Jimmy Smits raises 'Cane'
But creating the epic Latino saga has been a labor of love for the TV star.
By Eric Deggans, Times TV/Media Critic
Published September 14, 2007
Cane
It debuts at 10 p.m. Sept. 25 on WTSP-Ch. 10. Grade:B+
---
LOS ANGELES
From the moment we meet, it is obvious: Jimmy Smits is a man with a lot on his mind.
Part of it is the environment. It's a balmy July day inside a cavernous set at CBS's Radford Studios complex, and every cast member of his new series Cane is in the house.
In one towering director's chair sits Hector Elizondo (Chicago Hope, The Princess Diaries), playful and positive despite nursing a hairline fracture in his middle finger from a fall. Beside him, Rita Moreno (West Side Story) is resident den mother, clowning with the younger actors like the earthy matriarch she's playing onscreen.
Most of the core cast is here for one of the show's sprawling dinner scenes, where members of the powerful Cuban-American Duque family trade quips and gossip over sumptuous meals of spiced chicken, yellow rice, Cuban bread and plantains.
While two wheel-mounted cameras swoop, Elizondo's character cracks wise about reggaeton star Daddy Yankee - "What's next, Mommy Red Sox?" - and the banter flows freely.
Smits sets the tone - the ultimate player-coach - helping decide when to try another take, and insisting I get my own seat before the camera monitors to watch the action up close.
While his colleagues relax between scenes, the former NYPD Blue star paces. He's a producer who takes the title seriously; worrying about everything from music to how a camera crew will record cast interviews for the network's electronic press kit.
Ask how he's dealing with the pressure, and Smits, a major TV star since pastel T-shirts were hip, admits it has been a struggle.
"It's really hard to be everywhere and do it well," he said during a telephone interview weeks later. "I'm trying to have a strong voice . . . but time management becomes the thing. Do I really need to be in every casting session? Not really. But do I want to be there when they talk about music? Absolutely, because that's very important here. I'm still figuring it out."
Complex family drama
Centered on a wealthy Cuban-American family living in a fictional Florida community (that suspiciously resembles West Palm Beach), Cane outlines a multigenerational clan with a huge rum business and hundreds of thousands of acres of sugar cane fields.
Smits' Alex Vega is the story's Moses, treated like a son by Elizondo's patriarch Pancho Duque after marrying his daughter, Isabel. But Vega faces opposition from Pancho's biological son Frank (Lost's Nestor Carbonell) and the bigoted Samuels family - white bread rivals for the Duques' dominance in Florida's sugar industry.
The simmering brew of story lines has critics flailing for comparisons.
It's a drama about wealthy families without the soapy excess of Dallas or Dynasty. It's a series centered on a Latino family that doesn't wear its culture on its sleeve. It's a story about a magnetic family leader who breaks the law to protect his business and his loved ones, but without the rampant lawlessness of The Sopranos.
Smits already is tired of trying to explain this stuff to journalists who want to sum up his passion project in an easy catch phrase or two.
"It's easy to kind of put you in a box," he said. "How can we categorize you, because that way we don't have to think about it? We're talking about a family saga, an epic drama. And I guess it's going to be a hybrid, like the car I drive . . . a little bit of (everything)."
Rooted in memories
Screenwriter Cynthia Cidre (The Mambo Kings) developed Cane when CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler asked her to write something personal. The Cuba native flashed to her childhood, immigrating to Miami in the fourth grade, when her father worked as a chemist in the sugar industry.
The story lines are complex: One moment, Vega counsels against selling the family's sugar fields to the Samuels family, predicting the rise of sugar cane-based ethanol. The next minute, he recruits a crew of former Cuban gang members for a vicious errand of vengeance.
Even while toiling on the sixth episode's script, Cidre admits it's tough to describe exactly what Cane is.
"It's not Dallas, not the Sopranos and it's 30 people on every phone call with different opinions," she said. "I'm trying to tell a dynamic family story that's not over the top and campy . . . but (Vega's) not a criminal and it's not a crime show. It's a delicate balance."
Built on star power
In his past series, Smits has sharpened someone else's vision - from joining superstar producer Steven Bochco's hit shows L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, to playing the first Latino president on John Wells' The West Wing.
But Smits' TV history has been complicated: He initially turned down the lead role in NYPD Blue, only to step in when star David Caruso walked off the show. Later, he passed on the lead role in CSI: Miami (which Caruso also got) and passed up NBC's critically acclaimed cop drama Boomtown.
Now, tall, lean and sporting a rakish black goatee, Smits at 52 is standing atop the first network TV series built primarily on his star power. But he's too modest to take full credit.
"(In Hollywood), it's always viewed as a vanity thing: 'You want to be a kind of hyphenate?' "Smits said, noting how some TV industry people view those who take actor-producer titles. "That's not it. I want to, as much as possible, shepherd it . . . make it more than anything, so that Cynthia's voice is hers in terms of continuing what she created in the pilot."
A long time coming
Cane also shows the growing influence of Hollywood's Latino community.
Tassler, who is of Puerto Rican and Jewish heritage, brought together Cidre and Smits; the pair first met in 1991 when Smits starred in Fires Within, one of Cidre's first screenplays. Now they have created the first Latino-centered, full-run network TV drama series in history.
"It's the first time, as far as I know, that you will ever see a successful, educated, beautifully dressed, articulate Latino family who doesn't necessarily talk like dis all da time," said Moreno, slipping briefly into a thick accent for emphasis. "I can't tell you what that means to me. I'm 75. I've been around a long time now. And if nothing else, I am pleased beyond belief that I am actually going to have fabulous clothes."
Elizondo had a simpler question: "I wonder what took so long, frankly," he said. "This is the first (show) of its kind with a cast this large, this caliber of show, with the occasional subtitle (for Spanish dialogue). I was wondering why this didn't happen 15, 20 years ago."
Smits, ever the worrier, doesn't want anyone to feel excluded by Cane. Proud as he is of the food, language, family history and music showcased in the series, he stresses that the Duque family saga is an immigrant's story - American as The Godfather and, with luck, just as accessible.
"We can't let the ethnicity factor pigeonhole us," Smits said. "I would hope the work I've done previously is testament to the fact that I'm going to try and bring integrity to every role. But if we get bogged down in how we're going to quote/unquote 'represent' . . ."
Similarity concerns
One concern about representation came from a powerful source: Palm Beach's Fanjul family.
As owners of Flo-Sun Inc., the Fanjuls are one of the nation's largest sugar manufacturers, with 400,000 acres of crops and revenues of $3-billion. They rebuilt their company in America after fleeing Cuba, just like Cane's fictional Duques - prompting a letter of concern from their lawyers when details of Cane's story were released.
But CBS assured the family the Duques were not based on them - Cidre said she was thinking more of the family behind Bacardi rum, also Cuban expatriates. In August, the family issued a statement saying CBS had agreed to avoid any similarities.
"We probably should have dispensed with all that lawyer posturing . . . sat down with them and just said, 'This is not about you guys,' " said Smits, acknowledging that Cane is set in the fictional Florida community of Playa Azul, in part, to satisfy the Fanjuls.
"Maybe they'll let us shoot in a sugar cane field now," he said, noting the family had barred access to its many Florida fields.
Visiting Florida occasionally to shoot exteriors and special locations - Smits flipped the coin toss at a Miami Dolphins game last month, in character - Cane has charted an ambitious course. Now the biggest task ahead is beating the odds of network television, where just one of every three new shows makes it to a second season.
"It's not been lost on any of us that this has been a long time coming," Smits said. "This is an aspirational and upscale family that we haven't been acquainted with before on television. Our main goal now is just to get it right."
Eric Deggans can be reached at (727) 893-8521 or deggans@sptimes.com See his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/media.
Set in Florida
When CBS's Cane wanted to show a bad guy buried in a Belle Glade field, they hit up the Palm Beach County Film and Television Commission with an odd request.
Soon, 20 pounds of muck from a local cane field was packed in a box and flying to Los Angeles - proof of the measures required to re-create the Sunshine State on a California soundstage.
Though four high-profile TV series are set in Florida, only USA Networks' Burn Notice is filmed entirely in the state.
Here's how they're doing so far:
CSI: Miami
Excuse for filming in California: cost savings.
Does it work? CBS does a decent job making Pasadena and Long Beach pass for Miami. But cool as redhead David Caruso looks in his blue suits, any real-life Horatio Caine would sweat half his weight off dressing like that in Magic City.
Burn Notice
Reason for filming in Florida: Just look at it.
Does it work? Cane director Sandy Bookstaver also films this show, with lingering shots of beachfront hotels and picturesque marinas. Even the daylight looks hotter in this series, which turns Miami into a cast regular with spectacular results.
Dexter
Excuse for filming in California: cost of insurance during hurricane season.
Does it work? Sticking to lower-class locales - cheap apartment complexes, police department offices and such - producers mimic Miami well. But the show's pilot, shot entirely in Miami with deep blue skies and signature neighborhoods, reveals what Showtime's serial killer drama is missing.
Cane
Excuse for filming in California: cost.
Does it work? Set designers do their homework: Palm Beach film commission staffers still buzz about CBS's visit to their version of Rodeo Drive, Worth Avenue. And the characters walk around in T-shirts and guayaberas, as if it were, you know, hot outside.