{"id":7016,"date":"2016-09-28T16:54:20","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/"},"modified":"2016-11-28T17:01:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T22:01:50","slug":"dick-wolf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Wolf"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a unique blend of a police investigation and courtroom drama, Law & Order<\/em>, which ran from 1990 to 2010, redefined the procedural and spawned one of the most successful franchises on television. Four years ago, Dick Wolf defied the odds of starting another hit franchise and launched Chicago Fire<\/em>, followed by Chicago P.D.<\/em> and Chicago Med<\/em>. These series are still procedurals, as Wolf remains committed to a format that has built an extremely loyal viewership on NBC through the decades, but the Chicago<\/em> shows intertwine ongoing character story lines with the action and feature wildly popular crossover episodes. This season, Chicago Justice<\/em> will premiere, as will the anthology series Law & Order: True Crime<\/em> and the reality show Law & Order: You the Jury<\/em>. They join the returning Law & Order: SVU<\/em>.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How did the Chicago<\/em> franchise come about?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> The franchise started with Fire<\/em>. The reason we moved to Chicago is that a show called Rescue Me<\/em>, which was about firefighters in New York after 9\/11, had just gone off the air, and I did not want to bring another fire show into New York. Fire<\/em> is much more of a blue-collar soap opera, and the values first responders live by are exemplified by the attitudes in the Midwest as opposed to the attitudes of the East Coast\u2014specifically Chicago, the heart of the heartland, which is a fairly accurate depiction of those values.<\/p>\n

Fire<\/em> was just a desire to do a first-responder show because firemen fascinate me in the abstract. You can\u2019t pay [most] people to run into burning buildings! That\u2019s the bottom line. When you are doing dramas you are looking for the things that have conflict and stakes and the highest stakes of all are always life and death. You\u2019ve got the table set every week for horrible, heroic, interesting things to happen.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How early into the process did you get the idea for Chicago P.D.<\/em> and then Med<\/em>?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> While we were shooting the pilot, I was standing on the bridge over the Chicago River and I turned to Peter Jankowski, who runs Wolf Films, and I said, \u201cYou know, I think there are two or three more shows here.\u201d When I first mentioned it to Bob Greenblatt [the chairman of NBC Entertainment], about three weeks after Fire<\/em> went on the air, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s a little early, let\u2019s see how this goes.\u201d But P.D<\/em>. did air the next year.<\/p>\n

Fire<\/em> is a blue-collar soap opera, P.D.<\/em> is sort of a straight-ahead cop show. Med<\/em> is not reinventing the wheel, but I think we\u2019ve got characters that have not been seen on medical shows, so that\u2019s additive. And Justice<\/em> is a very complex but straightforward courtroom show. They are all different. People have asked me, Don\u2019t you think you\u2019re making old-fashioned TV? Well, I prefer the term \u201cclassic,\u201d but yeah, we are. The NBC audience hasn\u2019t changed. I\u2019ve been there for 32 years constantly on the air, and that audience has not changed at all. They still like narrative drama, not crazy about too much serialization, and like to be able to get a complete hour of television when they invest the time to watch.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How did the idea of crossover episodes come about?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> I will pat myself on the back along with Tom Fontana, who is probably my oldest friend in the business. This all started 25 years ago with Law & Order<\/em> and Homicide: Life on the Street<\/em> crossovers. We did two of those in two successive seasons, and both of them were the highest-rated shows of both series. So that got filed away for the future\u2014they work! And actor Richard Belzer came over to Law & Order: SVU<\/em> after Homicide<\/em> and now Jon Seda and David Eigenberg came to Chicago P.D<\/em>. [from Chicago Fire<\/em>. Seda is now joining Chicago Justice<\/em>.]\n

WS:<\/strong> Are the crossovers a lot more work?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> To do crossovers is a huge, huge pain in the ass! Everybody hates them, but they like the results.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> And the audience loves them.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Because they are different, and you don\u2019t get them anyplace else.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Fire<\/em> is more serialized than the others.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Because it\u2019s more of a soap opera. The action sequences and the weekly stories are wrapped up usually in one episode, but the personal stories continue; relationships like the one between [Matt] Casey and Gabriela continue over years.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Actress S. Epatha Merkerson said that when people watch a Dick Wolf show they sit down to be entertained and they get up and they\u2019ve learned something. The Law & Order<\/em> franchise is often able to illustrate complex issues better than a documentary or a news report.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Well, thank you. We\u2019re actually conscious of that and trying. The most important element in any show is the writing. The cast is enormously important, but they don\u2019t make up the words. They have to be given the tools to even break out on a show. The storytelling hopefully does educate. The best description of Law & Order<\/em> was from Sam Waterston, who said the first half is a murder mystery and the second half is a moral mystery. The thing that is gratifying is the number of times I\u2019ve been to New York or Los Angeles or Chicago and have gone to district-attorney or state\u2019s-attorney offices, and first of all, more than 50 percent of the prosecutors now are women and most of them under the age of 35, and they come up and say, I\u2019m a prosecutor because of Law & Order<\/em>. That\u2019s very satisfying!<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Of all the returning series last season, Law & Order: SVU<\/em> was the only scripted show whose ratings increased. How do you do that, 17 seasons in?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> First of all, Mariska [Hargitay] is one of the only icons on television. She has an enormous following and people do tune in every week. I hope it continues, but it is amazing\u2014the only returning show whose ratings went up.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> What can you tell us about the brand-new Chicago Justice<\/em>?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Interesting show! Philip Winchester stars as the lead prosecutor, and I hate to make these predictions, but I think he could be a huge television star. He is so perfect looking for the role. It\u2019s almost like, Oh come on, really? He is my height, buffed, square-jawed. He looks like an action figure. He\u2019s perfect for the role and he projects intelligence and an internal moral compass. In that sense, his affect is very similar to Sam Waterston\u2019s.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How involved are you in each show? Do you read scripts? Do you write episodes?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> I write occasional stories, especially on the newer shows the first year, but I don\u2019t write scripts anymore\u2014no time. But I read every script and watch at least one cut of every episode.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> There will also be a true-crime anthology series.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Yes, the Law & Order: True Crime <\/em>story will be about the Menendez brothers. It will be eight hours. It should be very intense.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> And then there is Law & Order: You the Jury<\/em>.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> That is a reality show, which will feature a civil trial where both sides have agreed to abide by the decision of the jury, which is America\u2014the viewers watching. We will have live voting, and you\u2019ll be able to vote on plaintiff or defendant.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Was the first Law & Order<\/em> originally conceived of as two half-hour shows?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Back in 1987, you could not give one-hour shows away. In syndication, they didn\u2019t want anything but half-hours, so I developed a bunch of shows, Night & Day<\/em>, Life & Death<\/em>, Law & Order<\/em>, that could be split in half. Luckily we never had to do that.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Where does your fascination with law enforcement come from?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> My uncle was an FBI agent, so as a boy, 4, 5, 6 years old, that was something that I guess was imprinted on me somehow.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> And now you are delving into the medical profession with Chicago Med<\/em>.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> But it\u2019s life and death; it\u2019s the same stakes.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> The life and death in Med<\/em> pull you in, but there is a lot of humanity portrayed in the show.
\nWOLF:<\/strong> Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov are the showrunners on Med.<\/em> I am so happy that we got them, because I have been trying to get them into the company since they left Northern Exposure<\/em>\u2014that\u2019s a long time! They\u2019ve worked on the best shows that have been on, from The Sopranos<\/em> to Boardwalk Empire<\/em>. They are extraordinary writers. We were coming back from Chicago and I asked the two of them, who are married, \u201cHow do you know so much about medicine?\u201d Andy said, \u201cMy mother and father were both doctors,\u201d and Diane said, \u201cMy first husband was a doctor.\u201d So you\u2019re getting a higher level of insight into medical professionals\u2019 emotions and how they feel about what they are doing. It\u2019s pretty satisfying.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> Is Oliver Platt\u2019s role as a psychiatrist on Med<\/em> the first time a psychiatrist has been cast in an ER show? How did that come about?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> First of all, I\u2019ve known Oliver for some 20 years. We did a show together called Deadline<\/em>.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> I loved that show. Why did they cancel it?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> I have no idea. It was the best first-year cast I think I\u2019ve ever had on a show. It was extraordinary, and he was great. But when Med<\/em> started evolving, I asked Oliver, \u201cDo you want to play a shrink?\u201d And he said, \u201cYeah, but only if I do it right.\u201d He talked to a head psychiatrist who became sort of an advisor for the city of Chicago and learned that there is an amazing number of psychiatrists now in ERs because a huge proportion of people who come into ERs have emotional problems. ED\u2014emotionally disturbed patients.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How many actors have appeared on the two franchises?
\nWOLF:<\/strong> At last count, we\u2019ve had 40,000 speaking parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prolific creator and producer discusses the Law & Order and Chicago franchises. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":7017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-7016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","tag-dick-wolf","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nDick Wolf - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dick Wolf - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The prolific creator and producer discusses the Law & Order and Chicago franchises.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-28T20:54:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-28T22:01:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/Dick_Wolf_Headshotsand-1016.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anna Carugati\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anna Carugati\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/dick-wolf\/\",\"name\":\"Dick Wolf - 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