When Homicide began pre-production, Polito was asked to audition, and was initially reluctant - he didn't want move to Baltimore for the series, because ШУУД ҮЗЭХ and
When Homicide began pre-production, Polito was asked to audition, and was initially reluctant - he didn't want move to Baltimore for the series, because he had just relocated from New York to Los Angeles. The script he received featured a dialogue scene between two detectives, one Polish American and the other Irish-American. Polito decided that the part he wanted was that of the Irishman, but he was told that he could not read for it. After reading for the part of the Polish-American detective, Polito added a message on his audition tape, saying that if the producers wanted to call him back, he would only be interested if he could take the part of the Irish detective. Series co-creators Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana did call him back, and they rewrote the character as an Italian, and cast him in the role. The other character, the Polish-American detective, was also rewritten, becoming Det. Meldrick Lewis, played by African-American actor Clark Johnson.[Polito was written out of Homicide at the end of Season 2 (explained by his character taking extended leave). The reality behind the move was that the producers were under pressure from their network NBC to include a new female character (Megan Russert), hoping to gain broader appeal for the show (which rated poorly). Although Polito was unhappy about the character's departure, co-producer Tom Fontana assured him that he would be brought back later in the season. However, Polito's previous experiences with producers led him to mistrust Fontana's assurances, so he went to the media to express his unhappiness, speaking critically of the producers' handling of NBC's demands:"I actually said in one newspaper, "The producers of the show are like the people on the Titanic," and the writer said, "You mean they're the captain of the ship?" and I said "No, no. They're on the iceberg saying, 'This way. Come this way.'" That's in print and that was wrong
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