Always ready to play removed from rim scientist, Eric Szmanda speaks to us about the evolution of his character, Greg Sanders, of his love for the music and the capacity of humour in a sometimes hard series.
Not badly of actors left the series lately. How do you see the future of your character?
To hold ten seasons is exceptional already enough for a fiction! For the actors, it is not always easy to plunge in so many violence and macabre scenarios day after day… Greg Sanders evolves/moves with the wire of time, and these changes enable me to continue to appreciate the environment in which I work. I do not feel not wedged and I am happy to go to the job. I'm having greats moments on the set, especially with Jorja Fox, who plays Sara Sidle : I like the scenes where I flirt with her! It spices up our daily interactions.(Laughter.)
Could you undertake in reality the work of investigation of Greg?
I could solve a true crime. I would undoubtedly make some errors, but I see things differently since my beginnings in the series. I was burglarized one day, and I remember to have made it tower of the house with the inspector by advising it on the way of locating the indices. It did not know that I played in “CSI” and it started to make fun of me, saying that I looked at too many detective series. (Laughter.) When I entrusted to him that it was my speciality, its attitude did not change for as much. Morality: the robbers were never stopped! If it had let me make… (Laughter.) But what you want, I am only one actor and it had surely other businesses much more important to regulate… This cop simply wrote his report and I never again intended some to speak.
Did you who are an inveterate fan of the group The Who, how do your meeting with the singer during his appearance in “the Experts”?
Having Roger Daltrey on the team was brilliant. I didn't get any scenes with him but I went with Jorja Fox to present myself at his trailer. There, I acted like an idiot, wasn't able to prononce a single word. Jorja did all the talking and I could only nod. I still had the courage to ask him for an autograph, but when I told him it was for my mother, he didn't seem so delighted.… I didn't feel bad. My parents raised me by listening to Who and Rolling Stones. They are the true fans! (Laughter.)
Is humour used to you as loophole in an atmosphere as lugubrious as that of the “CSI”?
I am never very serious during filming, even with regard to the attitudes of my character, if you pay attention to it… I always appreciated humour like means of escape. Besides I produce on Internet the SecretFunTime.com site, where one can see small funny clips.
Find the entirety of the interview in Movies-TV-Review of July 22, 2010
Interview carried out in Hollywood by Catherine Nitelet-Vedder
