It doesn't matter how many phony shoot-outs you do as an actor. Nothing prepares you for the real deal. "There's smoke in the air and I can see it and taste it," Jason Clarke says with reverence in his voice. He's recalling one of the many ride-alongs he was on with Chicago law enforcement in preparation to play a detective on The Chicago Code, Fox's new cop drama from The Shield creator Shawn Ryan. "Our car pulls up and there's a guy on the ground. He's been shot. It's nighttime. We're outside a church. My heart is pounding and my mind is going, 'What the hell am I doing here?'"
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Cheers to Delroy Lindo for his magnificent performance on The Chicago Code.
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On the other end of the phone, Jennifer Beals is reading a Carl Sandburg poem titled "Chicago." Scratch that — she's performing it.
The poem celebrates Chicago's blue-collar work ethic as what trumps portrayals of the city as a corrupt, dangerous place to live. It's the best way for Beals, a Windy City native and star of Fox's The Chicago Code, to explain how she — and her character, Police Superintendent Teresa Colvin — feel about the place they call home.
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Question: I really like the new show The Chicago Code; I am from Chicago and also love the fact that it is shot on location here. My only issue with the show is Jennifer Beals' HORRIBLE attempt at a Chicago accent (and I love her). It is especially grating when she is narrating the story. I have lived in Chicago my whole life, and I can tell you that most people do not have that Dennis Franz (or the SNL characters') accent. That is a South Side thing and only a portion of the South Side actually talks that way. I will say that Jason Clarke not only nails the South Side accent but also the whole South Side mentality of a diehard White Sox fan who hates the Cubs (Sox fans are an angry bunch). Everyone I know that has watched the show has had the same reaction to her and it almost makes the show unwatchable. What do you think? Why can't they just let her talk normally?
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Cheers to The Chicago Code for unleashing the bear inside Jason Clarke.
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The Australian actor is probably best known to American audiences as Tommy Caffee, the velvet-glove politician to Jason Isaacs' iron-fisted sibling Michael on Showtime's late, great Brotherhood. But as detective Jarek Wysocki in Fox's Windy City cop drama, he blows through crime scenes like a man on a tornado-like mission to uproot corruption. He's an instantly fascinating character, and Clarke charges him with kinetic energy.
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