THE rap sheet on August March, the newest character to match wits with the "Hawaii Five-0" squad, is a tale of schemes and murder.
When police captured him in 1975, the conniving Honolulu smuggler was about to shoot his henchman, who had murdered two men on March’s orders.
March went to prison, but now, 37 years later, he’s a free man. And who should come to him looking for help to solve a crime? The same lawman who brought him to justice: Steve McGarrett.
Impossible, of course. "Five-0" then is not "Five-0" now. But tonight’s episode of the rebooted crime drama will put a wrinkle in television time and merge plots, both generations of the series and the same actor who originally starred as the smuggler: Ed Asner.
The 82-year-old Emmy-winning actor spent several days last month reprising his sleazy smuggler on the set of the new "Five-0." It was a blast, perhaps even more fun than the first time, he said. When Asner was on the set in 1975, Jack Lord — who starred as McGarrett — oversaw the show with "an imperial presence."
The new crew, Asner said, is "more human."
"I enjoyed the actors on the show very much," he said. "We had a great time stirring soup together — the soup of film. And I don’t think you will find it thin gruel."
But Asner thinks age might have something to do with the reception he received — and he says that with a laugh, too.
"I gotta face it, they have respect for an elder citizen, which I wasn’t with Jack Lord," Asner said. "Lord was the elder citizen when I played with him. I got great respect from these guys and at the same time, live action."
In tonight’s episode, which also marks the return of Taryn Manning as McGarrett’s sister Mary Ann, the "Five-0" crew reach out to March to help arrange a sting after Mary Ann is arrested for trying to smuggle $20 million worth of diamonds.
ASNER didn’t need to review the original episode — Season 8’s "Wooden Model of a Rat," available on Netflix — but said he’s eager to see the completed version of the new one.
"I want to see that contrast," he said of the episodes shot decades apart. "That will be very interesting."
The idea to reprise a character from the original series came from Peter Lenkov, the executive producer of "Five-0," who oversees all aspects of the rebooted version. He had been sitting on the idea for a year, thinking "maybe it is too unconventional to do," when a CBS executive called to see whether there was a way to tie something to the "Five-0" that aired from 1968 to 1980.
Lenkov thought Asner’s character was a perfect fit.
"I remember this episode fondly, and that’s part of the reason I was excited to revisit the world and the character of August March," Lenkov said.
Some of the original episode is used as a flashback. References to the existence of a state police task force called "Five-0" are left out. In the new series, the unit was created in 2010, and nothing about it existed in the Hawaii of 1975 — except McGarrett’s father as a young cop charged with driving March to prison.
ASNER WAS immediately interested in the idea of coming back, largely because he has a working relationship with Lenkov stemming from a guest role on "CSI: New York" in 2009, when Lenkov was an executive producer on the show. Asner earned an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Abraham Klein, a World War II Nazi who was hiding out as a Jew. (The episode, "Yahrzeit," can be found on Netflix, too: Season 5, Episode 22.)
"I loved doing that," Asner said. "I was nominated for an Emmy — didn’t get it. But I haven’t been getting such well-written characters, such interesting characters as Peter provided in that show."
The two would talk about working together whenever they met for dinner, Lenkov telling Asner he wanted to give him something special.
"He was able to do some research, find the character I did before and was able to make the connection that they didn’t fry me for my crimes of that time, and put me in the pokey for 30 years," Asner said. "And how convenient. Now I am coming out to continue to do my evil."
Asner has been a steadily working actor since the late 1950s, amassing 389 titles on his résumé of film and television credits. He perhaps is best known as Lou Grant, a newsman who was a mainstay on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" for seven seasons before starring in the dramatic spinoff "Lou Grant," which aired for five seasons. More recently he was the voice of Carl Frederickson, the cranky homeowner in Disney-Pixar’s animated hit "Up."
Throughout his career Asner has been a character actor, embracing his quirks, foibles and hard-bitten exterior in an industry that more often valued leading men for their sheer beauty.
"The best acting always comes from character men anyway," he said. "So I decided to go on eating my food and staying plump and being a character man and enjoying it."
The industry rewarded Asner for the characters he delivered: He’s been nominated for Emmy Awards 17 times, going home the winner seven times — more than any other male actor — and has collected five Golden Globes.
All that bodes well for the encore of August March.
"I regard myself as a Stradivarius," Asner said. "When I am given the lines written by a good writer, the lines are notes, and when those notes are played upon my Stradivarius, they sound better than on any other violin."
