Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270335
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY BUCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SERIES LOOKS AT `CRIME & PUNISHMENT'
Rachel Ticotin says that in NBC's "Crime & Punishment" she takes her detective role a step beyond policewomen she's played in the past."I think what's new for me is I play a fully developed character," she says. "You see me not only at work, but at home. I get to create all the back story. They gave it to me, and I added to it. You get to see a complete person."
"Crime & Punishment" debuts Wednesday (at 10 p.m. on WSLS-Channel 10) for a six-episode tryout, pre-empting "Law & Order," also created by Dick Wolf. The second episode appears on Thursday at 10 p.m., pre-empting "L.A. Law." The following week the show is again on Wednesday and Thursday, and after that on Thursdays for two weeks.
"Crime & Punishment" has a documentary feel to it, like Wolf's "Law & Order," but after the crime is solved it does not follow through with the prosecution side. Mostly what sets it apart is that the characters talk to the camera about their actions and feelings.
Ticotin plays Annette Rey, whose detective partner is played by Jon Tenney. Rey is also the unwed mother of a teen-age daughter who is as rebellious as she was at that age.
"She and her daughter have been separated for years and have to re-invent their relationship," she says. "The daughter is doing basically what she did when she was 17. She's trying to be a good mother, a hip mother, but she's looking at her daughter and seeing the mistakes she made at that age.
"Annette never married," she says. "She had the child, and because she didn't have a good relationship with her own parents the child was raised by the paternal grandmother. The father didn't want anything to do with the child and took off. None of this is in the show, but we have to know it to know how to play it."
Ticotin says she feels Annette Rey is a sad character.
"She's had a lot in her life," she says. "She didn't get along with her parents. After she had a child she felt she could become a police officer. She's the only one responsible for her daughter. It's a challenge to play this character and make her likable."
Ticotin says playing the role is giving her practice in how to deal with a teen-age daughter. Ticotin, who is divorced, has an 8-year-old daughter, Greta.
Ticotin plays Robert Duvall's detective partner in the just-released movie "Falling Down," which also stars Michael Douglas. She also played a policewoman in "Where the Day Takes You," and in "Total Recall" she was Arnold Schwarzenegger's gun-toting Martian companion.
"I talked to a lot of detectives and hung out with them for `Falling Down,"' she says. "I learned how to enter a room the right way and that the worst thing you can do is hold your gun straight up. I got `Falling Down' right after I'd met with Dick Wolf about `Man and Machine.'
"I didn't get that, but Dick remembered me for `Crime & Punishment.' I played two LAPD detectives back-to-back. They're so different. You learn it's not just the role it's all the things that go on around you that make the difference."
Ticotin says she was sought out because Wolf wanted the character to look a certain way. It's indicated that the character is Hispanic, but Ticotin says she feels the character could be anything.
"The perception of who lives in this country has changed," she says. "Characters can be anything if it's not mentioned."
Ticotin says her mother is of Puerto Rican descent and her father is Russian Jewish.
She grew up in New York, where she attended the High School of Music and Art and the Professional Children's School.
"The first paying job I had was in a revival of `The King and I' on Broadway," she says. "I was 10 and I played a princess. I was the one who picked up Anna's dress."
At 12 she danced with the Ballet Hispanico, but she eventually turned to acting because of numerous dancing injuries.
She made her film debut in "Fort Apache, The Bronx." Her other films include "FX2," "One Good Cop" and "Critical Condition." She's also starred in such TV movies as "Keep the Change," "When the Bough Breaks," "Rockabye," "Spies, Lies and Naked Thighs," and "Love, Mary" and the recent "From the Files of Joseph Wambaugh: Jury of One."
She was the "only woman paratrooper in the barracks" in the series "For Love and Honor" and was a lawyer heading a government task force in "Ohara."