DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. It must seem like every TV series ever made is available on some streaming service somewhere, but that's not true. Try finding "WKRP In Cincinnati" or "China Beach" or "Frank's Place" or "Brooklyn Bridge." However, one show that has been missing from streaming services until now - one of TV's very best - finally arrives Monday when Peacock begins streaming all seven seasons of "Homicide: Life On The Street." That cop show, set in Baltimore, ran on NBC from 1993 to 1999. Its executive producers were Tom Fontana from "St. Elsewhere" and film director Barry Levinson.
It was based on a book by David Simon, who later wrote for the show then created a string of his own brilliant TV series, starting with "The Wire." "Homicide" was groundbreaking TV in several different ways. Entire scenes were acted from start to finish like a stage play and filmed with a single camera. That process was repeated several times, with the camera operator capturing different angles. And then, finally, pieces from those different takes were edited together into one jarringly intense sequence. "Homicide" also reflected the diverse population of Baltimore by having, at the time, the most integrated series cast on network television. And its actors, writers and directors were among TV's very best.
Today on FRESH AIR, we'll listen back to interviews with two stars of "Homicide" - Andre Braugher, who gave a fabulous performance each week as Detective Frank Pembleton, and Clark Johnson, who co-starred as Detective Meldrick Lewis. And we'll also hear from co-executive producer Tom Fontana, who won an Emmy and a Peabody for writing the show's most famous episode, "Three Men And Adena" - more on that in a moment. Other stars on "Homicide: Life On The Street" included Ned Beatty, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo and Richard Belzer, who first played Detective John Munch on "Homicide" before playing that character on many other TV series for decades, including "Law And Order," "The X-Files" and "Arrested Development."
Guest stars were just as wonderful. In one episode called "Subway," Vincent D'Onofrio played a commuter named Lange, who was pushed onto the path of an oncoming train and spent the hour of "Homicide" wedged between the train and the platform, his bottom half twisted like a pretzel. He was alive and conscious and able to talk to Andre Braugher's Pembleton as a medic attended to him. But Pembleton already had been informed that as soon as the man was freed, he would die almost instantly. In this scene, Lange is asking for a pain shot. The medic is refusing, for reasons she was about to reveal to them both.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
VINCENT D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) You can get me something.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I've already explained to Lange here that any pain killer is going to make him lose consciousness...
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) OK.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) ...Depress his respiration and lower his blood pressure even more.
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) That's my problem, not yours.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) It'd give you the same symptoms of bleeding out, bleeding internally. He loses consciousness. That's the sign.
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) Of me dying.
ANDRE BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) There's nothing you can give him?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) If there's any chance of saving Mr. Lange here, then I'm not going to do anything...
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) There's a chance?
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) Oh, that's crap. You said so yourself.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) It's a million to one, but if there is, I'm not going to do anything now that would jeopardize it.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You're saying there's a chance.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) No.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You just said...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I said if. A million to one.
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) You see what I'm saying?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) He's not a doctor, Mr. Lange.
D'ONOFRIO: (As John Lange) And neither the hell are you.
BIANCULLI: Sounds intense? It was. And so was an episode called "Bop Gun" for which Barry Levinson enlisted the star of his recent movie "Good Morning, Vietnam." Robin Williams played a tourist who visited Baltimore with his wife and kids, only to have her shot and killed by a gun-toting teenager as the rest of the family watched helplessly. Here's a scene between Robin Williams and Kyle Secor who plays Detective Tim Bayliss. They're on the roof of the police station, and Bayliss and the bereaved widower get into a very serious conversation.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
ROBIN WILLIAMS: (As Robert Ellison) You always wear a gun?
KYLE SECOR: (As Tim Bayliss) Yeah, pretty much all the time. Sure.
WILLIAMS: (As Robert Ellison) You live in a world where everybody wears a gun, don't you?
SECOR: (As Tim Bayliss) Yeah.
WILLIAMS: (As Robert Ellison) The funny thing is, I've never even held one. No? You mind? Could I hold it? I just want to feel it. Come on, let me hold it.
SECOR: (As Tim Bayliss) Mr. Ellison, I'll tell you something. A thing like this happens, and people - they spend the rest of their lives telling themselves, finally did this or finally did that. But the killer is the one with the gun, not you, Mr. Ellison. You just have to let go of that.
BIANCULLI: Great writing, great acting all around. The most acclaimed episode of the entire series, "Three Men And Adena," also relied heavily on the contributions of a guest star, Moses Gunn, playing a suspected murderer. A superlative hour of television, more like a Broadway play, really. Fontana's script was about as tense as TV could get. But Fontana wasn't above or below slipping a good joke even into this most somber of storylines. It's one of my favorite moments from the whole series, actually, so I'll include it here. Two detectives enter the men's room and make their way to separate stalls - Steve Crosetti, played by John Polito, and Meldrick Lewis, played by Clark Johnson. All we see are the locked doors from the outside after they've presumably sat down. Crosetti speaks first.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
JOHN POLITO: (As Steve Crosetti) All right. You got toilet paper over there?
CLARK JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) No.
POLITO: (As Steve Crosetti) You got five ones for a five?
BIANCULLI: Other than that brief bathroom scene, the "Three Men And Adena" episode takes place almost entirely within a claustrophobic interrogation room. A murder suspect known as The Arabber, played by Moses Gunn, is questioned by the two detectives working the case of the dead girl whose name is Adena. Braugher's Frank Pembleton and Secor's Tim Bayliss, only recently assigned as partners, approach both the case and the suspect very differently. We'll hear that scene in a moment. But first, when I spoke to Tom Fontana in 1999, I asked him if he knew when he was writing that script that the actors could pull it off.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TOM FONTANA: We had been shooting the first episode. So I had seen Andre in the interrogation scene in the very first episode that Barry directed. And here I was sitting with Barry while we were filming it. And when we finished the take, Barry and I turned to each other and went, OK (laughter), this is going to work. And - 'cause it was in the back of my head. But, you know, you're always a little nervous when - you're just going to say, it's just going to be three actors. And Kyle I had known...
BIANCULLI: This is Kyle Secor.
FONTANA: Kyle Secor. Yeah. So I had known Kyle's work, so I pretty much knew that I could write for him. And we figured we'd get somebody - you know, some good, solid guest star to play The Arabber. So I kind of jumped in, you know, thinking, well, I'll just write it, and we'll see what happens, all the time, assuming, once again - you know, kamikaze television, assuming, well, we've made - will have made six episodes, and we will be canceled by this point. So it's not like anyone's ever going to see this, you know? And so I wrote it, and Martin Campbell directed it, who later went on to direct the James Bond film, which - the first one with Pierce Brosnan.
BIANCULLI: OK.
FONTANA: And he did an amazing job shooting it. Never shot - here you're in the interrogation room for the entire hour, and he never shot it from the same angle twice, which - you never really notice it until you know that. And then when you watch it, and you see that he's - you're never in the same place twice, each section he shot in from a different angle so that the room never got kind of sedentary, you know? And then we found - you know, Moses Gunn came down to play The Arabber and just nailed it completely. I mean, it was just extraordinary in what he did. And they rehearsed it. They actually rehearsed it like a play first. And, you know, we shot it, and off we went.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) What did you think about Adena? I mean, Frank and I here, we didn't really know her that well. What would you say about her personality? Was she feisty, outgoing, energetic?
MOSES GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Yeah.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) So she worked for you how long? Doing what?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Taking care of Magdalene.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Magdalene?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) My horse. Cleaning out Magdalene's coat with a curry comb, untangling the mane and the tail.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) That sounds like a great job for a girl. Why'd she stop working for you?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Horse died.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) There's any other reason?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) A barn burned down.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) That's the only other reason?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I stopped being an arabber.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Any other reason?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) There was no more job.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Adena's mother didn't make her stop working for you? Huh? Isn't it true that Mrs. Watson was afraid for her daughter, because you were getting a little too friendly with her?
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Is being an arabber a good job? I mean, are you respected in the community?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Most people think of us as vagrants, but since the economy gone sour, you see a lot of people selling on the street.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Your whole family are arabbers?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) All the way back to my great-grandfather.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) When was the last time you saw Adena?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) When?
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Yeah. When was the last time that you saw Adena alive?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) On Sunday, at the barn.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) On the Sunday before the Wednesday that she disappeared.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Is it cold in here? Are either of you cold?
BIANCULLI: Well, Tom, where does something like this come from as a writer?
FONTANA: Well, it comes from two places. One, I was terrified having - shooting a show in Baltimore, which had never had a TV show shot there, with a crew that had never shot a television show before, with all these feature directors, 'cause Barry wanted to hire feature directors. I thought we were going to be so over budget by the sixth episode that all I could afford was a...
BIANCULLI: (Laughter).
FONTANA: ...Table and three chairs. I thought I won't - they'll - you know, NBC will have carted away everything else by this point. So on one hand, it was a kind of a, all right, I've got to be able to write something that we can afford to shoot. On the other hand, when I started doing research about homicide investigations, it seemed to me that this interrogation process, or at least this interview process, had a lot of drama to it, inherently in it, that no one had ever done an hour's worth of before. You always see little bits and pieces, and, you know, somebody slaps somebody on the head, and the guy goes, all right, I confess. I confess. And my thought...
BIANCULLI: They're still doing that, by the way.
FONTANA: (Laughter) My thought was, is that if we could really explore how everyone in the room manipulates everyone else in the room, that it would tell us not just about homicide investigations, but about the nature of how men deal with each other in these kind of situations.
BIANCULLI: Tom Fontana, recorded in 1999. We'll continue my interview with him after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARVIN GAYE SONG, "INNER CITY BLUES (MAKE ME WANNA HOLLER)")
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Today we're listening back to our interviews about the acclaimed NBC series "Homicide: Life On The Street." Next week the entire series will be available to stream for the first time on Peacock. Writer Tom Fontana teamed up with director Barry Levinson to make "Homicide." Before that, Fontana worked on the hospital drama "St. Elsewhere" and later created another pioneering TV show - the HBO prison drama "Oz." In 1999, I asked Tom Fontana how he began working on "Homicide."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
FONTANA: So I had all these plans, and I got this call from John Tinker, actually, who said to me that Barry Levinson had talked to him about doing "Homicide," this show "Homicide," and that he had decided he wasn't going to do it - he and Mashe (ph) actually decided to go do "L.A. Law" that year - and it was an East Coast-based thing. He wanted to shoot it in Baltimore, and I was kind of really not very interested, only in the sense of that, you know, in my mind, "Hill Street Blues" was the best cop show ever, you know, and I couldn't think of how you would do it better than that. But being, you know, as much of a whore as anybody else, I went...
(LAUGHTER)
FONTANA: ...Out to LA to meet Barry Levinson, and he said to me, I want to do a show, a cop show, with no gun battles and no car chases. And I said, this man is crazy. I have to do it. I have to work with him. He's gone completely insane. And off of that, we started working.
He had already hired Paul Attanasio to write the first episode, and so I kind of jumped in in the middle of it, and we had David Simon's book, "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets," as a launching pad, and that's really how it came about. I went down to Baltimore, which had never had a television series shot there before, really not sure. Was there enough acting talent down there? What were the locations like? How could you get around? I mean, I'd shot in New York. I'd shot in LA. But Baltimore was, to me, you know, the end of the Earth. And as it turned out, Baltimore was just - became a major character in the show and a wonderful place to film, and the acting pool and the crew was extraordinary, so for seven years, we got a chance to do that.
BIANCULLI: One last question. I have to ask you about "St. Elsewhere, " with Bruce Paltrow bringing you in without much experience and sort of pulling you over and giving you a chance.
FONTANA: Right.
BIANCULLI: And now it seems to be that that's something you aggressively do in all of your shows in reaching for actors being first-time directors, people who have never done television before coming in to both write and act. I mean, it really does seem to be a theme in what you're trying to do.
FONTANA: Well, I think it's important to - I mean, the danger of episodic television is that you get into a rhythm, and you get comfortable, and you - and the formula kind of settles in, and you know the show too well, and you know the characters too well. And what I've found over the course of time is that if you bring in somebody who has talent, even though it may not be - you know, an actor who may not have ever directed before, if you bring them in, they're going to shake things up.
They're going to make you, and the other - and the actors, and the writers, and everybody, the crew - they're going to just make you not let the dust settle on what you've been doing for 15 episodes or 20 episodes. A perfect example of that was Kathy Bates, when she - when I asked her - 'cause I've known Kathy a thousand years...
BIANCULLI: (Laughter).
FONTANA: ...When I asked her to come in and do an episode of "Homicide," I just called her one day, and I said, you know, have you ever thought about directing? And she was like, Well, yeah, actually, I have been thinking about directing. I said, why don't you come and play with us here? And it was great because the actors on the show, all who had kind of, by that point in the year, settled into a kind of a rhythm, you know - she got in, and she was all, why are you doing that? And she - they couldn't get away with any of their tricks, you know what I mean?
BIANCULLI: Oh, cause as an actress she was looking at...
FONTANA: 'Cause she knew all the tricks, you know what I mean? And so it stimulated them. And it just - it gives it a kind of - just it breaks the kind of rhythm of it. And I think that's when the best work comes out. At least, I hope it is.
BIANCULLI: Tom Fontana speaking to me in 1999. Most recently, he teamed with Scott Frank of "The Queen's Gambit" to co-create "Monsieur Spade," the AMC detective series about a retired Philip Marlowe in the south of France. Now let's hear from Clark Johnson, one of the stars of "Homicide: Life On The Street." He played Meldrick Lewis for the entire run of that series and, by the time it was over, had directed a handful of episodes, which set him up with a second career directing episodes of "NYPD Blue," "The West Wing," "The Shield," "Homeland" and "The Wire," which he also appeared in.
Terry spoke to Clark Johnson in 2008. Here's a scene from "Homicide" in which Johnson, as Detective Meldrick, is interrogating a drug lord named Luther Mahoney, who's been charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Meldrick and another detective from narcotics are trying to get a confession of murder from the drug dealer, who's played by Erik Dellums. The narcotic detective speaks first.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You know, we did a raid on Ashland, Bojack's stash.
ERIK DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) Oh, the late Mr. Reed. He had a nice long run before he fell. Did you find any of that poison?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) We did. Not all of it, probably, but enough to convince us that the bad bags were from his crew.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) Oh, I bet they were.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) Well, he was pointing a finger at you.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) Are you suggesting a motive?
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) You have, say, your theoretical drug slinger, you know? He's marketing a viable product, proper purity, proper cut - until some no-name, know-nothing, old-school, just out of Jessup knucklehead starts messing around with his home chemistry set, and he starts killing off the customers quick.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) As opposed to killing them slow.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) Even if this drug slinger - this theoretical drug slinger - was a reasonable man, I mean, a guy might be compelled to act.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) You know, your case makes sense. I like it.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) I like it, too.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) Except I don't sling bags, and I didn't kill Bojack Reed.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Then who did?
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) A guy named Carlton Phipps.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) No, he's dead, too.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) You know, I heard that.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) See; our problem is that, we don't have any way of connecting Carlton Phipps with the murder of Bojack Reed. Well, see, I worked that case. I talked to Carlton's people. You know what they told me? They said that he was despondent, that he may even have taken his own life.
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) He killed himself. He shot himself in the back of the head. Who are you fooling? He was murdered. Bojack's people came back on him. I mean you had the gun that killed Bojack right on the table and...
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis, laughter) Let me ask you this. How you know where Carlton caught that bullet? And let me ask you this. How in the hell do you know what was on the table in front of the man?
DELLUMS: (As Luther Mahoney) Well, the word was all over about what happened to Carlton.
JOHNSON: (As Meldrick Lewis) Luther, Luther, Luther. You just feel for the oldest trick we got, baby.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: That's my guest, Clark Johnson, as Detective Meldrick Lewis on an episode of "Homicide." Well, how did you get the part in "Homicide"?
JOHNSON: The classic actor story, you know? I was in California, and I really despised the town of Los Angeles in a lot of ways. It just - I was struggling there and, you know, sleeping on a friend's couch, two young kids back east, and trying to get going. And the one last audition before I go home with my tail between my legs was this thing, this Barry Levinson - that was the only name I knew at the time - audition for a new cop show.
And I go to read for the casting director. And there's no script. There's a book, and it's a book by David Simon, "Homicide: The Year On The Killing Streets" (ph). And they said, pick anything from there and read from it. So - what? So I read from the actual book. And then, of course, the process continued, and I went back to New York and met Fontana and Barry and, you know, subsequent editions later got to part, but that was the initial audition. And I read that, and I went, this is something that's going to be groundbreaking. I just know it.
GROSS: Was there a lot of dialogue in it that you had to read?
JOHNSON: Yeah. I mean, his book - I mean, I don't know if you read it or remember it, but his book is like a screenplay in a lot of ways. There is a lot of dialogue in it, so it wasn't hard to pick stuff out, and I think my character is a combination of elements of that book that Paul Attanasio and Simon - I mean, and Fontana and Barry Levinson concocted, but also elements of my own experience of having played a cop on another series and my uncles back home in Philadelphia with the porkpie hat. So it was a combination of things that arrive at that character.
GROSS: Did they ever explain to you why they had you read from the book instead of reading from a script?
JOHNSON: There was no script yet.
GROSS: Oh.
JOHNSON: As far as I know, there was no script yet.
BIANCULLI: Clark Johnson speaking to Terry Gross in 2008. After a break, we'll hear from another "Homicide" cast member, Emmy-winning actor Andre Braugher, who died last year at age 61. And film critic Justin Chang reviews "Alien: Romulus." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. For the first time, "Homicide: Life On The Street" will be available for streaming starting Monday, August 19, on Peacock. We're listening back to our interviews today with some who were part of that critically acclaimed series. Andre Braugher played Frank Pembleton, a detective who was smart, obsessive and aloof, and at the time, was the best dramatic actor on television. Terry Gross spoke with him in 1995. He told her that the "Homicide" cast would get the scripts one episode at a time so that he and his character, Detective Pembleton, would both be in the dark about where the story was heading.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
BRAUGHER: Well, my problem with not knowing where my character is going is the tendency sometimes to paint myself into a corner that I can't get out of. I remember early in the first three episodes of this year, I only had the first episode. And it was the beginning of Pembleton's religious angst, but I didn't know that. So consequently, I didn't play certain parts - certain scenes I didn't play with the kind of fervor or doubt or intensity that I needed, as a matter of fact. And writers would come up to me on the set and say, I think you should play it this way, I think you should play it this way. And of course, I didn't know what they were talking about and I couldn't see the justification. Now, of course, when I hear that a script will be in one, two or three parts, I try to find out what the overarching idea or theme or journey for my character will be so that I won't paint myself into a corner. I won't goof up in the elemental scene setting.
ANDRE BRAUGHER == BRAUGHER == ACTOR
GROSS: On "Homicide," you have a different director each week. So does each director want to put their own touch on the character, and do you find that you have to assert yourself to maintain certain things about the character consistently from week to week?
BRAUGHER: Well, there are two things going on. The directors are all talented individuals. And they come in and they'd like to put their personal stamp on "Homicide." But "Homicide" is a show that has its own theme, its own style. And it, too, constantly reinvents itself. But pretty much, I know more about my character than my director does. I take suggestions and I work with my director, but I do know the fundamental aspects of my character. And I know how to maintain my character's integrity.
GROSS: You've done a fair amount of Shakespeare...
BRAUGHER: Oh, yeah, I love Shakespeare.
GROSS: ...Onstage.
BRAUGHER: Oh, yeah.
GROSS: The way that a Shakespearean character uses English is different than the way a contemporary detective speaks. What can you learn from Shakespeare that you can apply to contemporary film and television in terms of speech? I don't mean making speeches...
BRAUGHER: Oh
GROSS: ...But intonation.
BRAUGHER: Oh, all of that work came to me from The Julliard School, breaking up - communicating, breaking up the sentences into understandable parts and putting them back together again. The pure technique of speaking in order to be understood through complex thoughts was taught to me at The Julliard School. Shakespeare, of course, his thoughts are quite long and quite expressive and quite complex. And the actor is forced to think through the line from beginning to end, as opposed to modern speech - modern, I guess you could call it that. It's not broken down into short fragments but rather longer and more subtle thoughts. So consequently, when I go over to "Homicide," when I get a long sentence, I break it down into its component parts and I use the entire sentence, you know?
GROSS: Is there any way I could get you to take a line from Shakespeare or to take a long sentence from "Homicide" and show us how you break it down and how you actually analyze that line before delivering it?
BRAUGHER: Wow, I don't have a script in front of me. Let me think. So we're looking for a van that - I can't remember line. We're looking for a van that does not exist, which carried kidnappers who never lived, which did not abscond with U.S. congressmen and then didn't drop them off here? So the line - I think I got the line.
GROSS: This is from last week's episode.
BRAUGHER: Is that last week's episode?
GROSS: Yes.
BRAUGHER: Right, last week's episode. So we're looking for a van which does not exist, which carried kidnappers who never lived, which did not abscond with a U.S. congressman and then didn't drop them off here? I guess, is what the other character responds. Now, (laughter) that's a long and complicated thought, which you typically don't get. Typically, it's like - where is this guy? - or these kidnappers don't exist, or some smaller thought. And I relish the idea of taking a long thought, breaking it down to its component parts, putting it back together again and being able to deliver it in one breath from beginning to end and have it end up sounding like a question that I actually asked and have made my own, rather than sounding like a newspaper clipping or something to that effect.
GROSS: You said before you loved Shakespeare even when you were young. What did you find when you were young in Shakespeare? A lot of young people just don't like Shakespeare because it's such a different period and because the language can be very difficult to understand compared to contemporary writing.
BRAUGHER: This is my impression, that if your vocabulary is limited then your thoughts are limited. And I'm not a man who wants to be limited. And I found something really, really beautiful in Shakespeare, something very spiritual and lovely in Shakespeare. And I'm not willing to give it up. I'd like to be - I'd like to feel the kinds of feelings that Laertes feels upon hearing about the death of his sister, you know, or when he sees his sister mad with flowers in her hair and talking outrageous gibberish and acting, her behavior - acting with an incredible kind of sexual license that he's never seen her act with, he says simply, oh, God, do you see this?
Now, a lot of people would say, what's wrong with her? Let's get her to a doctor. They'd try to solve the problem. They'd do a lot of different things, but Laertes is a very spiritual man. And he looks up and he says, oh, God, do you see this? It's a crime against nature in a certain way, you know? And his strange love for his sister is expressed in this way, and it can't be beat. It can't be beat by cop shows, and it can't be beat by the most interesting kind of television drama.
Shakespeare lives. And his characters express the deepest parts of themselves. Pembleton doesn't express the deepest part of himself, you know? There are so many chameleon-like layers and aspects to Pembleton's behavior and his speech and his relationships with everyone else. But in Shakespeare, I find the opportunity to really glimpse the most elemental and human part of a person.
BIANCULLI: Actor Andre Braugher speaking with Terry Gross in 1995 - more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF LYNN F. KOWAL'S "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET THEME")
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. We're listening back to our interviews with actors and creators of the NBC series "Homicide: Life On The Street." Next week the groundbreaking series from the '90s begins streaming for the first time on Peacock. Let's get back to Terry's 1995 interview with Andre Braugher, who played Detective Frank Pembleton on that show.
GROSS: I read that your grandmother taught you how to read before you even started school. What do you remember about that?
BRAUGHER: About my grandma? Well, she...
GROSS: Well, about her teaching you to read.
BRAUGHER: Well, she read from the Bible, you know? She was a very, very religious woman, the sweetest woman I've ever known. And, yeah, she would read to me from the Bible, and I'd look it up and I'd keep reading with her. So when I got to first grade, with the see Dick run and see Jane run stuff, I knew it already, you know? And I remember being, I guess, in third grade at a school called Spencer (ph), which is over in my old neighborhood in Austin, and I could read so well that the teacher no longer called on me.
So I remember going home one day and I told my father. I said, Daddy, they won't let me read. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, when we sit in a circle and everybody else reads, I raise my hand and the teacher doesn't call on me. And, you know, I never saw that school ever again. The next day I was in St. Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic school right around the corner. I didn't clean out my locker. I didn't clean out my desk. I didn't take my pencils away. My father figured way back then - it must have been 1969 - that education is life, you know, and without a education, you really can't make anything of your life. And so I remember the most impressive thing about my father is he decided, in that instant, that his son was not going to be in a school where they did not let him read, and I was moved the very next day.
GROSS: When your parents decided that you were going to go to Catholic school right away, did you thrive there? Did you like it? Were there things that you didn't like about the discipline or the uniform you had to wear?
BRAUGHER: (Laughter) The uniform, the blue pants and - oh, my goodness. Things that I didn't like about the Catholic school. No, I actually loved it, you know? It was a very challenging environment, and I thrived in that kind of environment. I thrived with that kind of discipline, not because I believe that rules were made to be broken, but I enjoy structure in my life. That same sort of discipline makes me sit at home and really break down a script into all its intimate characteristics so that I can do the best kind of work when I get to the set, so that I learn my lines before I get there, you know, and I ask questions before I get there, before I get to the set.
And I look for changes a couple of days before by calling the writers and discussing aspects of the character or the script before so that things aren't left to chance. I love to rehearse. "Homicide" is not a show in which we get a rehearsal before we begin to film. But in all the best work that I've seen myself do on television - and I see a lot of flaws in my own work - the best part of my work has always involved rehearsal. I remember back in 1992 when we did "Three Men And Adena," with Moses Gunn and Kyle Secor and myself in the box.
GROSS: This was the interrogation episode.
BRAUGHER: The interrogation episode. We rehearsed every day two hours before we started shooting.
GROSS: That was a great episode.
BRAUGHER: Well, the work - the homework we did in rehearsal showed up on screen.
GROSS: Now, what kind of homework did you do?
BRAUGHER: We would actually run through the lines, and we made choices right then and there. We rehearsed like - as if we were doing a play, we found the best choice, not the first choice. We found the best choice, and I love to work that way. Back in 1993, Isaiah Washington, who was the kid in that episode "Black And Blue," the kid who I get a confession out of although I know he's innocent, we rehearsed the day before that. And that made that episode, that interrogation so much better for me because I was no longer worried or filled with anxiety about what I might do, what choices would be best. And consequently, when we got to the set and we had to do - we chose to do 8 1/2 pages, maybe 9 1/2 pages, in one take. I knew what I was doing from beginning to end.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET")
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) You want to know what the polygraph test says? You're lying. You're a liar. You even tried to hold your breath to cover up. Do you know what blew it off the charts, off the screen? Look here. Your heart. Your heart just blew those needles right off the screen, man. A man could get whiplash looking at your test. And this guy says it's the highest he's ever seen, and this guy is an expert.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Your heart. Your heart, of all things. That's perfect for you, Risley. Don't you see? Your heart, because your heart doesn't want to lie.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Let me see that.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) No, no, no, no. This is police property. This is evidence for your trial.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I know enough about the law to know you can't use that in court.
(LAUGHTER)
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) See, Mr. Legal Beagle here, he knows all about the law.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Is that because you watch the Court Channel?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I didn't lie.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Oh, then how come you failed the test?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I don't know.
BRAUGHER: (As Detective Frank Pembleton) I don't know - that's your answer for everything.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Well, it's not going to work now.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) If you weren't lying, why'd you fail the test?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Because I was nervous.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Why were you nervous?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I feel guilty.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You feel guilty because you did it.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) No, because you made me feel guilty.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) No, you failed this test because you are guilty.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) If I was guilty and knew it, then why would I take the test?
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You tell us.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) No, I know why. I'll tell you why.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Because you know we got you. You know it's over, Risley.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) You're going to jail.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You're going to do time.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) That's right.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Tim, look at his eyes.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) What's wrong with my eyes?
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Tears coming out of your eyes.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) There ain't no tears coming from my eyes.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) His eyes are brimming with tears.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Ready to burst.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) It's going to get a lot worse.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) A lot worse.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) It never gets any better.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) He'll probably go back to drinking.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Back to being a drunk.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) No, I ain't never going to do that.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) And you'll wind up killing yourself.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) If you're lucky.
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) I didn't kill her.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Why are you putting your head down?
GUNN: (As Risley Tucker) Because I'm tired of saying it.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) You're tired of saying it because it's not true.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Be a man for once. Own up to it.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) I would.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) I would.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Anybody else would, too.
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Be a man for once.
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Why don't you want to tell me, Risley?
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Huh (ph)?
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Why don't you want to tell me?
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Huh?
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Why?
SECOR: (As Timothy Bayliss) Why?
BRAUGHER: (As Frank Pembleton) Why?
BIANCULLI: That's a sample from the famous, award-winning "Three Men And Adena" episode from the NBC series "Homicide: Life On The Street." Terry Gross spoke with Andre Braugher in 1995. He went on to play another cop, but a much less intense one, on the sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." Earlier this year, Terry spoke with actor Sterling K. Brown, who told her about making a guest appearance on that comedy series.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: I want to play another clip. And you talked about Andre Braugher...
STERLING K BROWN: Yes.
GROSS: ...And how your lives intersected and how you looked up with him. You got a chance to do an episode of the comedy series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" with him. And in the series, he plays a police captain, and Andy Samberg plays a police detective. So this is basically a parody - this episode of Brooklyn 99 is a parody of a famous episode from "Homicide"... Yeah. ...In which Braugher and one of the other detectives are interrogating one witness for the entire episode, for the entire hourlong episode. And that's what happens in the episode of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" - that Braugher and Samberg are interrogating you. You play a dentist who is accused of murdering his partner, dental partner.
BROWN: Yeah.
GROSS: And they want to get a confession out of you, and you keep coming up with answers. So let's play a clip from that episode.
BROWN: OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BROOKLYN NINE-NINE")
ANDRE BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) So the night of the murder, you met with Robert in the surgical suite. Why there? Why not your office?
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) I was just preparing for the next day's surgeries.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) Don't you have an assistant who does that?
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) I'm a meticulous person. I'm careful how I do things.
ANDY SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) So careful that you - I'm sorry. I forgot what I was going to say. Come back to me.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) Now, we did a sweep of the room where you and Robert fought.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) Talked.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) Right - talked. The entire room had been scrubbed.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) It had been cleaned.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) It had undergone industrial sterilization to remove all traces of blood and DNA.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) It's a surgical suite. People bleed in there every day. We have to sanitize it by law.
SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) Oh, I remember what I was going to ask. Did you kill him?
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) No.
SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) If you had said yes, I would have had you.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) So after you and Robert fought...
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) Talked.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) ...You left the office, but you didn't take your car.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) I went to a bar, The Scotchman. I didn't want to drive drunk, so I took a cab.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) And you didn't have your phone.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) I left it charging in my office, and I didn't realize until I was already out of the building.
SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) Oh, man. If I go 10 minutes without looking at my phone, my pumpkin crop dies on my little farm.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) It's not the time for stories about your digital squash, Peralta.
SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) Fine.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) I'm talking about your phone.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) Why does it matter that I forgot? Oh, if I had it on me, you could have seen a pinging off the cell tower - doesn't matter, didn't have it on me.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) So you took a cab to this bar. But we talked to the employees of The Scotchman. Nobody saw you there.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) Nobody remembered seeing me.
SAMBERG: (As Jake Peralta) But let me ask you this. Did you kill him?
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) No. You know, it's not surprising nobody remembered seeing me. The bar was extremely crowded that night. And I spent my whole time in the corner talking to this woman, Dana.
BROUGHER: (As Raymond Holt) Oh, so you said. But when we ran all the credit card receipts, nobody named Dana bought any drinks that night.
BROWN: (As Philip Davidson) Trust me. Dana wasn't buying her own drinks.
GROSS: It is such a great scene, and your timing is so good. I really want to see you in more comedy.
BROWN: Thank you very much. It made me smile just listening to it. It was so much fun to do.
GROSS: Can you talk about, like, doing that scene and, like, getting the timing right and getting the kind of nonchalance that your character is aiming for?
BROWN: Yeah. It is just dogged repetition. And you show up. One thing you learn in the world of television is that you don't get a lot of rehearsals. So you do a lot of that work on your own by yourself so that when you come to the set, you're ready to dance. And you know that Andy and Andre are going to be ready to go. So you're like, all right, let me not be the weak link in this threesome here. Let me show up ready to play ball the same way as everybody else.
And they make it so much fun that it sort of just happens naturally. You'll go over the scene a couple of times before the cameras start rolling, and then you'll start to do it or whatnot, and there's a little bit of a hiccup. It's just like anything else. You'll take it back to the beginning, and you'll do it again. And you just breathe, Terry. I think for me more than anything else is that when you try to stay in the moment, the next moment has a way of taking care of itself. When you're trying to project to the future and be like, oh, I hope I make it to this crescendo at the very end, then you sort of, like, wind up missing what's happening just right now. That's what I try to do as a performer. I think those two gentlemen in particular are wonderful at it. And so they made it easy for me to join in the symphony.
BIANCULLI: Actor Sterling K. Brown from earlier this year. "Homicide: Life On The Street" will begin streaming on Peacock on Monday. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews "Alien: Romulus." This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOMMASO-RAVA QUARTET'S "LA DOLCE VITA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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