Behind The Scenes of USA's White Collar
This Crime Drama Is So Smooth It's Criminal
Oct 29, 2009 Stephanie Sigafoos
Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) is a guy whose luck may have just run out. Just a few months before his scheduled release from prison he escapes, intent on finding the love of his life before she disappears for good. But when Caffrey is recaptured by the same FBI agent (Tim DeKay as Peter Burke) who put him behind bars, he makes a proposal too good for the Bureau to pass up. Now Neal isn't one of the bad guys -- he's the one helping to catch them.
Read more: Part 1
From Script to Screen
Series creator Jeff Eastin actually drew his inspiration for White Collar from another cable juggernaut – FX’s The Shield. He toyed around with the idea that the show’s main character, based loosely on Vic Mackey, was released from prison to help solve a crime he actually committed. The idea was eventually shelved, but Eastin would later take the same dark concept and turn it into lighter fare – something that fit USA Network.
The challenges of shooting in New York also weren’t as big as one might have imagined, at least for Eastin. He’d never been to the Big Apple, so he wrote the entire pilot script using Google Street View and admitted he wasn’t “feeling it.” He presumed that if White Collar got picked up, they’d be moving North of the border to Toronto or Vancouver due to having a basic cable budget. Yet it seems like New York is working just fine.
“One is the best things about New York is just the production value you get,” says Eastin. “All we have to do is open a door or point a camera at a window, and we’ve got absolutely brilliant production value, right there, just by pointing at the city which is really nice.”
Caffrey, a guy with leading-man looks, was on Eastin’s radar from the start thanks to his time on Chuck. “If you guys were on set and met him, you’d probably realize he’s not particularly flamboyant,” he says of Bomer. “ He’s kind of a reserved guy. I saw this guy. You know, he’s a good-looking guy, just kind of keeping to himself on the couch, and I didn’t really clock him as being a breakout star. Gayle, my casting director came over and said, “I want you to keep an eye on this guy.” She said, “He is a star.” I said, “Okay, fine.”
DeKay won his role after the same drawn out casting process. “When he and Matt read together, I think everybody in the room turned to everybody else and said, yes, we found the pair,” Eastin remembers. “ I think we probably drug them around a little bit more in terms of bringing him in a couple more times, but I think it was really just, is this the show? Is this the way we want to go? After, I think, two times at network, we said yes, this is the way we want to go. “
The Rap Sheet for Season One
The first episode ends with Caffrey earning his FBI credentials after helping to nab the elusive “Dutchman,” a guy mass producing replicas of a Spanish bond worth a quarter million dollars.
“I figure if we didn’t, you’d end up making one of these on your own,” Burke tells his new partner while handing him a badge and photo ID. “You’re a consultant, and I own you for four years.”
Not a bad gig for a guy who also landed an uptown apartment with Diahann Carroll as his landlord. She’ll appear in a recurring role, while Natalie Morales (The Middleman) shows up in episode two as a junior FBI agent assisting with investigations.
“The actors are probably 80% or 90% key to this,” Eastin says. “We can write whatever we want, and if you’re sitting there and you’ve got a dead body but the actors can find a way to make the lines play, humor us without sort of feeling like you’re in bad taste, it’s pretty nice, and we’ve got guys that do that.”
Caffrey, who is featured in most scenes, isn’t complaining. “These scripts are really smart and fun and unique. The White Collar world is unique, hasn’t really been completely explored yet and so you’re going to get all the fun procedural stuff, but at the same time, there’s going to be a lot of character elements that come into play as well. That keeps it light and fun and sometimes serious.”
It’s also likely to keep viewers coming back for more.
Tim DeKay and Tiffani Thiesen star in White Collar
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Matt Bomer and Willie Garson star in White Collar
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