The Players Club: Cast of Miami Vice
	“The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged.” -Michael Mann Known for drawing performances that allow his actors to take their craft to a new level, Mann wanted to fill the roles of the Miami-Dade police, feds and their quarry with men and women who were as dedicated to understanding the back stories of their characters as they were to performing on screen.  He knew that to realize these cops or criminals would require rigorous training and strict discipline on the part of his cast. Also crucial to Mann was designing a production that had a multicultural look and feel… mirroring the players in his intersection of the third world and global conglomerates.  Discussing his leads, Foxx, Farrell and Li, Mann shares, “Working with actors like Jamie, Colin and Gong…the level of aggressive ambition in how far we can take it is what makes the experience of directing exciting and adventurous.” Mann's choice of Jamie Foxx to portray Ricardo Tubbs taps into a relationship that goes back several years between the actor and filmmaker.  Miami Vice is the third collaboration between the two, following 2001's Ali and 2004's Collateral, for which Foxx was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actor.  In that same year, Foxx was nominated for and won the Best Actor Oscar® for his work in Ray. Mann relates, “Jamie is a genius at using mimicry as a means to get to an immediate, spontaneous, truthful place with moment and character.  He knows the demeanor that Tubbs should have, and he goes all the way with it.” In developing the urbane and dead-smart Tubbs, Foxx describes his method as “working with the characteristics of a person.  I have to see someone and watch them, because I already know what I want to do with the character.” Training with the actual undercover cops he met to prepare for his role, Foxx spoke openly with the officers about the trappings of the occupation.  “You're tempted to do this and you're tempted to do that,” he discovered-asking of them, “Do you taste the other side?” According to the actor, straddling the line between the job and what the underworld exposes you to is “like being married, and you're having an affair. You are married, but you are dating the wild side over here.” Bringing life to the charismatic and flirtatious Sonny Crockett, a role he-like millions of other fans-originally knew from the '80s television series, would be Colin Farrell. The Irish native, fresh from starring in two epics, Oliver Stone's Alexander and Terrence Malick's The New World, would settle easily into the role of Southern-bred Crockett.  Farrell succinctly notes, “Crockett is a good guy; he is as solid as a rock.” The actor would come to share his director's passion for research and preparation. Of finding his character, Farrell says, “The amount of information that Michael had to offer all of us was amazing.  We went everywhere to find Crockett…Atlanta, Memphis and parts of Texas.  We studied who his father was, that his mother died pretty young.  I reviewed reels of information on the clothing of the time Sonny was born-what the number one shows, movies and music were.  It permeates through you and affects your choices.” Of Farrell, Mann comments, “Colin is just courageous, in upper-case letters, and comes at it from a place of complete classical training. He's fueled by a fearlessness to go where his character has to.” The actor, according to Mann, “brings an entirely new character to the same role of Sonny Crockett.  Nothing undoes what Don Johnson did, which was great. This is an additional iteration…no comparative context applies.” Commenting on his co-star's performance, Foxx says, “I believe that Miami Vice is his chance to really take that persona people see and marry it with Crockett.  Colin's got the macho good looks, the sense of humor, but he has this sense of `get down.'  When he does it, you think, `This is for real.'” The leads knew that they had to get to know each other well to pull off believable roles as partners. As Foxx explains about the partnership, “It's all about chemistry.  You don't have the chemistry, you don't have anything.” Farrell agrees, “There is a deep kind of friendship and understanding that is born of sharing a lot of the same beliefs…just being there for each other and trusting one another.” The primary feminine element in Miami Vice is the financial criminal/object of Crockett's obsession, Isabella, portrayed by highly respected Chinese actress Gong Li. Already established as a popular film star in Asia, Li has recently turned her talents toward a film career in the West through starring roles in Memoirs of a Geisha and the upcoming Young Hannibal. “This character is very different,” notes the actor. “She is quite distinctive. You can't say that she's a villain, but she is a drug smuggler.  She's a strong person, but at the same time, a truly vulnerable one.” Mann shares, “I've wanted to work with Gong since I saw her in Raise the Red Lantern and Red Sorghum. The more difficult things become, the better she likes them.” Li lauds Mann for pushing her beyond her own self-imposed limitations. “He assigns impossible tasks for you to complete, but he tells you that you are able. In the end, you really do achieve it.” A key plot point to Isabella's story is her unexpected romance with Sonny Crockett, complicated by the fact that she is involved with Montoya-played by noted Spanish actor Luis Tosar-one of the most powerful criminals in Latin America. Crockett, too, does not honestly represent himself to Isabella. This love, established under the pretense of false identities, will play itself out with inherent problems. Mann notes that Crockett knows his relationship with Isabella is one you have “once in a lifetime. Except she's the wrong woman, and he's the wrong guy.” Li concurs, “Isabella's afraid of real emotions and feelings. She has never had an emotional connection that she committed her whole being to.” Another welcome addition to the multicultural cast was British actor Naomie Harris as Bronx-born intel analyst (and Tubbs' lover) Trudy. Catching the eye of audiences worldwide in 2002's sleeper hit 28 Days Later, Harris played double duty on this production. When not on the set of Vice, she was shooting scenes for the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films for director Gore Verbinski. Equally comfortable with her razor-sharp dialogue as she was with her handgun training, the actor impressed Mann from day one.  “Naomie is brilliant. She has a voracious appetite for acquiring skills,” he states. Supporting the company are Justin Theroux as the partners' fellow vice cop Zito, Barry Shabaka Henley as their direct report Lieutenant Castillo and Elizabeth Rodriguez as sharpshooter Detective Gina Calabrese.   Rodriguez also took Mann's boot-camp mentality to heart. Watching her prepare for a scene in which she stands off against the Aryan Brotherhood for a sniper shot, Mann commends, “Elizabeth became kind of a killer working with consultant Mick Gould in the gym.” Completing the core cast in Miami Vice are New York actor John Ortiz (Narc, Carlito's Way) as the calculating drug runner José Yero and Ciaran Hinds as FBI Special Agent Fujima-the man who reluctantly allows Crockett and Tubbs to penetrate further into the drug underground after their friends are killed. Players in place, Mann and crew began the critical training to mold his actors into hard-core cops and duplicitous criminals indigenous to this world.
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