A reboot of the 1980s original, “The Equalizer” on CBS stars Queen Latifah in the title role and Chris Noth as her trusted ally.
“His name is Bishop and he’s formerly of the CIA,” said Noth. “They have a deep history of working together on different assignments all over the world. He’s saved her life and she’s saved his. And now she’s kind of gone rogue and it’s this idea of being someone you can call when the police don’t have an answer for you, which I think in today’s world can sound very attractive. So he’s not her protector, but sort of a mentor, sort of a brother, sort of a father who’s looking out for her. And, without letting anyone else know, he’s assisting her in her adventures.”
The show is set in New York, a locale most will associate with Noth’s career, from his time as Det. Mike Logan on the original “Law & Order” to his turn as Mr. Big on “Sex and the City.” But for fans of “The Good Wife,” he is also the fictional governor of Illinois and, funnily enough, Noth has real-life ties to Chicago. “My father’s side of the family is from Oak Park and my mother’s side of the family is from Madison, Wisconsin, so I’m very much a Midwestern boy.”
His career is filled with many high points, and when asked to talk about an experience from the opposite end of the spectrum, the story he told was about the show that made him famous.
My worst moment …
“I’d been on the original ‘Law & Order’ for five years from ’90-’95 and my contract was coming up. I was getting pretty well known in this particular part — or at least that’s how I felt — and it was like, well, I’m due a raise. Enough of this nonsense of being taken for granted, so to speak. So we were set to do a negotiation.
“At the same time, in the back of my head I was going: OK, I know what this show is, it’s a procedural. But it didn’t start that way. It started with us thinking we were making small, great, gritty movies each week. You have to remember, in the early ’90s, ‘Law & Order’ was an enigma in a way. It was different from most cop shows.
“It was less emphasis on character and more on storyline and procedure, and obviously people like that.
“I was coming out of Yale drama school and regional theater when I got ‘Law & Order.’ I’d had some guest roles on shows, but I was like every other actor, scrounging around for a job. So this was huge being in New York, and I knew who all the actors on the show were, like Michael Moriarty and George Dzundza, and I had so much respect for them. It was a very, very high testosterone show; I don’t know if people remember, but it was all guys in the beginning. And it was so rare to have a TV show shoot in New York, it was just a gift from the gods. So I rode on the ether of that for a few years.
“And then it starts to settle in that, ah geez, this is what it is: Dun-dun (laughs). I must say, those first years it wasn’t defined yet, but by the fifth year it got codified. That’s when I started to get bored and the magic sort of wore off.
“And that’s when the producer, Ed Sherin, asked me out to lunch. I thought: Oh that’s great, Ed never asks me out to lunch!
“We go to this restaurant and he sits down and goes, ‘So, we’re gonna fire you.’ (Long laugh) I was about to order the biggest steak and before I could make the order, he goes, ‘We’re not asking you back.’
“And the reason — and it’s not all wrong — was that Jerry (Orbach, who played Det. Lenny Briscoe) and I kind of canceled each other out because we had the same sort of behavior, the same way of looking at crime. We were written with the same sort of energy and sarcasm, you know? So there wasn’t enough of a contrast between Jerry and I.”
What was going through Noth’s mind while sitting at that table?
“I was thinking: Are you (freaking) kidding me? It’s not even a negotiation? You’re going to fire me before I quit? How dare you! (Laughs)
“Anyway, after 10 minutes he was like, ‘I guess you don’t feel like eating anymore,’ and I was like, ‘No, I don’t.’ So I never got to have the expensive lunch I was looking forward to. I was going to order oysters! And a T-bone!
“In that moment I was completely surprised because I was like, I’m not that expendable! They need me! I have value! So it was like, holy (crap).
“But what made me not totally be a wreck about it was that I already had one foot out the door, so I was also a little relieved. I was used to a fuller experience of acting and this had become rote for me.
“I admire people that spend 10 years doing shows like this because it’s boring after a while. Up to that point it was the most money I had ever made in my life, but for TV it was pretty low and maybe I was thinking, if they hit me with a huge number, maybe I should stay. But to be honest, I really don’t think I could have done 10 years of ‘Law & Order.’ I was still a young buck looking for big roles and I had an ego and I wanted to express myself more than I could on a procedural show. So that’s why part of me felt like … you fired me before I could quit!”
But Noth would return to the “Law & Order” franchise, first in 1998 TV movie “Exiled” and later as part of the cast of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”
“Yeah, I did! ‘Criminal Intent’ was after I had done ‘Sex and the City’ and it was such a great deal because I didn’t have to be in every single episode. Vince D’Onofrio was getting burned out by the schedule and I think it was a huge and exhausting experience and they needed to give him a break. So I would do an episode and then he would do an episode, so it was every other episode. And I thought, damn, that’s pretty good!
“As for ‘Exiled,’ that was a love story for me. My writing partner Charlie Kipps, I worked with him on the story and he did a brilliant job writing it. This was a movie that was all character and zero procedural. Basically, everything I wasn’t getting as an actor on the original ‘Law & Order’ we put into this as best we could. My biggest disappointment for ‘Exiled’ was that they forced the music on us, which I thought was corny, but that was part of the ‘Law & Order’ world.
“But I loved doing it. I think we did a pretty good job with it and it did very well. And we were going to do three-a-year after that and I was happy to do that. But what happened was, TV networks and production companies realized that the real money at the time was in a 22-episode TV series, not in three movies a season.”
The takeaway …
“Maybe I should have listened to the voice inside my head and not mess around thinking, well, maybe I’ll make more money. Deep in my heart I was feeling: I gotta leave this show. And I didn’t listen to that closely enough.
“I sort of hung on to see, hey, what are they going to offer me? How important am I to them? Let me see what they’re going to do to try to keep me (long laugh).
“Nothing, they’re going to do nothing (laughs).”
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