NY Daily News

Amy Jo Johnson To Deliver For 'Flashpoint'

CRISTINA KINON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 26, 2008

In the wake of her pregnancy announcement earlier this week, "Flashpoint's" Amy Jo Johnson says she's feeling just fine and happy to continue shooting the CBS drama.

"I'm feeling great now because I'm past my first trimester," Johnson told reporters. The show "is a lot more intense and difficult than I thought it would be, but I've actually gotten into the rhythm and am having a lot more fun now."

Johnson says producers will not be incorporating her pregnancy into the show, though covering up her baby bump shouldn't be a problem with all that heavy-duty Kevlar.

"Flashpoint," which premieres July 11 at 10, depicts the fictional Toronto police unit SRU (Strategic Response Unit), which is based on a real Emergency Task Force unit. SRU members are a highly skilled team trained to rescue hostages, defuse bombs and profile and negotiate with suspects, among other things.

Johnson plays Officer Jules Callahan, Hugh Dillon plays unit leader Ed Lane and Enrico Colantoni plays their boss, Sgt. Gregory Parker.

Colantoni, best known for his role on the now-defunct WB series "Veronica Mars," says playing an officer of the law is fulfilling a life-long fantasy.

"Keith Mars was a wonderful character to play, but there wasn't enough guns in it for me," said Colantoni. "This has such an abundance of explosions and pistols, I feel like I'm playing cops and robbers."

However, executive producer Anne Marie La Traverse says there's a lot more to "Flashpoint" than just heavy-handed violence.

"The show is about the human and personal costs of heroism and even though its a really macho world that we're depicting, we're looking at that world from an emotional point of view," said La Traverse. "So what's unique about the series is that it is a really male-dominated world, but it is a world that takes us into the personal costs that these elite cops suffer in these high-risk jobs. And also we explore the emotional flashpoint of the people who are at the center of these situations. So it's a mixture of a procedural macho-cop drama and an emotional drama."

Bill Mustos, co-executive producer, echoes La Traverse's sentiments.

"This is not a franchise that is just about another dead body at the start of an episode and an investigation into the mystery of who caused that death," he said. "We were more interested in the kind of storytelling that would allow us to explore a world that is happening in the here and now."

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