Petersen Talks America's Forensics Fascination

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star William Petersen said recently he knew the show would appeal to viewers because it offers an inside look at the work of criminalists.

Asked by talk show host Charlie Rose last week why CSI was "so compelling", Petersen told an anecdote about his work in the 1986 film Manhunter, in which he played FBI Agent Will Graham.

"We worked with the FBI forensics lab in Washington," the actor said (via the William Petersen Appreciation Page). "We got to shoot in there and stuff like that, even though the guy I was playing was a profiler, which is different from a forensic scientist. But the response that I had from people throughout the years about that movie, and the type of stuff that we were doing in the movie, they were fascinated by it, you know."

The behind-the-scenes work of FBI agents has always aroused interest, but it was the O.J. Simpson trial that really propelled the science behind crime solving into the public arena. "After the O.J. thing, I mean we sat there for two years and watched the O.J. trial, and we're very confused, I think, by the whole thing, for obvious reasons. So here was this thing that was going on, there was this language that was being spoken that nobody understood."

Petersen said that on regular crime shows "you'd always see the fingerprint dusters come onto the scene", but then the series would focus on the cops rather than the forensic process. "And the great thing about [CSI] was that these were the guys that would actually solve the crimes."

As the cast and producers always say, on CSI, the science is the star. When the show was in development, the key to making it work was being able to "shoot the science", Petersen said. "If we could make the audience see what these guys see, they would get excited."

To view the entire 18-minute interview in Quicktime format, head over to the William Petersen Appreciation Page.

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