Cool reborn
BY CATHERINE WOULFE
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LL Cool J is sitting about 70cm from me. He’s huge. His biceps are so big they’re smoothing out the creases in his brand-new khaki jersey. Even his laugh is enormous.
He spots the plate of gourmet chocolates on our table. Those big brown eyes light up.
Just before he lunges across the table, one of his PR team brings him a plate of fruit. LL (real name James Todd Smith) is ridiculously happy.
“Oh wow, thank you! The fruits of my labour.”
We laugh.
The 41 year-old hip-hop legend turned TV star extends a great, gold-watched paw and plucks a grape from the bunch. The grape squeals in terror.
Todd mulches it, grabs another, and starts raving about NCIS: LA, the massively successful spinoff to NCIS, the most-watched show in America.
Todd and Chris O’Donnell are the stars of the spin-off. They play undercover agents: O’Donnell’s character, G Callen, is a street-smart guy with a legendary knack for undercover work, while Todd’s character, ex-Navy Seal Sam Hanna, is a sort of father figure to Callen.
The unlikely pair click on-screen and off, Todd says.
“It was one of those ‘add water’ things. It doesn’t always work like that.”
Although O’Donnell is meant to be the lead agent, it’s Todd who dominates on screen. In the premiere, the big man sprints after a baddies’ car, looking so steely I expect him to turn into the Terminator.
“I was running downhill,” he says with a laugh. “Have you ever run downhill and tried to stop on a dime? Your knees feel like Slinkies.”
Todd wasn’t happy with how he acted in that first episode. “I pick myself apart. I’m very critical. Extremely critical. I always have been.”
But he’s adamant that he’s serious about TV. His 1988 hit, Going Back To Cali, has been used to promote the show, but that’s the limit of the crossover.
“One thing I don’t want people to feel is that this is some sort of platform I’m using to reignite the music … I’m passionate about the show.
“Obviously in my past with my music … I’ve experienced some high levels of, you know, success in that genre (hip-hop). But this is the first time that I’ve done something that’s so mainstream and so across the board and is touching so many people.”
Someone asks whether he would have been ready to commit himself to a TV show before now. He rips the top off a strawberry and splutters with laughter.
“Absolutely not … You know, I might have showed up late here with a red mink on or something ... I would have been pouring you all champagne, two bottles.”
He mimes pouring us drinks and gives a slurred shout. “Come on, what are you talking about? Ask me something. Ask me something!”
It’s all an act: Todd’s on a short leash these days, although with the fruit gone he can’t resist the chocolates.
“Damn, that looks good. I can’t take it no more.”
With a chocolate smear on his chin, he talks us through his work-out regime: I suspect it involves injecting lead into his guns, but he says it’s just weights and running four times a week, plus a trainer he’s brought out to LA.
“He comes to the set, gives me disgusting meals … He brings me the worst chicken and tuna fish in history.”
NCIS: LA premieres at 9.30pm Monday on TV3.
- © Fairfax NZ News
