By Julio Martinez
Born in New York of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, Adam Rodriguez oozes confidence when discussing his role as a policeman on the new CBS series, Reckless, debuting June 29. After all, he played a cop for ten years on CSI Miami (2002-2012). “Yeah, I’ve played a lot of cops over the years, he affirms. “I think you learn something along the way with every job that I do. They all inform the next part I play in some way. And I have learned things that I now bring to this character.”
Set in Charleston, S.C., Reckless was created by Dana Stevens, and is exec produced by Stevens, Corey Miller, Ian Sander, Kim Moses and Catherine Hardwicke. The series follows the often contentious in-court/out-of-court maneuverings of rookie city attorney Roy (Cam Gigandet) and big city litigator Jamie (Anna Wood), who are trying to balance their professional mandates with their personal attraction to one another. One hindrance to that attraction is her ongoing relationship with a handsome Latino law officer.
“That would be me,” Rodriguez interjects. “I play a character named Preston Cruz who is a detective that has moved down to South Carolina from New York for reasons unknown at the start of the show. And as things roll out, little by little the audience gets to see more and more of why Preston chose to go see what the South was all about. On the surface, it is partly due to the beautiful Jamie, who is my girlfriend, who pulled out all her tools of sexuality to lure me in.”
Rodriguez thinks it is a great angle that Jamie might just be toying with Preston’s heart while her relationship with Roy is simmering. “Dealing with that is just another aspect of my character that I get to develop,” adds Rodriguez. When I first read the part, I knew it was going to be interesting. There are a lot of places to go here. This guy is all about the right things, yet there is a dark side that is hidden and I am excited to get the opportunity to explore that dark side.”
One of Rodriguez’s first TV jobs was playing a uniformed cop in one episode of NYPD Blue (1997), followed by a season on Brooklyn South. Although he has played myriad characters since—including Hilda’s (Ana Ortiz) love interest in season four of Ugly Betty—he has been strongly linked to law enforcement as a result of his decade’s long association with CSI Miami. He even wrote and directed the season 9 episode, Hunting Ground. What he likes about his role in Reckless, is its departure from what he has done in the past.
Rodriguez affirms, “I’m getting a chance to do something here that I couldn’t do on a procedural show like CSI Miami. In this show, there’s so much more depth to the characters because the writers and producers intended to explore those character aspects going into this. They wanted to make sure that Reckless was self-encapsulated but serialized. The audience gets a chance to follow some real life stories that these characters are going through. When you see the show, I think you’ll get involved with the uniqueness of each character, as well as being entertained by the crime and courtroom dramas, the romance and all the steamy sex. It all becomes mixed together.”
Reckless also stars Shawn Hatosy, Georgina Haig, Michael Gladis, Kim Wayans and Gregory Harrison. Adam Rodriguez recently co-starred in the feature film, About Last Night, released on February 15.
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