George Eads (Nick Stokes) said if one good thing came out of last summer's firings was the solidification of his friendship with Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown).

Last summer, Eads and co-star Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) were fired from CSI after reportedly asking for a pay increase. The experience, Eads said, helped him realize who his true friends are. "I didn't realize what a great friend I had in Gary until then," Eads told the British magazine TV Zone. "I didn't realize how he would step up for me and say, 'I quit if he doesn't come back.' That kind of friendship, you don't find between actors working together on other shows."

Their off-screen friendship, Eads said, mirrors the relationship their characters have together. But initially, Stokes and Brown were not supposed to get along at all. "They wanted me and Gary to be at each other's throats in the show. Then we became best friends outside of work and they had to write that in. People ask me what makes it number one, and really some of it happened by accident."

So successful was the friendship between Nick and Warrick that other shows began to mimic it, Eads added. "They put the guy with a Texan mentality and a kind of old fashioned way of thinking with this very different guy from the east. Then other shows went, 'Hey, we're going to get a southern guy and a black guy,' so it became a formula."

It's relationships between Eads and Dourdan, the actor said, that makes the show such a success. "With us, really reach characters beats to their own drum, yet when you put them together it's one well-oiled machine."

If you live across the pond, pick up the latest issue of TV Zone to read the rest of the article. Thanks to sara kicks ass at Your Tax Dollars At Work for this

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