George Eads talks gore and the ‘woah’ factor

Texas born George Coleman Eads the third has played Evel Knievel in the 2004 made for TV movie of the same name, and starred with Tom Selleck in Monte Carlo. Best known to audiences around the world as CSI Level 3 Nick Stokes on the hugely popular CSI: Crime Scene Investigations.

The Complete Season 10 is out now on DVD and 242 episodes later CSI is still going strong, George Eads plays Nick Stokes a character that has been eaten by ants, buried alive and generally put through the mill. He chats with Nigel Barker for The Fan Carpet.

You’re a forensic investigator, how would you like to be a real forensic investigator?

That’s one of the things I’ve alluded to and no thanks! What they have to deal with on a daily basis is insane. We don’t have to deal with the smells; we’re here in Hollywood where the blood tastes like peppermint. It’s easy to meet death on TV!

So are you saying that you couldn’t deal with all that gruesomeness if it was for real?

Maybe you could deal with one of the crimes that maybe wasn’t as gruesome and it was just the body, but what if you have to deal with the smell of a dead body. What if you have to go to like three homicides in a row in a day where it’s one after the other. Then you think about doing that week in and week out. So I try to think about what it would do to them personally to be a public servant and to have to deal with some of the stuff they have to deal with.

Do you get desensitized to some of the gore that you see?

For me from an acting stand point, I just try to act tough and macho, I think that’s my character. I would think back to when I’d go hunting with my dad; and I was a pre-teen when dad first skinned a dear in front of me – he zipped it right from the belly up to the throat with a big knife and I was like ‘woah’! He just stood there teaching me ‘and you gotta cut this away from the bone and you see that, that’s the heart’ and I’m just like ‘woah’.

Do you get much input from real crime scene investigators on the show?

Yeah we do, and my tech advisor, I call him the black Nick Stokes; Lei Mitchell, retired Sheriffs deputy or retired Sheriff Sergeant he really helps me to be authentic. I think from a make believe stand point and how I wanna act; I play it like I’ve seen so many homicides that I kind of get numb to it.

How many of your story lines, I don’t know if you know this are based on real cases?

I think they do a lot of that, I don’t sit in the writers room at the big table; and they’re lucky I’m not there because they’d never get anything done. I mean it’s fun to collaborate with them but I think some of the stories just so happen; it’s weird that they write an episode and two weeks later something like that will happen. So I think they have their fingers on the pulse at least.

Do you get much input into your character?

I always have. They’ve always been really cool. I think Billy Petersen set that standard where he treated it like a theatre company, where he would say ‘I’m not the face of this show, I want you to all come with me and be a part of it like an ensemble’. And our input has always been important, even after he left.

I was reading earlier that CSI is apparently being recognized as the most popular drama series internationally, did you know that?

A couple of years ago I accepted an award in Monte Carlo and I freaked out, it was for like seventy eight million international viewers; I thought it was a joke.

How do you deal with that pressure knowing that you are number one?

You don’t, you just don’t even create that pressure. You know what I mean, you just don’t even go there.

I’m not sure I could be that cool and laid back about it.

Oh you have to be to be doing it this long. You get pretty numb to not winning awards. I’m not doing it for validation, I’m doing it for these fans that keep coming out in droves and watching this thing,

Why do you think it is so successful?

Maybe it’s that lightening in a bottle aspect of it where you get the right cast together that just gels, the right writing team that gels. The right lighting and sound, our crews been together for some of us ten years. An average of eight years we’ve all been together, so we’re all friends there. Where we are all calm and comfortable, maybe that’s why I’m so calm.

It’s set in Vegas, you film a lot of it in Hollywood I would imagine.

We go to Vegas about four times a year, it’s a big move and expensive. I think Vegas is another character on the show, when we go there we want it to be prominent.

Which is your favourite casino then in Vegas? You go there four times a year.

I like the ‘Win’ and if you’re listening I’ll take a free room, the place is beautiful. We got displaced to that one because ours was fully booked and they treated us like kings. It was crazy.

Have you ever gone to the top of the Stratosphere and done that vertical ride thing?

No, I had told another thing about what it is in Vegas that I haven’t done yet. But you know there was an episode where CSI put a camera on a roller coaster in ‘New York, New York’. Maybe I could do that on the Stratosphere as a tribute to Grissom and what he used to do. That would be cool.

Do you think that CSI has gone the way of making science a bit cool?

Maybe by accident, you know I think it’s a show about people doing their jobs, I got that from Billy, so I have to footnote Billy Petersen on that one. I think it’s an interesting way to put it; if you act like the camera isn’t there, it ends up being cool because of the music they lay on top of it. If you think about it, everytime we are doing the science, we are jamming it to a pretty cool song.

Nick is a CSI investingator, George is an actor. What do you like to do when you’re not being Nick?

Riding my motor cycle and playing some golf. And I try to get into the gym and throw some weight around. And just trying to stay young.

George Eads Profile | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation TV Info Page | ENTER OUR COMPETITION

CSI: CRIME SCENE IN VESTIGATIONS COMPLETE SEASON 10 IS OUT NOW ON DVD