Talking with Jimmy Smits and 'Bluff City Law' stars: 'Memphis is one of the show's characters'

John Beifuss
Memphis Commercial Appeal

Jimmy Smits, the veteran television actor who heads the cast of the upcoming made-in-Memphis NBC series "Bluff City Law," said the drama is, in part, an examination of a father-and-daughter relationship in the wake of a family death.

So the show is about "grief and loss and how they process that, and how the past is bumpy," he said.

Smits' observations came deep into a conversation about the significance of Memphis as the setting for the series; it came after talk of visits to the National Civil Rights Museum, and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and of Smits' admiration for Memphis as a city that doesn't hide its "blemishes."

Grief and loss, and how they are processed, in the wake of a bumpy past... Is that a description of the emotional challenges facing the show's characters, or an observation about Memphis itself? "Yeah, there's a parallel there," Smits said.

"Memphis is one of the show's characters," said Caitlin McGee, who plays Smits' daughter.

"Pilot" Episode: Pictured: (l-r) Caitlin McGee as Sydney Strait, Jimmy Smits as Elijah Strait, Michael Luwoye as Anthony Little.

Tuesday night, Smits, McGee and the other members of the "Bluff City Law" cast and creative team met with more than a dozen members of the local and national press in a roundelay of interviews at the Itta Bena restaurant above B.B. King's Blues Club on Beale Street.

The first half of a two-day publicity push that will continue Wednesday with a visit to the set, the junket — with several key NBCUniversal production executives in attendance — was another sign that NBC has made "Bluff City Law" a top priority for the fall season.

Already heavily promoted on television, the weekly legal drama is set debut at 9 p.m. (Memphis time) on Monday, Sept. 23, in the coveted time slot that follows the hit reality competition program, "The Voice."

THE PILOT:Smits, camera, action: NBC's 'Bluff City Law' shooting in Memphis

ON LOCATION:Here are some Memphis gems we'd like to see in 'Bluff City Law'

Ten episodes will have been shot in Memphis by early November. An additional six scripts have been ordered, so more episodes could go into production in November, if the first couple of episodes that are aired deliver promising ratings.

"That would keep us in continuous production," said executive producer David Janollari ("Six Feet Under," "Supernatural"), for a first season of 16 episodes. "That's the best-case scenario."

Gathered in a back room of Itta Bena, near tables of crab cakes and fried green tomatoes, the journalists were gifted with "Bluff City Law" caps and post-it notes bearing the series slogan "Change the World!," a first-episode rallying cry that signals the rapprochement between legendary civil rights lawyer Elijah Strait (Smits) and his daughter, Sydney (McGee), a corporate lawyer who rejoins her father's idealistic team of legal crusaders in the wake of her mother's death.

Jimmy Smits and Caitlin McGee meet the press at Itta Bena restaurant on Beale Street.

Itta Bena aside, the out-of-town journalists were escorted on private tours of the Civil Rights Museum and Graceland and taken to meals at Central BBQ and the Arcade. NBC hopes this exposure to Memphis flavor (literal and otherwise) will cause the writers — representing the New York Daily News, BroadwayWorld and other publications and entertainment websites — to sympathize with Janollari's contention that his show is making an honest attempt "to capture the flavor and beauty" of "where the real Memphis lives."

"The idea is for it to really feel like it's in Memphis," said Janollari (whose co-executive producers on the show include Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar, rotating through Memphis in what Janollari called "tours of duty"). He said this will give "Bluff City Law" a novelty and integrity that will elevate the drama beyond "every other show you see, set in Los Angeles or Chicago or New York."

He added: "I've always felt that it has the DNA of the classic NBC dramas — 'Law and Order,' 'The West Wing'..."

Every "Bluff City Law" star participated in the meet-the-press tour, although two of them — Jayne Atkinson ("House of Cards") and Michael Luwoye (Broadway's "Hamilton") — arrived well after their peers because they were working late on set. Memphis locations where scenes were shot Tuesday included the Alchemy cocktail bar in Cooper-Young and Midtown's famed Ardent Studios.

To a person, the cast members — many of whom are living in Downtown apartments on working days — praised Memphis as both a source of artistic inspiration and a fun place to be. Smits said being on location "really focuses you," because it eliminates the distractions of day-to-day home life, and "tends to bond the cast together." (One bonding event: a group trip to see "The Farewell" at the Malco Ridgeway Cinema Grill.)

Liverpool-born actor Barry Sloane said his daughter is a fan of the horses at Shelby Farms, while 26-year-old Icelandic rapper and actor Stony Blyden — the junior member of the ensemble — said he hopes to learn more about the music that Janollari said "permeates" the city, from Elvis to Stax to Memphis rap.

Ghanian actress MaameYaa Boafo — born in Pakistan and raised in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Switzerland and Kenya — already has discovered Railgarten; a kickboxing class; the Big River Crossing pedestrian bridge; and the National Civil Rights Museum. 

"I didn't realize the Civil Rights Museum was in the Lorraine Motel," said Boafo, who plays Sydney's best friend. "That was painful... Painful as it was, I have to go back in there."

Unlike some cast members, who fly back home to New York or Los Angeles on off days, Boafo said she is staying in Memphis full-time. “I want to be here. I want to soak it in. There’s so much to see.”

Meanwhile, Josh Kelly, a former Army Ranger turned actor who plays a Memphis police detective, has become a fan of Bass Pro Shops at The Pyramid. "It's a mini-amusement park," said Kelly, who already has been to Bass Pro five times. "It feels like Vegas meets Adventureland at Disney World."

Kelly said he aspired to be an actor even when he was stationed overseas, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. It was in Pakistan that he experienced what he calls a "Sullivan's Travels" moment, in reference to the famous scene in the 1941 movie when a depressed director discovers the power of escapist comedy while watching a group of labor-camp inmates laugh themselves silly during a Mickey Mouse cartoon.

In lieu of Walt Disney, Kelly's epiphany was delivered by Will Ferrell: The movie was the 1998 dance-club comedy "A Night at the Roxbury." "I looked around and my friends were so happy. I felt so validated in what I wanted to do."

Junket highjinks: Jimmy Smits and Caitlin McGee .

The cast members agreed that Memphis' embrace of the show was heartening — not to mention a welcome change from the indifference or hostility of cities such as Los Angeles that have become immune to the theoretical glamour of movie and TV production.

"What has been fascinating to me is there's an awareness of the show," said Smits, 64. "It crosses social strata, and various races and ethnic borders."

Even though no one has seen an episode, "There's a gratitude about presenting the city in a positive light," said Smits, figuring that Memphians are responding to news stories about the show's contributions to the local economy ($55 million, from July to October) and to the reportedly pro-David slant of its David-vs.-Goliath courtroom clashes, in which the lawyer heroes champion the rights of underdog clients.

And yes, the actors did talk about the weather.

"My glass steams up when I walk outside of my trailer," McGee said. 

"I would rather sweat than shiver," Boafo said, then backtracked slightly with a comment on the stifling humidity: "But I would rather breathe than not. It's a fine line."