'Falcone' star not nervous
Actor doesn't fret over whether mid season series will be renewed or not
By FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - Here are a few things worth knowing about Jason Gedrick:
At 33, he is an attractive, gifted actor with solid credits on Broadway ("Our Town") and in films ("Backdraft").
He guest-starred last fall as the lusty car-wash attendant who played splish-splash with Ally McBeal in that series' season opener.
He has starred in no fewer than four TV series of his own, none for more than a season.
Two of them (the dramas "EZ Streets" and "Murder One," on which he was a regular its first year) were outstanding.
He is about to launch his fifth series, with an expansive rollout that over the next week and a half will give him more evening face-time than Regis Philbin. And it's not even a game show.
"Falcone," starring Gedrick as an FBI agent who infiltrates the mob, premieres on CBS from 8-10 p.m. today, followed by nightly hour-long installments at 9 p.m. through April 12, skipping only Sunday.
Mind you, this is not a miniseries. It's a midseason tryout that, in an unprecedented scheduling ploy, will bunch the network's full nine-episode order into little more than a week.
"It's awesome," Gedrick said of this "event" packaging. "We're either gonna make it or we're not, and we'll know a lot sooner than we would've otherwise."
In other words, as soon as this weekend CBS - and Gedrick - will have a pretty good idea whether viewers are taking to "Falcone," and whether it will be back this fall. Or be whacked.
Gedrick says he isn't nervous.
"The day the ratings come out, will I be going, 'Please, please'? Of course," he said. "But I'm not sweating it."
Based on the 1997 film "Donnie Brasco," which in turn drew on the exploits of 28-year FBI veteran Joe Pistone, "Falcone" casts Gedrick in a double role. He is Joe Pistone - working man, husband and father. He also is the make-believe Joe Falcone, a jewel thief from Florida who has penetrated deep into Brooklyn's powerful Volonte crime family.
Can Pistone keep his marriage and family intact, despite his absences to play the other half of his double life?
As Falcone, can he gather the evidence he needs to topple this mob operation - without fatally exposing his masquerade?
In the first few episodes, Falcone reaffirms his usefulness to "Sonny Boy" Napoli (played by Titus Welliver), a newly appointed "captain" of the family. But there's never a moment when Falcone can let down his guard, not under the skeptical eye of Sonny's henchmen, "Jimmy Suits" (Sonny Marinelli) and "Lucky" Fema (Lillo Brancato, Jr.).
Gedrick clearly marvels at real-life undercover agents and the zero-tolerance risks they embrace. How do they do it? Why? Gedrick ventures a comparison with the sports world.
"There are super-star athletes who want the ball with four seconds left: 'Give me the ball!' It's all on you, and you've demanded it! You know?
"I think it's that kind of feeling" - he laughed - "times a couple of billion."
Gedrick should know. Much of the "Falcone" shoot was overseen by the real Joe Pistone, who serves as the series' technical consultant.
"I've learned a lot as an actor from him," said Gedrick, for whom Pistone is a humbling reality check.
Gedrick explained, "When I finish a scene and I haven't gotten anything that I feel comfortable with, I'll say to myself - I've even said it out loud - 'I can't act this! How in the heck did he live it?' "
The pilot episode of "Falcone," whose cast also includes Amy Carlson as Pistone's wife, Maggie, was shot a year ago on location in New York City. The series seemed to be a good bet for CBS' fall lineup.
But when the 1999-2000 schedule was unveiled last May, "Falcone" had been left off, over concerns about its violence in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre.
"We felt a responsibility not to put it on now," CBS president Leslie Moonves said at the time. "It just didn't feel right."
"Sure, that was disappointing," Gedrick said recently. "But it was the correct decision. Who wanted to see more of that kind of thing, right then?"
Winning a midseason pickup, "Falcone" in November traveled to Toronto, a cost-cutting stand-in for the Big Apple, where during the next three months, eight more episodes were filmed.
For the star, who appears in practically every scene, it was a tiring hitch.
"By the end, I definitely wanted to get home," said Gedrick, a confirmed New Yorker. "But I also wanted to keep shooting. I felt that I was really starting to sink my teeth into the part.
