Actors Discuss Capturing The Vibe Of The CSI Cities

The stars of CSI: Miami and CSI: New York this week revealed that even though their shows are shot in Los Angeles, they manage to capture the energy of the cities in which they're set because they understand them so well.

"There's a vibrancy to the city and there's an electricity to it," David Caruso told the CTV program Canada AM. "If I wanted to say the secret to the city, for me, it's that people want to be there, they move there. And that's what happened to me. [...] Six years ago I went down there, [and] I was fortunate enough to buy into this magnificent condo, and I said, 'Okay, we'll go two weeks a year.' Well, the second time we were there, you know, six months, and suddenly we moved there. So there's a magnetism to the city, and there's kind of an underlying cool to it, if you will."

Even though Melina Kanakaredes (Stella Bonasera) now lives in Los Angeles with her family, she's got a long association with New York, having launched her acting career there by appearing in off-Broadway plays. "It's just a bigger pain in the ass to get anything done," the CSI: NY star told the Canadian reporter when asked about a typical element of the Big Apple. "I mean, you guys, we used to laugh because when we'd shoot movies in Toronto, we'd have to dirty the street up. And I remember we broke for lunch one day [and people came in and] cleaned up in an hour! We're like, 'Wait wait, no no, we needed that for our set!' It's just, it's a different pace of a city, and everybody's on top of certain things, and New York isn't like that. There's so many people in such a small radius."

Kanakaredes' co-star and life-long New Yorker Eddie Cahill (Don Flack) was also interviewed by Canada AM, but he wasn't asked about his birthplace. Instead, Cahill discussed the effect CSI has had on the popularity of forensic science, recalling a conversation he had with a real-life medical examiner. "He was telling me that prior to CSI becoming a hit show, they got something like 12 applications a year to be a forensic scientist. And after the show came out and hit, they got about 5000 applications a year, and 98% of them cited CSI as their reason."

But Cahill also touched on a downside of the way CSI portrays forensic science -- that it may lead to unrealistic expectations. "On the flip side, [there's] dealing with family members of people who have been killed," Cahill said. "They'll call up and cite episodes: 'Hey! They had this wrapped up in 45 minutes! What's going on? It's been two years!'"

Caruso, Kanakaredes and Cahill made their comments as part of a CSI-themed week at Canadian broadcaster CTV, which is also the station that airs CSI in Canada. The CSI week also included a set tour of the NY sets, a brief interview with Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor), and a feature on the CSI finale, which we already covered here. Thanks go out to Colin 'Zeke' Hayman, webmaster of the brilliant science fiction parody site Five-Minute Voyager, for this!

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