Waiting for Grace

It’s good to be Jeff Eastin.

Last November, the executive producer of White Collar and Graceland signed an overall deal with Twentieth Century Fox Television and Fox Television Studios - auguring both cable and network opportunities.

In December, Eastin’s quirky con-man caper show, White Collar, closed after six successful seasons on USA Network.

And on Thursday, June 25 (10 pm, 9 central), Graceland, Eastin’s edgy undercover-agents-on-the-beach serial drama will re-emerge, also on USA, for a third season, when the fate of the lead character, FBI agent Mike Warren (actor Aaron Tveit last seen flat-lining in a hospital bed) will be resolved, it is hoped, to the satisfaction of the show’s fervent social-media fans and followers (Facebook 394K; Twitter 48.2K). 



Graceland centers on a handsome but angst-y gang of FBI, DEA and U.S. Customs guys and gals who cohabit a Southern California designer beach house while in pursuit of bad guys, mostly drug lords. In conversation with TelevisionAcademy.com, in advance of Thursday’s new season, Eastin was upbeat.

What’s behind Graceland’s distinctive visual look?

White Collar had a lot of references to the past, for example, to the Rat Pack, so I wanted a classic, almost retro feel to the show—no hand-held, no steady cam.

With Graceland, I wanted a different style. One thing, I wanted to use the medium to tell the story.

If a character is feeling anxiety, we might use a hand-held to get that camera shake.

We’d also break format. One of my favorite episodes, Season one, Episode 11, Briggs is going crazy from lack of sleep. We would play with dreams; there was one where he kills Mike and buries him in the middle of the living room.

We show Mike grinning at him -- and then we cut back and realize he was looking at someone else and not talking to Briggs at all. We play a lot with the editing – my editor, for me, is easily as important as my DP or production designer.

In Episode 6, one of my favorites, Paige gets sucked into the black hole of sex trafficking. My editor Ivan [Ladizinsky] really nailed it; he did a lot of things creatively.

There’s a moment where Mike is looking at an image of Paige on his computer and we did a flash-cut to one of the bad guys being water boarded. Ivan sped it up a thousand percent and it became this crazy kinetic image in Mike’s mind. Then Mike freaks out and throws the computer.

That’s so creative. You must be on a high after working on that.

The way I look at it, they are giving me a couple million dollars a week to do a small indie film and we try to treat it that way.

Anything we can do to tell the story better, we’re all for it -- whether it’s something uniquely visual, or using sound design (we’ve done quite a bit of that), or any way in the writing, or the directing. I don’t know how many times we stuck a camera in a whiskey glass and shot up through it! 

What attracts you to the show’s urban/beach setting?

With Graceland, the California beach culture is the show. The cool thing for me is that it’s based on a true story, which is a beach place that was seized from a drug dealer and converted to a ‘safe house’ for undercover agents; it wasn’t called “Graceland” but it exists in Manhattan Beach. It had been decommissioned when I sat down and met a lot of real agents who worked there.

Being from the Midwest, that beach culture was unlike anything I had ever seen. What fascinated me is the laid-back culture contrasting so strongly to the intense danger of the undercover world.

Also, these guys have lied to pretty much everybody in their lives. The only people who know the truth about their world is each other. The reality is, as soon as they step out that door, they’re on deep-cover assignments where they can be killed.

When they walk back through that door, they can decompress with the other people in the house. Everybody else—their parents, best friends—has no idea what they do. 

The show puts a lot of emphasis on trust and team work and relying on each other. 

Yes. What drew me to the true story was the idea of a group living together under tremendous pressure and all they have is each other. It’s a family. Everyone has had roommates; the difference here is your roommate carries a concealed weapon and is licensed to kill.

The other thing that fascinated me was that they are young and attractive, and most of them in the situation for the first time. You’ve got agents who are top of their class coming to L.A. on intense undercover assignments. The human dynamic kicks in pretty quickly; there’s all this crazy adrenaline going on.

You get home, you’ve just risked your life, and your roommate is someone of the opposite sex who’s really attractive. So they all end up hooking up quickly.

What do you do then, when two weeks later you can’t stand the sight of each other but you’ve got to come down to breakfast? You’re assigned to this house for a couple of years. Just that dynamic—that twisted soap opera—was so compelling.  

The show has a tagline, “Personal and professional don’t go well together.” Are you advising against getting mixed up with people you work with?

[laughing] The show doesn’t really take a stance on it! Probably if it’s anything, it’s “honesty is the best policy.” Because there is so much deceit coming in the house.

Briggs says to Charlie, “Your lies are your burden, mine are mine.” He’s saying, you don’t need to tell everyone the truth, because once they know the truth, they have to take on your burden. That’s Briggs’s excuse for not telling everyone what’s going on.

The show revolves around the alliances these characters form. They are all good people trying to do the right thing, but they all have different interpretations of “good.” For Briggs, it’s ‘the end justifies the means.’ For Mike, well, Mike wants to win. He wants to be the best. And that desire gets in the way of doing the right thing.

We’re trying to mesh those things; obviously, it’s a television show, so you go for maximum drama. 



Your female characters seem pretty tough.

With the real-life agents, the males and females are not that different. They approach a crime, an interrogation, and undercover operation much the same way. Most of them use what they got.

If they are an attractive female, they’re not afraid of using it. Because it is such a man’s world, the women who succeed tend to be really tough physically and emotionally. They put up with quite a bit, so they either grow thick skin, or they get out.

That informs the characters quite a bit with Vanessa [Ferlito] and Serinda [Swan], who play Charlie and Paige, they are both really really talented actors, which also helps.

For example for Paige, Serinda is fantastic, she does all her own stunts, she is absolutely fantastic with anything physical.

Vanessa is one of the most naturally talented people I have ever met. You can throw just about anything at her. Personally, I feel Vanessa would be an absolutely fantastic undercover agent. She is very much a chameleon.

How many writers do you have? Any women?

We have six writers on average. I usually have two females on staff every year, which is helpful with a show as dark as this.

In season two, Paige goes under with the sex trafficking group, which was a real touchy subject we were quite worried about. That engendered a lot of debate and discussion in the writer’s room.

What about the social media going on for your shows? 

It’s amazing. There is nothing better than checking that #GracelandTV [hash tag on Twitter] the night we air. I can watch in real time whether a joke, or story line, is working. In about two seconds, I’ll know if people like Paige’s new haircut.

Do you take the negative feedback to heart?

[laughing] That one really bad comment can mess you up pretty good! The only bad comments that get to me are the ones I know are right. Somebody will write, “That scene didn’t make any sense,” or they’ll call you on something you just knew was wrong.

But you realize you cannot please everybody. 

How is it, now, to work in television?

I think now is the probably the best time ever to work in television, the creative freedom and also the ability with digital effects and small, lightweight cameras to realize any vision is amazing.

Everyone is bemoaning that audiences are shrinking, but in a way it’s kind of nice: the audience we do get really loves the show.

You’re shooting for a niche audience, you don’t have to go for the broad audience; you can tell these small intimate stories, and you don’t have worry if it will appeal to ten million people. Anymore, if you are appealing to one million people, you’re doing pretty well. 

So what’s up for you next, Jeff Eastin?

I have an overall deal at Fox, which I’m really excited about. I would love to do something (hopefully) big and sci-fi for Fox Studios, obviously keeping Graceland on the air, let’s say through season seven. That’s my first priority, but beyond that I’d like to do a big, fun network show.