[IMG:L]With his steamy roles on such TV series as Sex and the City and The New Adventures of Old Christine, suave Blair Underwood has certainly inspired some creative storytelling in the minds of many of his female fans. But now the actor has sexy stories of his own to tell, teaming with a pair of acclaimed fiction authors to create the novel Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Story, a sultry Hollywood murder mystery starring a one-time boy toy for wealthy women forced to clear himself of homicide who (attention film producers) just happens to bear more than a passing physical resemblance to Underwood himself.
Underwood–who in the fall will be making a return to Old Christine as well as joining the cast of ABC’s new drama Dirty Sexy Money, along with starring in HBO’s format-tweaking therapy drama In Treatment early next year—revealed the secrets behind his new potboiler to Hollywood.com, along with his thoughts on his feature film directing debut, the state of Black Hollywood and the enduring appeal of L.A.’s beloved Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles.
Hollywood.com: You’ve written a non-fiction book before, but what was the impetus for collaborating on a novel?
Blair Underwood: Casanegra was an idea that I brought to a really accomplished novelist by the name of Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes who happens to be her husband because this is what they do and I think, quite frankly, that they’re brilliant at writing novels. Steven’s written 22 novels and she’s written seven or eight now. This was an idea about a character who was a former gigolo and in the story he’s accused of this murder of the first high-profile female rap star. She’s not unlike Biggie Smalls and Tupac, except that she’s a female rapper. He’s accused of the murder and of course he knows that he didn’t do it and he sets out to find out who the killer really is. Along the way he does in fact find out that he has a skill set for detective work. So this is the launch and the birth for a whole new detective series.
HW: What triggered this series and character and even doing a mystery novel in your head?
BU: Well, it was a couple of things: Years ago I kept running into Diana Ross at different functions and we kept saying that we should work together. So I said “I’m going to come up with an idea and I’m going to bring it to you and we’ll go from there.” So we did. The idea that we had, my brother and I were working on the script that was centered this character who was a former gigolo – in his previous life, at a very young age, he was a boy toy of sorts to very wealthy women in New York and in Beverly Hills. He traveled all around the world and spoke different languages, and that particular story was about an older woman/younger man love story. That film never happened. We worked on it together and it didn’t materialize like many projects don’t in Hollywood, but that character I was always intrigued with – the psychology of a person who sells himself for money, his body and his soul really at the end of the day. That was the catalyst of this series, Casanegra and the character of Tennyson Hardwick. Steve said “You know what? If you want to do a series lets do a murder mystery series.” That’s why it was truly a collaboration because we all brought different elements to the party.
[IMG:R]HW: Were you a reader of mysteries, especially in the vein of the hard-boiled Los Angeles detective tradition, prior to working on this?
BU: I’m not a hardcore fan of those books, but that’s where Steven comes in because Steven Barnes is. He can go into great length about the history of novels and characters and all of that. That’s his strength in coming to this party, in coming to this collaboration, but of course being in the business for 22 years that’s why this character and this story is set in Hollywood. There’s a lot of Hollywood players and behind the scenes scenarios in Hollywood and the players within this world.
HW: There’s a very authentic feel to the stories and descriptions in the book. How much of that stuff comes from the things you’ve heard throughout your career in Hollywood?
BU: It’s hard to say how much because it really is so much of a combination. Some of it is imagination. Some of it is hearsay. Some of it is urban legend and then some are either real stories that I’ve either seen or heard myself. It’s hard to know how much of that is real, but it’s like a jambalaya of sorts.
HW: Where did you come up with the name of your character Tennyson Hardwick? It seems to be a little symbolic…
BU: [Laughs] Well, Tennyson, of course, is the famous poet, but that’s Tananarive‘s doing. That was her invention. I have to say that and give her the credit for that one, but she always loved the name Tennyson. Hardwick is of course a play on words, which is self-explanatory.
HW: Now are you also seeing Tennyson having some future in either film or television?
BU: Absolutely. I’ll tell you what, from the very beginning when we were first talking about this we said “Let’s think big and think about the big picture.” The big picture is launching a detective series, an ongoing literary series that immediately we think from the very beginning and put things in motion towards creating a motion picture out of this. So from the very beginning we’ve been talking to people and we’re having meetings now and we’re raising the money for it right now. So we’re very excited that it’s gotten off to an incredible start, a great start, and has gotten some very good reviews. We’re excited about that and we’re working on the second book right now.
[IMG:L]HW: Are you claiming the character? If he makes it to the screen do you really want to be the one to play him or are you looking at someone else?
BU: No. That’s definitely my character [Laughs]. Acting is my first love and I’ll never stop that and I have to say that directing is a very close second, but just in terms of approaching the industry from the perspective of being a storyteller and finding ideas and stories and properties, I love the business side of this industry. One of the ways that I’ve kept my sanity over the last 22 years. About 15 years ago I started thinking about producing and thinking of directing and thinking of doing something in addition to acting, never instead of, but by doing that you create your own projects. You create your own opportunities. So this is definitely was meant and designed to create an opportunity for me to play a character that I would want to play and not have to worry about someone else coming to me.
HW: You just finished your directorial debut The Bridge to Nowhere–and you did it in 18 days!
BU: [Laughs] Yes. Whew! It was a marathon. I’m actually going back in a couple of weeks to finish the last two days because we got rained out. It was fast and furious and it was definitely guerilla filmmaking. We shot it in Pittsburgh. It stars Ving Rhames of course of Mission: Impossible fame and many, many other films, Bijou Phillips and Danny Masterson and a slew of young actors whose names you might not know, but who were all just amazing. They all came and brought their A-games…What I was most excited about was that these actors came to play, and at the end of the day my job as a director is to tell the story and get the best performances possible onscreen. Despite whatever is going on that day – rain or now – you’ve got to get it. I have to tell you, we had one day where it was 70 degrees in the morning in Pittsburgh and it was down to 30 and snowing that evening. I mean, how do you dance around that? You have to take it and run. You just go with the flow.
HW: In terms of blacks in the entertainment industry, is there a separate community that’s a little bit apart from mainstream, primarily white Hollywood? Black people in the Industry might cross over and almost certainly have to, but does white Hollywood choose or have to cross over into that world?
BU: That’s a very good question. There absolutely is a separation–it’s called Black Hollywood and White Hollywood. So to answer your question, yes there is. In this book this is a character who definitely crosses both of the lines because some of his former clients travel in both circles, White Hollywood and Black Hollywood and Latin Hollywood, by the way, and Asian Hollywood, by the way [Laughs]. He’s an international player or was back in the day, but there really are separate pockets. There are people and characters and personalities in so-called Black Hollywood who are very popular and very famous in those circles that are not known at all in the so-called mainstream Hollywood. That can be said for any pocket too. I mean, in Latin Hollywood there are so many Latin performers who are phenomenal who haven’t necessarily broken into mainstream Hollywood or at least gotten that recognition across the board.
[IMG:R]HW: After two decades of doing this, are you seeing more of the lines being blurred?
BU: Somewhat, but I think that you’ll always have that rigidity to a certain extent because you’ll always have that groundswell of the grass roots type of fanfare for certain artists. There is a certain sense that once someone crosses over into the mainstream they’ve kind of sold out and it’s always incumbent upon the artist, if they so chose, to keep that integrity of the culture and keep that integrity of where you come from.
HW: Given that your novel opens with a scene set there, what’s the undying appeal of Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles?
BU: Man, that’s one of the first places that I hit when I first came to L.A. twenty-some years ago and anyone who knows the Hollywood scene has heard about it at least, or has been there. It’s not any fancy elaborate or extravagant type of restaurant. In fact, it’s the opposite, and I think that’s part of the appeal. It’s just a down-home, good ol’ Southern kind of place where you can go and get some good food.
