THE INDEPENDENT: Scott Caan: On the crest of a crime wave
His performances in TV's Hawaii Five-O have wowed critics and fans all over the world. Guy Adams joins Hollywood's rising star on location.
Tuesday 27 December 2011
by Guy Adams
What better place to meet Scott Caan than the Hilton on Honolulu's Waikiki Beach? This dirty great monument to high-rise tourism flashes confidently across the opening credits of Hawaii Five-0. Since he happens to be the breakout star of this recently-rebooted TV series, which is filmed on a sound-stage just a few blocks away, we are therefore in what fans regard as his natural habitat.
To viewers of the show, or at least its modern re-imagining, Caan is Danny "Danno" Williams, a swaggering cop with an occasional temper who spends each episode chasing bad guys and getting told to "Book 'em, Danno!" His preposterous quiff and rolled-up shirt-sleeves are as central to the new "Five-0" franchise as fast cars, shoulder-holsters, and the opening bars of its splendid theme tune...
... One obvious answer would be Hawaii Five-O. The 1970s show was re-launched last year, with an easy-on-the-eye cast and expensive production values. The end result is fun and frothy. Audiences in several continents lap it up (and a second series [season] commences in the UK on 1 January). It is what you might call reliable, mainstream weeknight entertainment; CSI meets Baywatch, with some intriguing narrative journeys into the dark side of Aloha culture.
Caan is probably the best thing about the show. His character, a grumpy foil to Steve McGarrett (played by Alex O'Loughlin) is both the programme's most complex individual and its comic fulcrum. In the first series [season], he chased cops and robbers, and was beleaguered by a broken marriage. This series, his romantic problems continue. Though Caan's own love life is sunnier than his alter ego's – he describes his relationship status as "taken" – he does admit to a similarly melancholic disposition. "I don't think anyone's ever good doing a part where they don't bring a lot of themselves to it. So I think, yeah, I'm a lot like Danno," he says. "Like him, there's a part of me that wakes up miserable every day. And I've got to shake it off. There's a part of me that hates things. I think I'm a pretty cheery person when I meet people. I mean, I have a good outlook. But deep down, yeah, I sometimes want to jump off a balcony..."
Hawaii Five-0 airs Monday at 10/9C on CBS in the US.
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