Eriq La Salle on developing ‘On Call’s’ ‘imperfect’ hybrid style and returning to acting
Joyce Eng
Since his time on ER, Eriq La Salle has focused on directing for most of the past two decades, becoming a staple in the Dick Wolf universe. He's worked on Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Chicago P.D. (including serving as an executive producer for five years), Chicago Med, and FBI. So it was no surprise when he got the call for the prolific producer's new drama On Call.
"They just called up and said, 'Hey, we've got this cool pilot, we'd love you to do it,'" La Salle tells Gold Derby. "I took a look at it and read it in, I don't know, like, 29 minutes, and said 'yes' in 30 minutes. It was just pretty much a no-brainer."
Signing on in 30 minutes is apt since On Call is Wolf's first half-hour series. The Prime Video police drama follows veteran officer Traci Harmon (Troian Bellisario) training her rookie partner Alex Diaz (Brandon Larracuente) in Long Beach, Calif. Created by Tim Walsh and Elliot Wolf, Wolf's son, On Call was always designed to be a half-hour drama — a rare format nowadays that La Salle would like to see make a comeback.
"It's really a throwback to the old dramas back in the '60s that really captured our attention and really held it. And they always felt, in a good way, like they were longer than they were because they had such substance to it and resonated," he says. "You think of, like, Adam-12, Naked City. There were so many cool shows back then, and they were actually half-hours, and we've gotten away from that. And so this really lent itself to return to that format. I just kind of thought like, 'Who better to sort of lead us back there than the Dick Wolf camp?' I think as we're as this industry is struggling with sort of coming up with a new image and a new approach and a new format of how we entertain. I thought this was just right on time."
La Salle, who also joined as executive producer, directed four episodes of the eight-episode first season, including the pilot — his Emmy submission — in which he established the look of the show. On Call incorporates footage from body cams, dash cams, and cell phones, creating a voyeuristic, cinéma vérité feel.
"Part of our training was to do ride-alongs, and we wanted to basically put the audience in and make them feel that they were in the cop car, doing a ride-along, a day in the life of a cop," La Salle says. "You want the unsteadiness of the body cam. You want the imperfect framing. This is not about beauty. It's about the truth and the grit of what is happening in that moment. You sometimes want a little separation. You want a dash cam where we want to pull the audience in and make them feel like they need to look harder to see what's really going on because they can't see everything perfectly."
The three-time Emmy nominee credits the "collaborative effort" between his crew to find the right "alchemy" for the hybrid footage. "I just have to be very clear when I'm explaining my vision and I just love talented people that can take that and run with it," he continues. "Adam Silver, who's our DP, was just so gung-ho about all of it. And we experimented a lot. And then our editor was essential as well because we were still finding the balance the alchemy of all of this, even in post. 'How much is too much?' 'OK, let's cut a little bit of the body cam out.' 'Maybe it's too much. It's not appropriate.' It was a process and it was really cool. But everyone jumped in. I think we got to a point where, like, 'OK, we're close, but wasn't still quite it.' And then we made some more adjustments. And then it was like, 'That's it. That's the right amount. Not too much, not too little.' It was very important to us in honoring what I think is a great script. We never wanted the show in any way to feel gimmicky."
La Salle hadn't been onscreen in almost a decade and never intended to act on On Call. His BFF and former ER co-star Michael Beach was cast as Sgt. Lasman but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Other actors were considered before La Salle decided to take on the role himself, inspired by another actor-director-producer on one series.
"I have a lot of admiration and respect for what Jason Bateman did with Ozark. And obviously he did it on a much larger scale than what I did. He was the lead. He was in pretty much every scene, all of that, but I just thought he did such a fantastic job," he says. "I strive to be sort of in the very small class of multi-hyphenates. There are endless numbers of actors, there are tons of directors, there are tons of producers. It's much smaller a scale for people that do all of that."
La Salle, who's also an award-winning novelist, "absolutely" felt rusty getting back in front of the camera. He relied a lot on Bellisario, with whom he shared his most intense scenes as their characters frequently clashed. "She has a very easy way about her. She has, and more importantly — or equally important, I should say — a very honest way about how she approaches the craft. And so when part of my brain is over here thinking about the directing, and part of it is over here, thinking about the overall production — I just leaned on her more. There was just something about me locking eyes with her, and maybe with maybe she saw the pleading in my eyes," he says with a laugh. "I thought we had fantastic chemistry, but I felt everyone had great chemistry. ... By the end of the shoot, I started feeling much more comfortable. But yeah, there were some times in the beginning I was like, 'Oh man, I am rusty. I haven't hit that note in a long time.'"
Prime Video canceled On Call last month, but the show is being shopped to other platforms, including Peacock, which streams Wolf's NBC projects. "Everyone would love to [do a second season]," La Salle says. "It's a great, great cast and crew. We became very close. We'd love that, but it's up to the powers that be."
On Call is streaming on Prime Video.
