NBC Serves Fried Peacock
By: Jason Gay
May 21, 2001
The New York Observer
(NOTE: I cut what wasn't about Mr. D'Onofrio from this article)
Mr. D’Onofrio was sitting near a fountain with a colleague at the post-upfront party in the Rockefeller Center Summer Garden, smoking Camels, not bothering anybody.
Mr. D’Onofrio was asked what a guy like him was doing here, in television, in 2001.
"Basically," he began, "a lot of people came up to me last year: David Chase, Dick Wolf–who’s the guy that does Ally McBeal? That guy, he’s like the Steven Spielberg of television?"
"David E. Kelley?"
"Yeah," Mr. D’Onofrio said. "A lot of people came to me, but Dick [Wolf] had the best things to say. His stuff is less … soapy. I like that. I don’t like soap."
Mr. D’Onofrio said his movie-business colleagues had warned him about television, told him it was grueling work. They were right, he said. "It is fucking grueling, you know?" he said. "We’re talking 12 to 15 hours a day."
Still, there were upsides. Mr. D’Onofrio got to be with his wife and family, who live in Manhattan. As for the TV stuff–who gets picked up, time slots–the actor said he was leaving that to other people. "I came into this show with a film career, and I’ll leave this show with a film career," he said.
But Mr. D’Onofrio said he was signed up to do Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a long time. He declined to say how long.
"It’s going to cost them a hell of a lot of fucking money, but they’ve got me for a while," Mr. D’Onofrio said. "I’m totally 100 per cent committed for as long as they’ve got me."
Index