“Reckless” New Legal Drama Gets Steamy

Kellie Freeze

12 years ago

Just in time for summer’s heat, CBS is launching a new drama about cops and lawyers… and sex. Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll reveal that the catchphrase uttered again and again at a recent CBS press event for Reckless was “hot and steamy.” Officially, CBS calls Reckless, “A sultry legal drama set in Charleston, S.C., where a gorgeous Yankee litigator and a charming southern attorney must hide their intense mutual attraction as a police sex scandal threatens to tear the city apart.” Informally is pledges a show that will require a shower afterward.

Creator and Executive Producer Dana Stevens points to a landmark TV cop drama as one of her influences, “I really wanted to push the envelope on network. I love shows like NYPD Blue and those shows really broke ground with sexiness on network TV. That’s what we are hoping to do as well.”

At the center of Reckless is Jamie Sawyer (Anna Wood), a sexy Chicago attorney who’s a fish out of water when she relocates to the steamy South. Says Wood, “it’s very refreshing to have a strong female character who isn’t using only her sexuality to get what she wants but also isn’t afraid of her own sexuality and knows that it’s a tool that we women possess that if we need to pull it out of the toolbox, we will. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Reckless is Anna Woods’ first role leading a series. The beautiful brunette is mostly known for guest-starring roles, and is relishing the opportunity to sink her teeth in her new role, “it’s been really thrilling to dig  into a character, figure out how she ticks and then apply that week after week after week.”

Adam Rodriquez (CSI:Miami) plays detective Preston Cruz, a tough-as-nails New Yorker cop who has recently moved to South Carolina. During the CBS press event, Rodriguez was the panel’s resident joker, but on the show, his character will be a little more enigmatic. Says Rodriguez, “As things roll out, little by little you get to see more and more of why I chose to go see what the South was all about.” On the show, Cruz and Sawyer are an item. Reveals Rodriguez, “She’s actually my girlfriend on the show and is toying with my heart and emotions while a separate heat is brewing on the side between her and a certain handsome, unstoppable someone.”

That handsome “someone” is Southern gentleman city attorney Roy Rayder, played by Cam Gigandet (Twilight) who says of his character, “What I love about Roy is that there’s so much honesty. He is the one person on the show, where what you see is what you get. So there’s this simplicity about him and yet it’s not simplistic and he’s not simple.” Not simple, but certainly easy on the eyes. And it doesn’t help that for once, the show’s resident hottie is billed as a good guy. It’s refreshing after a few seasons of TV antiheroes.

Shawn Hatosy finished shooting Southland, where he played Detective Sammy Bryant, the same night he flew to South Carolina to shoot the pilot for Reckless, where he plays villainous Terry McCandless. Stevens was impressed by Hatosy’s nearly instantaneous change from playing a good cop to bad cop, “It was like a lightning bolt went off. He was so mean and intimidating to this girl and we were like all right, he’s ready. He’s ready to go over to the dark side.”

Laughed Hatosy, “And all my research I did on villains, and I did a lot, what I learned is that bad guys start behaving nefariously because, in some way, love screwed them over.” He encouraged the gathered press to recall Darth Vader, “Here is a decent guy who ultimately went to the dark side because Natalie Portman hurt him.”

Each week, Reckless will feature a close-ended legal case; it might be Jamie’s, it might be Roy’s, or it might be the two of them against each other. Also, the show will feature a season-long story arc of a female police officer suing the Charleston police department for sexual harassment. Each week, new twists and turns of the case will be revealed, culminating with the show’s Season 1 finale. Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight) directs the pilot.

The show is set and shot in Charleston, and the city’s vibrant history and steamy weather should almost be billed as a co-starring character. Says Stevens, “I just got really excited about setting a story like this in the South, which has all this veneer of civility and gentility, but underneath, those Southerners know how to party.”

And just in case you can’t wait until the show’s premiere on Sunday, June 29 at 9pm ET/PT, here’s an amuse bouche of star Cam Gigandet without his shirt. You’re welcome.