The Deadbolt Interview - Inside the World of 'White Collar' with Creator Jeff Eastin

Inside the World of 'White Collar' with Creator Jeff Eastin
by Troy Rogers

With the success of Burn Notice, Monk and Psych on USA Network, the programming doors have been kicked open to blend drama and comedy with thrilling, procedural concepts featuring the law, the criminal element, spies, and larger than life scenarios. This time USA Network is dipping into the world of white collar crime on October 23 with the unique pairing of an expert con-man and an FBI agent who reluctantly team up to hunt down some of the world's most elusive criminals. Starring Matt Bomer as sophisticated con-man Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay as FBI White Collar Crime Agent Peter Stokes, White Collar is set to give fans something new from a crime thriller angle with a comedic flair.

Ahead of the October 23 White Collar premiere on USA Network, we hopped on the phone with White Collar creator Jeff Eastin to play conference call cat-and-mouse to get the straight story on what fans can expect in the way of white collar crime, the challenges of filming in New York City, how the concept came to fruition, and finding the right balance between drama and comedy.

THE DEADBOLT: If Neal has all of Peter’s FBI connections behind him and he also has Mozzie's underworld connections, was there ever a worry for you that people would wonder why he can’t find Kate right away?

JEFF EASTIN: There was a little bit of concern with that. The theory we’re working on is: Because Neal trained Kate, she’s very good at this. The other thing is: You’re assuming the FBI doesn’t necessarily know where she’s at already and maybe isn’t telling Neal. That’s one of the other things we’re playing with.

THE DEADBOLT: So they’re using her against him?

EASTIN: Could be.

THE DEADBOLT: What were some of the challenges you faced filming in New York?

EASTIN: Surprisingly few. I’d never been to New York before. I literally wrote the show using Google Street View. When I decided that I wanted to do a show about white collar crime, New York seemed like the obvious place to do it, and Street View makes a pretty good tour guide. I went through and kind of mapped the whole show out on Google, went through it, and I (to be honest) didn’t see it. I figured we’d be shooting in Toronto or Vancouver, but I figured why not try it.

Then, USA and Fox came together. I got the call originally on the pilot, and they said, "Hey, guess what? We’re shooting in New York." "Really, okay," but we said we’d take it. We ended up shooting in December, which was not when we intended, but I think we did a pretty good job of hiding the Christmas decorations which were on every street corner at that point.

We got there, and I was worried because I’d shot another show in Hawaii, and Hawaii was really tough, surprisingly. The traffic on Oahu was absolutely crazy, and you would sort of be staked down to a particular location. Once you got there in the morning, you’re not moving until night, and I’d worried about that in New York.

A couple things worked for us there. One is the best thing about New York is just the production value you get. All we have to do is open a door or point a camera at a window, and we’ve got absolutely brilliant production value, right there, just by pointing at the city which is really nice. The other thing is the crew. I’ve never seen crew this good in my life. I have my producer in New York, Jeff King, knows the city really well and has been able to do an absolutely amazing amount for a basic cable budget.

The one thing I’m really proud about of the show is that he’s got a really great look. Bronwen Hughes, who directed the pilot, she’s from New York and did a really great job of just making the show look good. New York’s actually been great. I went into it a just a little bit worried. It costs a little bit more to shoot there, but in the end, it ends up on screen.

Other White Collar Conference Call Highlights

Jeff Eastin on where the concept started

White Collar "The idea really came about, this was prestrike, pre WGA strike, and I had been kind of playing around with a couple of ideas. I’m a huge Shield fan, and I had worked with a friend of mine. We sort of bounced ideas off each other, a guy Travis Romero.

"I was a huge Shield fan. By way, don’t tell me because I didn’t end up getting to see the final season which I heard was awesome. I’d been playing around with an idea that I’d called ‘redemption’ at the time. The idea was sort of a much darker, sort of a Vic Mackey, what would happen if he’d killed his partner and gone to prison. Then, they have to let him out of prison to work with a detective to solve the crime. Then, when it came to that, they decide to put a tracking anklet on him and keep him out. That idea percolated around for a little bit in my head, and somebody had pointed out there was a show called Life that’s on that they said, 'Hey, that’s pretty much exactly the same idea.' I had kind of shelved it a little bit.

"At that point, Travis and I were sitting around discussing kind of what wasn’t on the air. The one thing that I hadn’t seen for awhile was kind of the buddy show which I was a big fan of. I did an early draft of Rush Hour 3. I did True Life 2 draft for Cameron which was back before Arnold got elected, and that was sort of in my wheelhouse, just the buddy thing. I loved, absolutely loved, Lethal Weapon and 48 Hours. I said, 'You know, there’s nothing really on TV like this anymore.' We kind of looked around and said, 'No, there really isn’t.' We kind of dusted off the redemption idea and said, 'What if we took this and turned it into a comedy?'

"At that point, I kind of just started in my head trying to figure out who the characters are, and for me, Matt Nix, who created Burn Notice, and I are pretty decent friends. He’d seen the pilot, and he called me and said, 'Hey, dig the pilot. I just realized,' he said, 'Peter Burke, your FBI agent,' he goes, 'He’s you.' I was like, 'What do you mean?' He’s like, 'That’s your alter ego.' He’s like, 'Michael Weston, my alter ego, and I think Peter’s your alter ego.'

"I thought about it for a little bit, and I realized he’s right. With me, Peter, who’s sort of more the straight man, is the guy that I am, but I’ve always been fascinated by the guy who Neal Caffrey is. I’ve had friends like this. Guys who you could literally parachute them in any place in the world with literally nothing with, just the clothes on their back and by the end of the night, they’d be driving a Bentley and having dinner with the princess in the castle."

Jeff Eastin on striking the right balance between comedy and drama in White Collar

White Collar "That’s probably the greatest question we’ve got going right now. It’s very tough. I think dramedies are some of the hardest to do because the thing is they’re easy to do badly. They’re very tough to do well. Straight drama, straight procedural stuff is its own challenge, but at least you know what you’re getting into. Straight comedy which I’ve done, too, is easier than this, at least for me, because, again, it’s sort of like you know what you’re doing. This one, it’s very easy to end up in a position where you’re neither fish nor fowl.

"I think we really sort of played with that on the pilot. In the first episodes we’re doing here, we’re sort of playing with that line. There’s definitely sort of a balance. What I find works the best, at least for this show, is there’s an interesting line where there’s a certain amount of jeopardy that plays real. As long as the humor is contextual between the guys, it’s pretty easy to pull it off.

"The actors, also, are probably 80% or 90% key to this. We can write whatever we want, and if you’re sitting there and you’ve got a dead body but the actors can find a way to make the lines play, humor us without sort of feeling like you’re in bad taste, it’s pretty nice, and we’ve got guys that do that. We actually don’t have very many dead bodies. I think we have one in the first six that we actually see. We are kind of trying to shoot for sort of an elegance to the show.

"The question of where we split the comedy and where we split the drama is a tough one. I tend to like the shows that have a little bit more drama to them. Of the six we’ve done so far, those tend to be my favorite by a slight margin. I kind of like stuff that has a little more to it. But again, The Shield was my favorite show, so I’ve also screened them for friends and family who felt just the opposite, that they kind of like the ones that’re a little more on the humor side. I think once we find that sweet spot and if we can stay within a few percentage points on either side of it, I think we’ll be good."

-- Troy Rogers