GARCELLE BEAUVAIS-NILON NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 2/20/2007


Three Stars Have 'The Cure' for FOX

Pilot season brings in Morales, Mount and Beauvais-Nilon

Zap2It.com


If Esai Morales, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon and Anson Mount have a disease (lots of quickly cancelled shows, for example), FOX has "The Cure."

"NYPD Blue" vets Morales and Beauvais-Nilon and regular pilot gadfly Anson Mount will take the lead in FOX's "The Cure," a new medical pilot from Warner Bros. TV.

According to the industry trade papers, "The Cure" focuses on an elite health organization that cuts through red tape to find cures. No, we have no idea what that means either, nor do we know who the actors will play except that they will be members of the team.

All three actors have left a slew of deceased dramas in their wake. Beauvais-Nilon was most recently seen on ABC's "Eyes," while Morales co-starred on FOX's "Vanished" last fall. Since 2003, Mount has danced on the graves of "Line of Fire," "The Mountain" and "Conviction."

In other FOX casting news, Shawn Hatosy will appear in the drama pilot "The Apostles," about the off-duty lives of Simi Valley cops. Hatosy, most recently seen in the features "Alpha Dog" and "Factory Girl" and in a guest spot on "E.R.," will play one of the officers.



News for 7/23/2005


The following article appeared in the May 2005 issue of Essence Magazine





Beauvais-Nilon has 'Eyes' for disguise

By BRIDGET BYRNE
For The Associated Press


LOS ANGELES (AP) — At an audition for the new ABC series Eyes, creator John McNamara got a jolt when Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon whipped off a free-flowing wig to reveal her own hair pulled back in a bun.

McNamara hadn't even realized she was wearing the wig. "It was just right for the part," he said. "The character's a chameleon ... she has to surprise you."

Not surprisingly, Beauvais-Nilon got the role of Nora Gage, a private investigator at a high-end detective firm functioning on the fringes of the law.

The actress played assistant district attorney Valerie Hayward from 2001-2004 on NYPD Blue, and was highly recommended to McNamara by series creator Steven Bochco.

Sharply suited with hair drawn back, Hayward manifested stylish efficiency. Gage, when she's not in disguise, also wears her hair pulled back and is described in ABC publicity notes as "ruthlessly efficient."

Beauvais-Nilon is amused that she seems to "get these tough chick roles, telling the boys what to do."

They're against type. "I'm the most non-confrontational person ... this is me," she says, dressed in a vivid orange skirt and white T-shirt, her long, dark hair flowing free.

Eyes, which also stars Tim Daly as morally ambivalent boss Harlan Judd, debuts Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET.

The challenging time slot is opposite two powerful procedurals — NBC's Law & Order and CBS's CSI: NY.

"It's only fair, it's exactly what I deserve," McNamara says of his time slot. "I've got to put my money where my mouth is. I've been shooting off my mouth for two years that Americans are ready for a detective procedural that's fun."

McNamara thinks crime shows have gotten too serious and are becoming parodies of themselves, so he designed a character-driven series that echoes the tongue-in-cheek style of old crime-solving hits like Maverick,Magnum, P.I. and The Rockford Files.

He also believes his show fits the style of ABC's current successful series, including Lost and Alias, which have an idiosyncratic take on established genres.

"We want the show to be a satisfying mystery every week ... on the other hand we obviously do not take ourselves that seriously," he says. "It has a lot more to do with Desperate Housewives than it does with CSI. "

Beauvais-Nilon says the show's fresh writing and her character's chameleon nature proved appealing. So did the fact that Eyes is shot in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and teenage son.

Born in Haiti, Beauvais-Nilon, 38, moved to Massachusetts when she was 7, after her mother came to America to attend nursing school "to provide opportunities" for her seven children.

"I thought mom had lost her mind. First we were in a country where it's freezing in winter ... and I didn't know how to speak any English, so I couldn't go to school right away."

Later the family moved to Miami. She began taking dance lessons, and by her mid-teens family and friends were encouraging her to be a model.

She drove to Fort Lauderdale to try her luck at an agency's open call. She was stopped at a red light putting on some lip gloss when "a hand comes into the car and startles me. It's a woman with a card in her hand. She goes, 'Are you a model?' I go, 'Well, I'd like to be.'"

The woman turned out to be from the agency she was going to. "It was just like an intervention, or whatever you like to call it," Beauvais-Nilon laughs. "Being from Haiti, we are like superstitious, so I took it as a sign, and that's how I got started."

She believes her modeling experience made her "more comfortable in front of the cameras," but acknowledges that when she segued into acting, it took "a while to win casting directors over, to let them know I was serious about my craft."



The following article appeared in the March 2004 issue of InStyle Magazine





The following article appeared in the February 2002 issue of InStyle Magazine