[IMG:L]The morning traffic on the I-10 was barely halted for three minutes as the flames from the burning truck underneath it licked the sides of the busy L.A. freeway. All evidence of the explosion was gone almost immediately, but as traffic continued to flow that Friday morning, the impact had already been made. When Numb3rs airs on Sept. 28, this is the sort of repercussion CBS hopes it will have on their viewers; initially explosive but ultimately so sticky and engaging that it will be hard to remove yourself from the plot. Their secret weapon? Tony Scott.
To those unfamiliar with Numb3rs, the influence of Scott may go unnoticed, but to fans of the show it is a much anticipated move from the executive producer of the “math procedural.” Needless to say, anyone watching the opening of the fourth season will be impressed. On a grand scale there are explosions, speedboats and Val Kilmer, but even the more subtle differences are all Scott–the fish tank, the math toys and even the meticulous grooming of the shows main characters.
Hollywood.com took a stroll on the set of Numb3rs with stars Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz to talk about the rebirth of their show.
HW: What it’s like to work with Tony Scott?
Rob Morrow: It’s good. What am I saying? It’s a blast! I’m so bummed that Tony is finishing because it’s like Numb3rs to the tenth power.
HW: What’s his style?
RM: He’s like a ramped up conductor, or a circus ringleader in the middle of everything; controlling everything, whipping everything up into a frenzy and everything is being formed by that energy. I’m having such a good time. I had to work the other night until four in the morning, and if I have to work ‘til four in the morning I’m not a happy guy. I don’t want to be there, I can’t even think, let alone act. But I would have kept going until six. I didn’t even think about being tired.
David Krumholtz: His energy is … I mean, he’s never worked on an hour-long network drama before, so this is a pretty big challenge for him. As anyone would be in his position, he’s a little overwhelmed with the schedule and yet he’s turned that into this great enthusiasm and urgency that’s filtering out throughout the entire set. I think he wants this to be the 44-minute movie version of Numb3rs. He wants it to feel cinematic so he’s working really hard to keep the energy up. What’s cool is there are only so many ways to shoot this set, seemingly, and yet he’s come in and done a lot of things we’ve never seen a director do with a camera before. I mean, half the time we don’t know where the camera is and the other half it’s right in our faces MTV style.
HW: He’s got such a distinctive style visually. When you’re on a set can you put it together in your head and get an idea of how it might look like on screen?
RM: I can. I mean he shoots three cameras constantly so there is a lot filming going on. But I’ve seen all his movies, so I can get a sense. He’ll do some funky things with the frame rates and I can imagine how, based on other films of his, it might cut in a flash or something.
[IMG:R]HW: What else is typically Tony?
DK: I’ve worked with hair actors before, and I’m a hair actor, meaning actors who are just obsessed with their hair and use their hair to define the look of the character. I’ve never worked with a hair director before until Tony Scott. He is obsessed with my hair, and maybe that’s because he has none of his own, but he specified that a few characters grow their facial hair, grow their hair out and not cut it all summer long, so I was like a Neanderthal all summer. Frankly, it’s been so much about the hair that it’s kind of distracting. Later today I have to call his hairdresser to make sure I’m using product the right way, and it’s like “All right, are we going to shoot the scene?”
HW: Rob, he didn’t do anything to your hair?
RM: He oversaw my haircut, which took a long time. He was like “no one there, it’s that little one, no it’s that one.”
HW: It doesn’t look much different.
RM: That’s what I said. They were all like, it’s so great and I was like “looks the same to me.”
HW: So is it radically different working with him than it is with previous directors?
RM: Radically different than with anyone I’ve ever worked with–and I’ve worked with some heavy weights. You know, no one does what he does. He’s so respectful of actors and he’s so sensitive and kind. And he keeps complementing you and giving you massages and he checks in with you. He’s always making sure you’re okay.
HW: Where you intimidated, when you learned he was going to be directing?
DK: I think we’ve always wanted Tony and/or Ridley [Scott] to put their personal private stamp on the show from beyond their influence as executive producers. We wanted them to come in and do this. And I think it couldn’t be better timing. Fourth season is when people start getting used to the idea that you’ve been on TV for a long time, so it’s a great time for Tony to come in and reinvigorate the audience.
RM: I started to resort to saying that I didn’t think that they could do it. But this guy has more energy than I had 20 years ago. He has so much energy. Maybe if I was a young person starting out I would be intimidated but I was more jazzed and excited about jumping in. I’m a director, so I’m always, at least in my mind, thinking through what choices directors are making. When I’m with him, I didn’t have to. I didn’t question him cutting my hair because I knew at the very least you look good in a Tony Scott movie. And that was a relief to me, to not have to worry, to not have to second-guess.
HW: Does he direct from a distance or is he right there in front of you?
RM: Most people take their stuff into video village and that to me is the most ridiculous thing, but 90 percent of directors do it. So when they want to give you a note, either they yell across the room and it’s like an intimate scream, or they tell someone to tell you and it’s lost in translation. When I’m directing I sit right under the camera. And Tony’s always there. He’s 2 feet way from you.
HW: What did this do for the energy of the crew and the cast?
RM: Everyone is jazzed. We’re all having a good time. It’s a great way to kick things back into gear. At this point, you’re in fourth season, you start to think “Oh God, what are we going to do?” but now it’s like a whole new world.
DK: Yeah, all the actors are pretty thrilled. It’s kind of a new start. You need that. I’d be crazy to say that it’s not monotonous and hard to keep doing the same thing, you need a new start, so this feels like a rebirth of our show. Plus with Tony here it’s like a rebirth of our show in the public eye, which is important. We want people to discover our show. And not only do we have Tony, we have Val Kilmer.
RM: It’s cool. I didn’t get to work with him.
DK: I don’t get to do the action stuff. The coolest guest stars always do the action stuff. But maybe Val will come back and work his way into the classroom.
HW: Speaking of which, what’s the concept of the first show?
DK: Obviously we left last season off with a serious cliffhanger. One of the FBI agents, Colby Granger, was found out to be a spy for the Chinese and it devastated everybody because he’s one of our most loyal people, so this episode is basically about who Colby Granger really is. Without giving too much away there’s a lot more to the story than meets the eye. And there’s a clear indication that I have had sex. Mathematician sex. It’s all very technical.
HW: Like a bedroom scene?
DK: Not quite. I mean we don’t want to shock our audience and give them heart attacks, because let’s face it, our audience is prone to that. But there is a clear indication.
HW: Is this messing up your budget for the rest of the year?
RM: Big time.
HW: So can his style be maintained for the rest of the season?
RM: It can be approximated. It’s not going to be the same thing. It almost feels like a new pilot. So like in a same way that you never can do what you do on a pilot, you don’t have the time or the money, you can take what works and approximate.
HW: Do you fear that this episode sets a visual style that the rest of the episodes won’t have?
RM: I hope not. I mean it’s a consideration but I think we can get along with it; we can do a lot of it. We just can’t have the scale on a regular basis. But we have, on the next episode I read, a huge action-packed show with all this crazy stuff. I couldn’t believe we were doing that, let alone after the Tony Scott one. So I’m not that worried about it.
HW: Are you taking notes for when you direct your episode?
RM: Definitely. I just told him this morning I’m going to rip off as much as I can. You know it’s funny, I’ve directed one of these and a lot of it I was doing already. Mainly because I kind of knew, I’ve watched his style. I like long lenses. I like the way they look. So yeah, but this time I’ll really take it apart and see what works and what we can do. But the thing is I don’t have the luxury of three cameras. We shot out on the ocean the other day and it was crazy. There were, I don’t know how many, cameras going and helicopters and we don’t get those toys.
HW: What’s going to be new and different about each of your characters this season?
RM: I think there is going to be what’s called “mini arcs”, where we follow certain emotional things through characters. Since last year we were toying with my character being in therapy some of that’s going to be played out this year. We’re supposed to have a C storyline going on, which will make it little more complex in a good way and all the characters are going to have stories that run through out the season.
DK: It’s in part because we have a new show runner, Ken Sanzel. He’s written a bunch of episodes from the beginning of the show and he’s my favorite writer. He has a great voice. I think in the past we’ve been apprehensive and prohibited from serializing the show, because it’s not great for syndication but I think that’s a modern dynamic that TV audiences expect from hour long dramas, so we’re definitely getting into that this season.
HW: Do you think Ridley will direct someday?
RM: He’s going to. He’s planning on it. We’re trying to get him either for the last of the season or the first of next season. But you know these guys book their movies two to three years in advance. So even when Tony said he was going to do it, I was like “I’ll believe when I see it”. But sure enough he stepped up. So I believe that Ridley will step up too.
DK: Maybe Tony’s episode will be so good that Ridley will get jealous, and that brotherly competition will kick in. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he did.
