the few that have gone this far and continued to work." And while being the newest cast member to "NYPD Blue" might sound like a hard job, compared to when Schroder joined the show, Gosselaar thinks he's got it easy. "I am the new young guy, but I would say there was a lot more pressure on Rick when he replaced [Jimmy] Smits than on me," he says. "I think he had a harder time because people were expecting somebody to come in and replace Smits, and with me, it was so spur of the moment, it doesn't feel like a replacement." "For me the pressure was never there." Gosselaar is extremely humble as he talks about his new job, perhaps surprisingly so given the cockiness of Zack, the character he played for most of his pre-teen and teen years on "Saved by the Bell." But if we unfairly judged him by the role he played eight years ago, we're not alone. "I was so easily identified as being Zack for years. It was tough to get away," he says. "It was tough for Rick too. He worked a ton, if you look at his resume he did over 30 TV movies and people still thought, 'Oh, he came from " Silver Spoons" to do " NYPD Blue."'" "It's been an odd transition," he says of leaving Zack behind. "Because some people think we're still taping those shows because it's on syndication all the time. So some people go, 'I watch your show religiously, are you guys making any more?'" "It's like 'No, we've been off the show for eight years.'" "Hopefully I'm doing my job by playing a different character and hopefully people will forget while they're watching the show that I was the other character. That's the goal." As for whether the role of John Clark, Jr. will change the way fans perceive him, he's not so sure, but in the meantime, he's having a great time at his new gig. While Sipowicz may be your worst nightmare as a partner, Gosselaar has nothing but praise for Franz. "Dennis is the man, he's so cool. He is, by far, the most professional, one of the most talented people I've worked with. He's so good doing what he does, and it's such a joy to work with him because he comes to the set and it seems like he never has a bad day -- unlike his character," Gosselaar laughs. "Working with him is easy because he gives you so much. All you have to do is be open to it." Unlike what one may expect from the gritty New York-set drama, Gosselaar describes the set as "really light" with everybody clowning around. "Working on this show, you can't complain, it's a breeze actually compared to most of the things I've done in the past," he adds. "Because it's been on the air for nine years and people have it down, when you walk on the set all you have to do is work." |
|
 |
|
|