CSI: Miami's Eddie Cibrian Proves Less Is More in New TV Movie

As a cast member on CSI: Miami, Eddie Cibrian is used to big explosions, gory murder scenes and lots of action. However, Cibrian's new TV movie, Healing Hands, puts the old adage less is more to the test.

"The more subtle it is, the more believable it's going to be," Cibrian tells TVGuide.com. "[Director Bradford May] had the same idea, so when we were doing it, it was just a very subtle kind of thing we wanted to do on camera. We'll let the imagination of the viewers take it to the next level."

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Imagination is an essential ingredient in film, premiering Saturday at 9/8c on the Hallmark Channel. In the film, Cibrian plays Buddy, a loving fiancé and local janitor who survives a near-death experience with not just a new zest for life, but also the ability to heal people.

"At first I was a little skeptical. Here is a guy who just touches people and can just heal them, and I thought it was going to be a lot of hocus pocus stuff," Cibrian says, admitting he quickly changed his mind. "Around us, there's things that happen every day that we can't explain — things that we can attribute to a miracle or a higher power."

Cibrian shares his character's belief in an unexplainable higher power, and the similarities don't end there. "He has this wonderful attitude about life," Cibrian says. "Personally, I'm a very optimistic person in general. I tend to always be smiling and tend to always want to help somebody."

CSI: Miami explores new boundaries — geographic and cinematic

Cibrian has plenty of reasons for the cheery outlook, including his role as one of the CSI: Miami team's newest members. "The show has been on for eight seasons now and to step into it, I was like how is this going to be? Everyone is set in their ways, but I was welcomed with open arms," he says. "I came right in and the writers gave me a great little back story. I thought they introduced my character in a genius way. I feel like I've been on the show for five years."

That story line — which revealed the wife of Cibrian's character, Jesse, was murdered in Los Angeles and that the killer was never convicted —has moved front and center in recent episodes. On the March 1 episode, Jesse crossed his team members in his pursuit of his wife's murderer, Tony Enright, and Cibrian says there's more to come between the two. "He basically got away with murder again and [the producers] did tell me he's coming back," he says. "I think business will be handled finally, I hope."

Although many of Jesse's teammates have had trouble trusting him, Cibrian is confident about both his character's future and his own. "I think as far as I'm concerned, Jesse is trustworthy again," he says. "Jesse was always a good cop and still is a good cop. We finally found a little chemistry within the team that will probably stay for awhile."