Marc Anthony cops a series role on TNT
Marc Anthony joins the cast of TNT's "Hawthorne" Tuesday, 10 p.m. Photo Credit: TNT Credit: TNT/
Salsa superstar Marc Anthony becomes a series regular on TNT's "Hawthorne" when it returns for its third season tonight at 10.
"I have always wanted to do episodic TV, and I had been talking about it for the last year and a half with [wife] Jennifer [Lopez] because I could be in one place," he says. The show, starring Jada Pinkett Smith as strong-willed nurse Christina Hawthorne, has Anthony playing Det. Nick Renata.
In the character's introduction last season, Renata was ready to arrest Hawthorne for interfering in a foster care situation. By the end of that episode, they went out for a pancake dinner. There was great chemistry between them, and a scene on a park bench showed two characters sitting closer than colleagues would, at ease with each other.
As Renata, Anthony has just the right swagger.
"He's extremely complex, powerful, but weak," Anthony says of his character. "He's powerfully vulnerable. It's all about layers with Renata.
"To play Renata on a daily basis has to be one of the coolest jobs I ever had in my life, especially with the arc of the season," he adds. "What actor on the planet would not want to play Renata?"
Executive producer and writer John Tinker says he wishes Anthony's schedule allowed for more.
"Both character and actor have a worldview unlike anyone on the show, and it not only allows us to explore a quite different point of view but forces the characters to confront things they otherwise wouldn't confront in the confines of James River Hospital.
"I've talked to Marc about other things he would like to be a part of," Tinker continues. "He has a real narrative sense; he has an inherent dramatic structure about storytelling that is unique."'
Separately, Anthony brings up how singing and acting are different ways of storytelling.
"Acting is an extension, very much like singing to me," Anthony says. "It is storytelling. I am very comfortable in the storytelling department, only when I sing I have four minutes to tell the story, and when I am acting, I have a lot more time."
