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::TV NEWS::
LE Newsletter - March 4, 2010
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'It Has To Be The Most Authentic Cop Series Going’
Source:
www.globeandmail.com - Michael Posner
(March 1, 2010) It’s
hard to think of a new Canadian TV series that has generated as
much preliminary buzz
as CTV’s
The Bridge.
Billed as a hard-hitting take on life inside a major urban
police force, it comes with an impressive creative pedigree,
including lead actor Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica),
five-time Gemini Award-winning writer Alan Di Fiore (Da
Vinci’s Inquest) and producer Laszlo Barna.
But everyone associated with the production –- it premieres with
a two-hour pilot on Friday night and continues for another 11
episodes – knows that its soul belongs to former Toronto police
officer Craig Bromell, who is executive producer for the series.
“ The key thing is it has to be real –
every little detail. You have to really believe that you’re with
the cops out there. ”—
Craig Bromell
A constant thorn in the side of the force’s leadership, Bromell
led a brief wildcat strike in 1995, protesting a decision to
charge two constables with mistreating black citizens. Later, as
president of the 7,500-man Toronto police union (1997-2003), he
spearheaded a campaign to tackle crime and corruption – not just
on the street, but inside higher command. He became a powerful
and polarizing figure, adored by much of the rank-and-file,
feared and detested by many senior officers and local
politicians.
It’s that internecine element Bromell and his team are trying to
inject into the popular, but crowded, genre of cop drama. The
show’s central character, Frank Leo (Douglas), is largely based
on Bromell. The title comes from the actual bridge that
separates the verdant lawns of Toronto’s upper-crust Rosedale
neighbourhood from its hard-core crime zones south of Bloor
Street – an area Bromell patrolled for part of his 26 years on
the force.In the series, the physical bridge becomes a metaphor
for other dualities, including the gulf separating commanding
officers from the rank and file.
“Few institutions are as political as a major metropolitan
police force,” says Bromell. “Cops hate drug dealers, that’s
true. But they hate brass even more. The tough part of the job
is inside the building. And it’s the same everywhere.”
As a TV project, The Bridge was born shortly after
Bromell left the police force in 2003. He made a segue into
radio, hosting a talk-show on Toronto radio station AM640 (where
he still serves as a part-time consultant on police issues).
One day, at his favourite watering hole, Toronto’s upscale
Bistro 990 – “all of my important union decisions were made
there, over fish,” says Bromell – he met TV producer Adam Shully
(Blood Ties, Odyssey 5). Both thought the Bromell story
had series potential and took the concept initially to Barna
and, with him, to CHUM, which commissioned 10 episodes. When CTV
acquired CHUM in 2006, the project was temporarily shelved, but
later revived. CTV ordered a two-hour pilot, shot in the summer
of 2008. Later, they ordered the rest of the series and sold it
to CBS. The U.S. network has yet to announce an American launch
date.
“It’s actually better that we had that delay,” Bromell explained
in an interview on the set. “It needed more time. And it gave us
a chance to get Alan Di Fiore on board. The key thing is it has
to be real – every little detail. You have to really believe
that you’re with the cops out there. It has to be the most
authentic cop series going, because everyone will be coming
after us. Because of my background, this thing will be picked
at, picked at, picked at.”
Bromell grew up in Oshawa, the son of a city employee.
Influenced by the writing of Joseph Wambaugh, the former Los
Angeles policeman turned novelist, and by TV cop shows, which he
consumed voraciously as a teenager (The Rockford
Files, The Mod Squad, Police Story, Dragnet), he joined the
force at 18.
Di Fiore was an obvious candidate for the writing assignment,
having been a key part of the team responsible for Da Vinci’s
Inquest, CBC’s long-running series about a cop turned
crusading coroner, and CBS’s short-lived FBI series The
Handler.
He’d always wanted to write and, convinced that writers should
write what they know, hit the road after college to gain life
experience. He worked as a union organizer among
Mexican-Americans, and then came to Canada, employed variously
as a fish-packer, as a herring fisherman, in a dog food factory,
as a log salvager and finally as part-owner of a jazz club,
Pagliacci’s in Victoria.
It was a visit to the club by actor-director Stuart Margolin
that led to Di Fiore’s first TV credit – Vendetta, a
miniseries shot in Rome.
When The Bridge was in development, Barna, who produced
Da Vinci, recommended him to Bromell. “I’d never met him
or even known about him,” says Di Fiore. “But when Craig told me
the bones of his story, I was riveted. Except for Wambaugh, in
prose, no one has ever done the story of the ordinary street
cop.”
Approaching the pilot script, Di Fiore said he had a brief chat
with Bromell, but cut him off at a certain point. “I felt if I
knew too much about his particular story, it would limit me
creatively. So most of the storyline and most of the other
characters are invented.”
He wrote the first draft in 21 days. “I wanted to contemporize
the story, because the truth is, rank and file cops today are
still battling the brass as much as they’re battling the drug
dealers on the street.”
Lead actor Douglas, a Vancouver native, didn’t try to model the
character directly on Bromell. “I just wanted to make Frank Leo
a real guy. It’s a fictional character based on Craig’s life. I
don’t put a lot of forethought into the scene. My approach is to
say the words as simply as you can. Don’t try to act. Just be
naturalistic.”
Ultimately, naturalism is also Bromell’s ambition – to
accurately depict the true, hugely complicated nature of a cop’s
life.
“No one,” he promises, “will be able to come back to us and say:
‘That’s not how it is. It’s not that way.’ No, I’m sorry. It is
that way and that’s how we’re going to show it.”
The Bridge premieres Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, then
moves to a regular Friday, 10 p.m. ET/PT timeslot on March 12.
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::LANGFIELD
ENTERTAINMENT:: ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WITH A CANADIAN TWIST::
