Transcipt:

Orlando Jones: My first guest plays FBI Agent Martin Fitzgerald on the CBS drama "Without A Trace." Please take a look at Eric Close...

[final scene from the episode "The Bus" from "Get some sleep, will ya?" to "Nothing worse than a beautiful woman drinking alone"]

Orlando Jones: Please welcome Eric Close [audience cheering]

Orlando Jones: What's up, man? How you doing?

Eric Close: I'm good.

Orlando Jones: Yeah.

Eric Close: Yeah.

Orlando Jones: Excellent.

Eric Close: How are you doing?

Orlando Jones: I got no complaints, man. I got no complaints. [looks at the image of EC on the wall] Yeah, you're up there...

Eric Close: [laughs]

Orlando Jones: ...looking all handsome and whatnot.

Eric Close: That's ugly.

Orlando Jones: That's an ugly picture? So you just want to contradict whatever I say. Fine. [laughs] You are on Without A Trace...

Eric Close: Yep.

Orlando Jones: and the show is actually very topical. Was that something that really kind of drew you to the project?

Eric Close: Yeah, when I read the script... the story was the first thing I look at and it was a great story and the show deals with... with missing persons. We're FBI agents, someone goes missing and we go find them. And... it is topical. We... unfortunately, there's a lot of people that go missing and... it's heightened during the summer. There were a ton of kids that went missing. The cool thing is the Amber Alert. I mean, we all become FBI agents as we're driving. You drive... it's great... but then the traffic accidents go up because everyone is trying to write down...

Orlando Jones: [laughs] Hitting people left and right. And the character you play is what... how would you describe him?

Eric Close: Well, Martin... he starts out, he's kind of a straight-laced guy, he comes there, he's the "new" guy, he's the rookie, he's got to prove himself. And he also... he's got a dad who's in a powerful position so they think he's sort of got favor and that's how he got this job but he didn't...

Orlando Jones: Right

Eric Close: but he's got to prove himself. Well, then he finally does that, the team accepts him in and then this new season, our second season... they're kind of darkening Martin up a bit. They're letting him go to some places that he wouldn't go before and... he's kind of an impulsive guy and he does things that get him in trouble.

Orlando Jones: So they maybe taking maybe a little bit of you and putting it in the character...

Eric Close: Oh yeah.

Orlando Jones: ...'cause you're kind of the daredevil or so I'm told.

Eric Close: That's right. OH yeah... [grins] Oh yeah, I love the... I kind of like to live on the edge a little bit and do some... some extreme things... bungee jumping, scuba diving. My wife just got certified so we went out and dove this crater called Molokini and within seconds we were at a hundred feet with sharks swimming around and stuff. And I started trippin'...

Eric Close: Yeah, I would be too...

Eric Close: ...I thought I was going to be fine and I started like hyperventilating and my wife is just cruising along... check out that shark...

Orlando Jones: Now you mean... the shark is right there. You're not in a cage or anything?

Eric Close: Right there. As close as you and I are.

Orlando Jones: See, man, this is where I... you know what... [shaking his head as the audience laughs] that's impressive.

Eric Close: [encouraging him] Come on...

Orlando Jones: I'm serious. This is something that...

Music Director [off stage]: That's a Caucasian thing,

Orlando Jones: Black people will never do this, dog.

Eric Close: [laughs]

Orlando Jones: I swear to God. You will never... first of all, that's why they invented pools so you could stay your a** out the ocean. [laughs] Messing with those sharks... but I'm fascinated with it... with scuba diving because... people say you get the bends, you go down to far and the whole...

Eric Close: Oh, yeah. It's kind of fun and it's adventurous and I like to do that kind of stuff.

Orlando Jones: No, it's very cool. You got...

Eric Close: And they incorporate it into the show. Like this last episode we just shot... where this guy goes missing and then he falls off this cliff so they've got me jumping over this cliff and scaling down...

Orlando Jones: Oh... that's hot... so they're taking stuff from the hidden show [editorial note: don't ask me] and putting it in Without A Trace...

Eric Close: Absolutely.

Orlando Jones: This is your sixth series that you've done.

Eric Close: Yeah.

Orlando Jones: And now you actually have a big hit out of this... [audience clapping]

Eric Close: Thank you

Orlando Jones: So, my question is how does that feel after sort of having gone on through the run of "you did the pilot, that didn't work, you did another show, that didn't work" and now you're kind of in the big hit show and going into the second season.

Eric Close: I'll tell you... I knew when I first read this... plus Jerry Bruckheimer is the executive producer, everything this guy touches turns to gold.

Orlando Jones: Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Close: It was kind of a no-brainer when I read that... so... I probably would've signed on if he was producing "Shipmates"...

Orlando Jones: [big laugh]

Eric Close: You've just got to stick it out... and I'm glad I did because this show... this summer we were the number two show on TV during the summer so it gave us a ton of momentum coming into this season. [audience clapping] so We've been rockin'.

Orlando Jones: I'm a fan, man... and I've been watching you through many those so please... hopefully, you'll come back and see me.

Eric Close: You bet.

Orlando Jones: Good luck on the show. [audience cheering] It's Without A Trace, Thursday nights at 10 p.m. on CBS.