COOP of the Day

Starburst X-Files Special Magazine, 1997

by David Richardson

    A year ago two shows that focused on the profiling of serial killers premiered on network television in America....  Both were placed in prime time slots.  Both featured strong lead casts.  And both journeyed into the darker side of human nature.  Yet, after an impressive debut, Fox's Millennium faced plunging ratings, and has now been revamped.  In contrast, NBC's Profiler held a steady audience - and proved itself to be one of the season's strongest new comers.

    Profiler begins with a terrible tragedy.  Forensic psychologist Sam Waters (Ally Walker) - a woman who is able to see into the criminal mind - has lost her husband at the hands of a serial killer, Jack of All Trades. As Sam gradually begins to come to terms with her grief, she meets bomb disposal expert Nick Cooper, played by A Martinez.  And as a relationship builds between the pair, Sam is able to take the first steps on the road to a normal life...

Explosive Scenario

    Nick Cooper is first introduced in the episode Unsoiled Sovereignty, in which Violent Crimes Task Force boss Bailey Malone (Robert Davi) seeks the bomb expert's help when a power plant in Pittsburgh is threatened by a terrorist.  Nick soon attracts the attention of Jack of All Trades, and in the following installment, Modus Operandi, the serial killer plans to make him the next target.

    According to A Martinez, the character was devised just for that two-part story, but the producers were so pleased by his interaction with Ally Walker that they later decided to give Coop a more permanent role within the series.

    "I have a history with Ally," he reveals.  "She and I worked together on Santa Barbara for about a year, sharing a couple of storylines that were not particularly well written.  Whenever you're in a storyline on a soap that's not working you have to depend, to a ferocious degree, on your fellow actors.  We learned a lot about each other and bonded pretty strongly, so when I came to do Coop we had a history we could call on and got comfortable immediately.  I think that really showed up in the work."

    By the end of the first series, Coop was offered a job with the VCTF - but finding a means to bring a bomb disposal expert into the taskforce was not easy.

    "They've integrated Coop by changing his job," notes the actor.  "They had him take a job as a taskforce member dealing with international terrorism.  That gave him a reason to show up at certain crime scenes that the VCTF would normally frequent.

    "I thought from the beginning that there was some kind of issue in terms of how you would move the guy into the story gracefully.  He wasn't originally designed to fit, and you have to jerry-rig a solution.  I'm not sure that we've always accomplished it as gracefully as we would have hoped, but we did the best we could and there's been a lot of really nice moments, a lot of really nice dynamics have come from having him around.  On balance, it was a good idea."

    After reading the first script, Martinez became fascinated by the character, a man who works in one of the most dangerous professions imaginable and lives with the knowledge that every day could be his last.  In order to research the role, the actor met with a number of real-life bomb disposal experts.

    "I spoke to probably half-a-dozen people who take apart bombs for a living," he offers.  "It was really easy to find them because they're always around (the Profiler set).  Whenever there's anything to do with bombs in the story they have various guys rotating in to do technical consulting, so it's really easy to get their attention.

    "They're all deputy sheriffs, and I have a brother who is a deputy sheriff, so once they realized that I had family in the brotherhood I was immediately taken under their wing and given the inside scoop.  A lot of what you see on a show like this is more or less an abbreviated version of what really goes on, since the show is really not about taking apart bombs.  But I think it is important to honor the basic beats of the process, and you're not doing something that will makes those guys look bad.  They all knew the drill, they all knew the show was not about bombs, and they made it easy for me, separating what was essential from what was detail."

Bombshell

    The love scenes between Sam and Coop have helped soften the tone of Profiler, making what could be seen as a bitter pill - a series that features serial killers - very easy to swallow.  This human dimension certainly makes Profiler more accessible than Millennium, but the question remains as to whether the producers will decide to completely domesticize the leading characters, by having Sam and Coop marry.

    "I doubt it, given the nature of this kind of show," Martinez ponders.  "I think the key thing about a show like this is to keep tension as high as possible and keep it believable.  Any kind of comfort has a sense of permanence, so it would be something you would want to avoid.  I don't really see Coop having any kind of peace with her."

Dark Entertainment

    In recent years the public's fascination with serial killers has grown to disturbing proportions.  The movie Silence of the Lambs presented Hannibal Lector, a connoisseur of cooked human liver, as a charismatic and - at times - attractive figure.  The chilling Se7en explored the darkest areas of the human psyche with a killer who murders according to the seven deadly sins, and Profiler and Millennium seem almost natural spin-offs from that film.

Sick Society

    Some critics have wondered if this proliferation of entertainment shows that focus on serial killers is actually glamorizing one of society's ills, but Martinez does not agree.  "I think it's possible you could criticize anything that deals in this arena if you so choose," he insists.  "As far as I can tell this show is about the people who combat this kind of evil.  Granted, implicit in that is a place where this kind of evil is showcased.

    "When I ask my brother to tell me what his week was like, a lot of times I don't want to hear the answer.  He is a genuine hero.  I'm wandering around here trying to learn my lines, and fixing the flat tire on my truck, and that's my big problem for the week.  He literally is removing firearms from people.  A week doesn't go by when he doesn't have to do that.  The people who stand in front and combat the dark side of human nature are truly heroes, and as far as I'm concerned a show that celebrates them, and maybe even reveals how difficult their work is - what it cost them, which I think this show has done at its best - is a good thing.  I think it's really easy, short-sighted and incorrect to attack this show because it's dealing in an arena that is polluted by this disgusting strange aspect of human nature.

    "I wouldn't let my children watch this how.  I don't think that little children need to be thinking of the world in these kind of terms.  That kind of sorry truth will sink on it's own, so I don't feel any great need for accelerating the process.  Of course, I'm sure there are a lot of places where families are not able to work on that level, where kids have a lot more access to the tube, but I don't see that that's a reason for attacking shows like this."

Heavy Burden

    Aside from his stint on Santa Barbara, Martinez is perhaps best known for his role as Daniel Morales in the final two seasons of L.A. Law.  Daniel was a single parent, left to look after his child after the death of his wife, and the actor admits that the character was heavy going.

    "Coop is so much more fun for me to play.  He's so much more relaxed and easy going.  He's always got a wad of gum in his mouth - he was described that way in the original script.  There's something about the rhythm of it all that makes it so much easier to do this kind of stuff, than it was to play Daniel in L.A. Law.

    "Of course those lawyers never used a two syllable word when a three syllable word would do, and you found yourself having to lay out sentences that in any day of your life you would never put together.  You had to do it that way for the sake of the television show, whereas Coop speaks a language that is a little closer to my own - probably a little simpler than my own actually.

    "Daniel was a guy with a heavy load on him.  I'm not so sure that he was particularly appealing to the network for that reason.  I think they would have liked to have seen someone come in and play a character who was more fun."

    Beyond his acting career, Martinez is also a talented musician, with one album already in the record stores.  The schedule on Profiler has, to some extent, slowed the progress of his second album, but future songs are in the pipeline.  

    "I've just been writing, without a deadline," Martinez reveals.  "I haven't really found the song that's going to be the centerpiece of my second record.  There's a few that seem that they might be, but after a few weeks they revealed themselves to be pretenders.  You usually need one song to define what the record's about and that song's yet to be written."

    It's been widely recognized that playing a leading character in a television series is physically and emotionally draining.  An actor can work anything up to a 16-hour day, five days a week, consistently for months on end.  How does Martinez cope with the rigors of working on shows like Profiler and L.A. Law?

    "It's not too bad," he shrugs.  "I'm in real good shape for it.  I like to work in Los Angeles.  If you can get a steady job in Los Angeles you don't have to be running around the world chasing movie work.  Having three young children I loathe that at this point in time.  I've got to keep on putting food on the table, and it makes me nuts to have to leave.  It's a drag, and with that in mind I love the fact that I've been able to work as much in television."

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