Caffeinated Clint
I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Great actor. Great guy. Real Screen Presence (“One of Hollywood’s last smokers”, Eric Stoltz – who directed Morgan in an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” – once told me, likening Morgan to prestigious old Hollywood talent like Grant and Tracy).
Morgan’s star rose really quickly. He was a regularly employed TV actor who, mainly thanks to his role as the bed-ridden charmer ‘Denny’ on “Grey’s Anatomy”, got real popular, real quick.
Next thing he knows Morgan’s being thrown bones in the likes of Hollywood offerings like “P.S, I Love You” and “Watchmen”. Good flicks, even if they didn’t set the box office on fire.
Morgan hasn’t had a lot of luck in recent times though. Though steadily employed in films, none of them – in fact his latest, “The Resident” is going direct to DVD in most territories – have done much to substantiate claims that Morgan belongs where he’s found himself.
Seemingly a little crushed by how things have turned out himself, Morgan is headed back to TV – the place that loves him best. And the series might just be better than any film out right now anyway – based on who’s involved.
According to Deadline, Morgan is in final negotiations to lead Mitch ‘The Recruit’ Glazer’s next show “The Magic City”, a “Scarface”-esque series set in a Miami hotel. This one sounds beaut, it’s “Set in Miami in the late 1950s-early 1960s, Magic City chronicles the collision of mobsters, politicians and entertainers at the first preeminent Miami hotel just as Fidel Castro takes control of Cuba and shuts down Havana as a gambling haven. It centers on a suave Jewish-American man (Morgan) who builds the hotel and along the way makes some strange bedfellows and many powerful enemies.”
Morgan, who has also starred in the likes of “The Losers” and “Shanghai”, will – should the deal come off – begin filming the series shortly in Miami. “The Magic City” will air 2012.
