Edward Burns Goes 'Public' With His NYPD Obsession

Edward Burns has been writing heartfelt New York stories about siblings, love, marriage, and infidelity since he burst onto the indie film scene in 1995 with Sundance winner The Brothers McMullen. But he’s always wanted to write a good old-fashioned cops and criminals tale. “It has been a lifelong obsession with the New York City police department because my dad, my uncle, and a bunch of cousins and childhood buddies were cops,” Burns tells Yahoo TV. “I was fascinated with the gangster and cop stories they told me over the years.”

He’s written just shy of 10 movie scripts that deal with the subject matter over the years, but never had any luck getting them made. His luck is about to change as TNT has given him the backing and support needed to create, write, direct, produce, and act in Public Morals, a moody 1960s-set series about a vice squad who lives in a moral gray area while they police non-violent crimes starring Michael Rapaport, Brian Dennehy, and Timothy Hutton. Burns spoke with Yahoo TV about filming in his beloved hometown, and having the guts to kill off the cast’s only Oscar winner in the pilot.

Why this project? Why now?
I’ll answer the second part first. Like most people, my viewing habits have changed over the last 15 years. I found myself not going to the art house cinema as frequently as I used to because I was staying at home watching all the great programming on cable television, starting with The Sopranos and carrying through the final episodes of Mad Men. I was looking at the types of stories you can tell on cable. I was reading all these interviews with creators talking about the creative freedoms and great support the networks have been giving them. Then, two years ago, I got the opportunity to act in one — a show TNT did called Mob City with Frank Darabont — and I got to see it firsthand. Frank had all the money in the world. The folks at TNT couldn’t have been more supportive of his vision. And I thought, “What am I doing banging my head against the wall, year after year, trying to scrape together money to make an independent film, then going through another painful process of trying to sell that movie, and then an even more painful process of trying to find an audience?” I just said, “You know what? Maybe it’s time for me to think about doing television.”

I had probably written seven feature-length scripts that have to do with either cops or gangsters in New York. I never got any of them made, so when the opportunity presented itself, I said, “Why don’t I take these two obsessions I have and marry them together?” I probably took a few things out of those old scripts. As is typical of my films, it’s really a family drama dressed up as a cops and gangsters story.

Did the script require a ton of research? 
No. Given what a great job Mad Men did of that, I was not looking to make a show about the 1960s. I was looking to make a show about NYC folklore and the stories I had heard or read about that go back to Teddy Roosevelt’s days as the police commissioner of New York and all through the1980s, and the rise and the fall of the famous gang on West Side called the Westies. I wanted to pull from this enormous resource of archetypes and stories. I just happened to set it in the 1960s. But it certainly is not a show about the1960s. It’s as historically accurate as, let’s say, Gatsby was or The Godfather was. I’m telling stories of cops and gangsters, but I’m not trying to say, “Hey, this is what really happened back then.”

The public morals division is a real thing, right?
Yes, there was a division called public morals. In a lot of other cities, it was called vice. It was established in NYC right after the Depression. They separated nonviolent or victimless crimes like gambling, drinking on Sundays, gay bars, and prostitution from violent crimes. So this morals division was set up to handle crimes there wasn’t much public support to police which led to cops trying to profit on it. You can’t pick up a book about the history of NYC or the NYPD and not hear about institutionalized, organized corruption — where the cops look the other way in return for payouts and favors. They wouldn’t lock up the madam that ran the whorehouse if they could make money off of her instead.

Have you found yourself running into continuity issues shooting the past in the present? A famous example would be the Downton Abbey water bottle incident.
We have dozens of moments like that every day we were shooting. But it was important to me to shoot in New York. Since we’re doing it in New York, and not Toronto or Los Angeles, I wanted to get as much of the story outside and onto the streets as I could. I walk around everyday — I’ve lived in Manhattan 25 years now — and I’m constantly thinking, “Here would be a great place to shoot. That building hasn’t been power-washed. That one has its original windows.” I’m obsessed with old New York, old buildings, and the grit and grime. A lot of that is disappearing. As we prepped this show, I would go around with my phone and take pictures of every block where there was a string of three, four, five buildings in a row that have been left, pretty much, untouched. Inevitably, you’d run into something that wasn’t period. There were a couple ways we went about handling it. Sometimes you use a longer lens, and that building that is 400 yards behind our heroes would fall out of focus.

Other times, we drove around with giant period trucks and buses and would park those in front of things we couldn’t dress. So when you watch the show and if you see a big truck parked on the street, you betcha there’s a Crunch gym behind that and we didn’t get permission to take the sign down.

That makes it feel more real. You can always tell the difference between the Fox lot and actual NYC.
You’re 100 percent correct. A real NYC street will trump a backlot every time. Along the same lines, you can always tell a real New York actor from someone who’s attempting a New York accent. And that’s why 95 percent of the principles in the show are legit born and bred New Yorkers. There will be all these great, thick, wonderful, authentic accents for our enjoyment.

Were you always planning to appear in the show?
I knew I wanted to do an ensemble piece. My favorite shows, Mad Men and Game of Thrones, are ensembles. I always thought I’d give myself a part to play within that ensemble, When I pitched to TNT, the first thing they said was, “You’re going to play the lead, right?” They definitely encouraged me to bring the Terry character a little more front and center.

Can you tease how that will develop?
The A story is Tim Hutton, an important figure in the neighborhood’s underbelly, gets killed in the pilot. I’m not a homicide detective so I’m not investigating the murder. But the guy that killed him, and this is no secret as you find out in Episode 2, is played by Neal McDonough. He’s the son of the head of the West Side Irish Mob. Imagine the Irish Don Corleone played by Brian Dennehy. How they react to that murder and everything that follows in the wake of that murder is the main narrative thrust of the piece. My character is entangled in that, not only because he is a police officer, not only because they grew up together in Hell’s Kitchen, but we are also connected through a romantic relationship between someone in my family and someone in their family.

My dad told me back when he was a young guy becoming a cop, it was not uncommon that Saturday you were hanging out with the guys you grew up with at the tavern. But Monday through Friday, you were chasing one another up and down alleyways and across rooftops, because half of them were cops, and half were bad guys. I loved the idea that these guys all grew up together, knew one another, coexisted on the opposite sides. It takes off like a rocket.

Bold to kill your cast’s Oscar winner in Episode 1.
He was the first, but he will not be the last. Game of Thrones set that tone. Anybody can go at any minute.

Is your family finally proud of you, playing at the family business?
They are very, very pleased with this. But I also never graduated college so anytime I got to play someone who clearly had a college degree they were happy.

Public Morals premieres Aug. 25 at 10 p.m. on TNT.