On Saturday night (22 March) the first season of The Shield premiered on SET for a full run of all it's seven seasons, from start to finish.
The first season premiered in the US in 2002, the sixth season finished last year and the seventh, final season premieres later this year.
To mark the occasion I hooked up with Emmy nominated CCH Pounder, who stars as Detective Claudette Wyms across all seasons.
Here's what she had to say:
Tashi: Hello - thanks for chatting to TVSA. My very first question before any other - what do we call you? CCH or Carol?
CC: Hello, you’re welcome - CC’s fine. (laughs)
Tashi: How did you manage to organise getting the “and” in front of your name in The Shield's opening credits?
CC: Well I think I deserve it, I’ve been around long enough and in enough series (laughs).
Tashi: I’ve always wondered how it works - if it has to do with an actor having been in lots of things previously and built a reputation. So that’s what it means?
CC: It really is, yes.
Tashi: Why did you choose acting as a career?
CC: It chose me - I had an accident with a cricket ball, many years ago as a kid in England.
I went to a Convent school and the nuns taught me poetry to help improve my memory - and improving my memory meant reciting in front of them and when I did I gathered I was entertaining them and I liked it. That’s how it started - I just kept going with regional theatre and local theatre and I’d get loaned out.
Tashi: What was your very first TV moment?
CC: I don’t remember … I remember the first film appearance because it was so auspicious (All That Jazz in 1979), but I don’t remember TV … Oh! yes, it was in California - in Miami Vice.
Tashi: Really? The pink-‘80s Miami Vice.
CC: I always say women have to have a turn at playing a prostitute/hooker - that’s like the basic initiation of every actress that I know.
Tashi: So that’s what you played in the episode?
CC: No - I was a drug addict that sold her soul for drugs. She was an awful, awful miserable little character.
Tashi: You’re a founder of the group ANSA - Artists For A New South Africa - what does the group do?
CC: We’ve done a lot of changes - in the beginning (1989) we helped with the political process in terms of letting the Western world know - along with many, many, many other groups - the situation in South Africa during the Apartheid time when Nelson Mandela was running for the presidency.
We literally just gave him an opportunity to have his ideas heard by repeating them ourselves with press conferences etc. That was in the beginning, in fact we had to change our name because we were originally Artists For A Free South Africa.
After that wonderful change, we realized that that’s just the beginning of the work - we now work with Aids organizations and co-operates for women empowerment and we’ve been continuing to keep our fingers in South Africa with whatever help those organizations request of us.
Tashi: You also design jewellery that’s worn by Hollywood - tell us more.
CC: I did it as a fundraiser for different organizations and different needs that I’ve donated the funds to - emerging artists who need basic stuff like canvasses and brushes in West Africa. I give money to the Africa-Millenium foundation in Mozambique and I think twice I’ve done some fundraising for ANSA with it.
It’s just a little part of - you know - when you have an organization and you do bake sales and someone does knitting and I say, “Well I can make jewellery,” and somebody does something else so we’re all doing whatever we can to raise awareness for the people who need it.
Tashi: What type of jewellery is it?
CC: It’s gorgeous - that’s the best way I can describe it. I use semi-precious stones, mixed with old antique African beads - I call it the “trading up” beads. There’s always a trade bead within the jewellery - because the proceed’s are going back to an organization in Africa, there’s a re-empowerment for the very thing that you were sold for many moons ago. I use that symbolically to re-present the idea to you of: now use this to improve your lot.
Tashi: The crucial E! question - who wears you?
CC: (Laughs) Well, let me see… Mrs Jackson has my jewellery - Samuel Jackson’s wife, Mrs Washington - Denzel, Sharon Stone has a piece, Angela Witherspoon, everyone on The Shield of course, everyone from ER has had jewellery, George Clooney - it always starts with the people I’m working with.
I let them know I have an organisation and what we do and of course many of them over the years, they’ve all become aware of what’s happening in the world and they’ve all got projects they’re working on - as you know George has really been able to shine a huge spotlight on Darfur.
Tashi: Claudette - does she wear your jewellery when she goes out? Is she the sort?
CC: Claudette has worn my jewellery but it’s ever so modest that you wouldn’t even notice it. In the first two seasons there are just little stardetts because Claudette being the consummate detective would never have anything dangling long enough for it to be turned into a weapon for somebody else - she’d never get her ears pulled or her chain choked.
Tashi: To what extent is The Shield an accurate reflection of what happens in US police departments?
CC: The show’s an absolute fiction that’s steeped in the realties of our time - it’s the best way that I can put it.
The reaction from the people on the street, to me, isn’t as important as a police officer or a detective and that reaction has been really incredible.
I’ve been stopped by the police and they’ve said, “Fantastic job Miss, fantastic job,” so the feeling that they’re sensing that there’s truth in the fiction of what we’re doing is very present. I’ve heard it a lot from members of the police force and the fire department - we’re pretty accurate emotionally I think, that’s the big part.
Tashi: Do you feel like a detective after playing one for so many seasons?
CC: No, I realize that it’s a lot more than the surface work that we do - it’s a much tougher job but I do like detectives telling me I do a good job - it has a lot to do with who writes it too.
Tashi: If you were a detective would you be Claudette or would you be different?
CC: Oh I’d be very different because I’ve got other skills that I’d rely on more. Claudette’s very abrupt, very to the point - I think I’d sidle up to you and say, *sexy whisper* “Hi, did you kill you that guy?”
Tashi: What’s one of your most memorable moments from the show?
CC: There’s a really great scene in the first season between the captain and Claudette. They’re in a tiny little office and they’re just observing all the different races and their needs and wants and their sufferings and so on and they have the most intimate conversation about what their responsibility is and I think it’s one of the most powerful scenes that have been written.
Tashi: In the first episode Claudette says: “I don’t even want to know about it - anyone who gets between Mackey and Acedeva is just gonna end up with a hoseful of piss running down their leg.” Who’s side are you on - Mackey or Acaveda’s?
CC: Claudette is on Claudette’s side. You'll discover that very, very quickly - she’s on her way to retirement and “don’t mess up my paperwork.”
Tashi: Who’s side are you, CC on?
CC: Catherine Dent plays the fantastic role of Danny Sofer - she represents people in uniform very, very well - I’m on her side because those are the people at street level.
Tashi: With Mackey and Aceveda - you can’t work out whether they’re good or bad. It’s the same for both of them.
CC: I always say the show deals with the grey - they don’t really invest that much energy in the white, which would be considered the good or the black, which would be considered the bad but it’s that fantastic mixture of both that we all have.
It’s just deciding which way we’re going to go that day, whether we’re going to let our bad little selves act up or our good little selves shine through - it’s one of the greyest shows on television. For years TV shows have made it clear who’s good and who’s bad and this really doesn’t.
Tashi: Who’s your fave character?
CC: Without a doubt my partner Dutch (played by Jay Karnes). Up until the final season he remains my favourite character the entire time.
I would say that it became one of the greatest television marriages ever in the sense that we were partners and in that partnership you get to see the good, the bad and the ugly and by the end of the seventh season it remains the best relationship
ever in television history - and I’m not biased. (laughs)
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Fast facts on CC:
CC's full name is Carol Christine Hilaria.
She was born in Guyana and was raised on a sugar plantation.
Her movie credits include roles in Face/Off, Postcards From The Edge, End Of Days and the classic Baghdad Cafe - she starred as Brenda.
Jamie Foxx thanked her in his acceptance speech when he won his Oscar for Ray in 2004.
She was nominated for an Emmy in the category Outstanding Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Claudette in 2005.
In 2003 and 2004 she won a Satellite Award (awarded by International press) for Claudette in the category Best Performance by an Actress in a Series, Drama.
Between 1994 and 1997 she played Dr Angela Hicks on ER and was nominated for an Emmy for the role in 1997.
Her other TV appearances include roles on The Practice, Hill Street Blues, The West Wing, Law and Order and The X-Files - which she got her first Emmy nomination for in 1995.
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The Shield's on SET on Saturdays at 20h50, with new episodes weekly.