Gary Sinise (Mac Taylor) and Hill Harper (Dr. Sheldon Hawkes) appeared on The Tavis Smiley Show to talk about the characters they will play in the third incarnation of the prosperous CSI franchise.

"I'm glad it's me," Sinise said on Smiley's show on May 3rd (via Elyse's CSI Site) he said of his role as Mac Taylor, the lead of CSI: New York. "[I]t's a popular series, it's a good series, and I thought it had a chance to be successful, so I'm jumping in," Sinise added about the third CSI show.

Sinise went on to praise Anthony Zuiker, CSI creator and the man who will be overseeing CSI: New York. "[There are] good people involved in [the show], and I like the creative head of it, Anthony Zuiker," Sinise said. "He's a very smart guy, he does a great job, he's a good writer, and you know, they wanted me to do it very badly, and it seemed like the right thing at the right time."

Harper, who appeared on Smiley's show on May 5th, spoke about playing a doctor for the third time, after playing a physician on City of Angels and The Sopranos. He mentioned that his parents were proud to see him playing a doctor: "What was wonderful about doing [the hospital drama] City of Angels...is that I got to play a physician, and since both my parents were physicians," Harper said. "I didn't become a physician, but I got to play one on TV and they got to see me doing it every week, and my dad loved the idea that I was playing a doctor."

Hill will be taking on a slightly different role playing a coroner on New York. "I'm Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, and I'm the coroner of the show, so everytime somebody dies, I do the investigation into the body and try to come up with all the evidence," he said. "I love the [CSI] shows because the science is the star, and they're very clear on that." As the show's coroner, Harper will be very involved in the science aspects of the show. "My character--I get to do tons of science, I get to investigate the body and say the bullet traveled here, did this, the strangulation wound suggests this," he said. "I get to use all this medical jargon and I get to act like I'm really smart."

To read the complete transcripts, where Sinise discusses his work with veterans and Hill talks about some of his other roles, please visit Elyse's CSI Site!

Discuss this news item at Talk CSI!
 Add CSI Files RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a Desperate Housewives fan? Then visit GetDesperate.com!