Aside from Anderson Cooper and Derek Jeter, few men will take up two hours of primetime television tonight. Rocky Carroll, who stars in both CBS's hugely popular NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, is no stranger to endurance performances, coming from a rich Broadway background that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and nominations for a Tony and Drama Desk awards.
Movieline caught up with the man who plays NCIS Director Leon Vance shortly after the premiere of the NCIS spin-off to discuss America's fascination with crime and medical dramas, his initial doubts about working in television and why he is grateful his first stop out of college was not Hollywood.
There is always so much pressure to satisfy fans when you spin-off from such a series. Do you feel like NCIS fans are pleased with Los Angeles?
I guess time will tell. It's kind of like when you're the captain of the football team and then your little brother comes to the same high school. He's going to get a little bit of run just because his brother is the captain of the football team so eventually NCIS: Los Angeles is going to make its own way. But we couldn't ask for a better opening and lead-in so I hope it's strong enough to sustain the kind of following it did in its first weeks.
From an actor's perspective, there are so many things that are out of your control, as far as numbers and ratings. You hope that everything you do runs for fifteen years but the reality is you spend most of your career looking for work. When you find something that's good and satisfying, and you like the people you work with it's like...of course you can always cherry-pick and say, "I wish we had more of this" and "I wish we were winning this award" and whatever. But I talk to my friends, who are, eighty percent of them, looking for work and it kind of puts everything in perspective.
The impressive thing about NCIS compared to other police dramas is that it is actually funny. What do you think is the key to balancing that kind of humor while fighting the characters or racing to save someone's life or or getting caught up in a high stakes shoot-out?
Absolutely. We kind of forget because what television tends to do with these professions like lawyers and doctors and police officers, we create them on such a heroic level that you kind of forget that these are really people. I think that the fact that the executive producers on NCIS put an emphasis on making these characters so three dimensional makes them so identifiable because they remind you of people you work with, which makes you even more invested in them when their lives are suddenly in danger. You know the funny side to DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly), you know what he and McGee (Sean Murray) are like. You don't want anything bad to happen to them because the audience has become familiar with so many different sides to them that the audience has become familiar with them and that's a good thing.
How do you feel, coming from a stage background, about being part of a huge network franchise now? Is there any sense of guilt?
No, not at all. This isn't my first rodeo. This is now the fourth series I've done for CBS. Look at how many film actors are now on television. Look at the guys who are starring in NCIS: Los Angeles, LL Cool J, Chris O'Donnell and Academy Award winner Linda Hunt. Actors work. If we weren't working on stage or Broadway or on a feature film, we'd be standing out on Venice Beach in a cat costume, reciting Shakespeare. What I said before, you spend most of your time trying to get a job. You spend most of your career looking for work. If I'm working on a series and 19 million are watching it, it can't be all that bad [Laughs].
You've played a doctor, a lawyer, and a detective. Why do you think America is so fascinated with these TV genres?
I don't know. That's a good question. That's always sort of my running line. I can go my entire career and never play the part of an actor. Actors play doctors, lawyers and people who deal with some sort of heightened drama on a daily basis and you know, it makes for a good story. You'd be surprised at how many of these stories on medical and police shows are based on real life events. There are always going to be hospital dramas because if you're sitting in an emergency room for two hours, I guarantee you you are going to see something that makes you gasp. That's where drama comes from.
With the advent of reality TV, a whole new generation of stars was born. I don't turn my nose up to reality television, being a professional actor or a stage actor. More power to them. I'm glad that there are people who wake up with the primary concern of being famous because they can take all of the interviews and go on TMZ and do that other stuff. Isn't it funny that, we never thought about acting in terms of fame. I never wanted to become an actor to be famous. I just wanted to be a good actor. It served me pretty well. It put me in this incredible position now, as we now have this entire generation of people now who are desperate to become famous, famous for anything. And these two worlds coexist.
You've had careers in theater, television and film. Does one feel like more work than the others?
When I first got into television and people were talking in technical terms, I didn't think I would do very well in television. I love working in television now because I understand how the medium works. Hopefully, being an actor that has come up through the ranks as far as stage, and, really learning my craft before coming to Hollywood, I think it's helped me. I think about the thousands of people every day that really come from every corner of the world, whether it was the prettiest girl in her class or the one with the best singing voice, they come here and hope to make it big and I think, "Man, every other person in this town wants to be a successful performer." It helps, most people just don't have the patience to train themselves. I'm really glad that I did and that my first stop out of college wasn't Hollywood, that my success stemmed from a long series of fifty-foot theaters and learning the craft and working your way up to this point.