Sinise: It’s Great To Be Back In New York

Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) and Melina Kanakaredes (Stella Bonasera) are shooting on location in New York City this week for several upcoming episodes of CSI: New York‘s sixth season. (Minor spoilers after the jump.)

Sinise was fighting motion sickness when the pair filmed scenes on the Bateaux New York cruise boat in the Hudson River. The glass-sided boat will be featured in the ninth episode of the season. “I’m not somebody who deals well with motion, so I’ve taken my Dramamine today,” Sinise said, adding that the drug “makes me a little bit tired, but we’re getting the stuff done that we need to do and it’s great to be back in New York shooting.”

Sinise and Kanakaredes are in the Big Apple filming scenes for four separate episodes to air this fall. “The city is a big part of our show,” Sinise said. “Even though we don’t live here, we want to incorporate as much of the city as we can.” The pair will include visits to Central Park, Battery Park, Citi Field and the West Side Heliport in their schedule, and Sinise got up at 4:00am one morning to film a scene of his character running at sunrise in front of Lincoln Center.

“I did a lot of running that day,” the actor said. Sinise usually has a stuntman do action scenes for him due to a previous injury. “I tore a muscle in my leg in the first season chasing bad guys, so we’re always a little worried about that,” he explained. “I don’t want it to flare up again — I was off my feet for three or four weeks.”

The glass boat was forced to turn around numerous times to keep the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in view of the cameras. It didn’t make Sinise’s motion sickness any better, but it was an important part of the scene. “This trip is all about the background,” Kanakaredes explained. “New York is the star of our show. We really want to capture as many beautiful shots of the city as we can and interweave them into our season.”

Unfortunately, the actors aren’t entirely sure just how these scenes will be integrated into later episodes because the episodes have not been written yet. “We always come here and have our shooting scenes, but we’re saying, ‘Okay, so what happens now? How does it go into the story?'” Sinise revealed. Kanakaredes compared the experience to the work of German playwright Bertolt Brecht. “I know exactly what Stella knows. It’s almost Brechtian in a way,” she said. “Like the plays, where they used to eat full meals on stage, it’s like being truly in the moment.”

The sixth season of New York will feature former Jericho actor Skeet Ulrich in a three-episode arc as the “Compass Killer”. Kanakaredes explained, “He plays a very interesting, demented guy who’s doing all these murders and wants to be found. He sets it up by leaving a compass on the body or at the crime scene.” Ulrich makes his first appearance on CSI: NY in this week’s episode, “LAT 40° 47′ N/Long 73° 58’W”.