As promised, here are some outtakes from the teleconference with Laurence Fishburne, just ended.
The headline: A lot of details still need to be worked out. When asked about his character - someone with a mysterious past, presumably with a DNA that suggests he's prone, or at least amendable, to murderous and violent behavior - Fishburne et al said details remain sketchy. (Showrunners on the call, Carol Mendelsohn and Naren Shankar disputed that the character actually has the DNA of a serial killer, or as Shanker said, "there's no such thing...")
Per Fishburne, "I have [no] knowledge of such a biological profile nor would I be at liberty to discuss it if there were such a biological profile...I don't know. I'm really excited I'm going to be joining this team. We have a lot of stuff to work out like 'what's the character's name?' We've only had an opportunity to sit down face to face - one time. In the next couple weeks we're going to get going and find out what those answers are. All of this is discovery for everyone involved."
He starts shooting in September and first Fishburne episode is Dec. 11.
He was asked, are you a "CSI" fan? "I am now. To be perfectly frank, when we met here in New York I felt a little stupid an embarrassed that I hadn't watched the show prior to meeting them, but the episodes they sent me were really engaging, and really wonderful and dark and moody, like the work I've been involved in. I was like oooooh, wow...this'll work."
The on-set code name for his character, by the way, is "the professor...he's a fresh set of eyes," per Fishburne.
Someone pressed Carol for more details about the character. Will he run the team? "We're in the process of creating the character, but the initial first blush, we thought that it was so interesting to have our new CSI come in as a CSI 1...someone knowledgeable in their own right [but] someone who hasn't been to a lot of crime scenes. He'll feel very comfortable at home in the bowels of the corner office."
Fishburne: "I'm gonna enter into this with the most positive attitude I can. I'm going to work with people who have made great television for nine years...All I can say is, I'm excited and ready to play..."
(Photo by George Holz for Broadwayworld.com; Fishburne just wrapped his one-man "Thurgood" at the Booth.)