Lori Loughlin & Eriq La Salle are suiting up forOn Call. The series, which is created by Elliot Wolf andproduced by his father Dick Wolf, follows a rookie cop and his veteran partner in their tense day-to-day patrolling responsibilities. Loughlin and La Salle come into play as Lieutenant Bishop and Sergeant Lasman, respectively, two more tenured officers in the department.
Serialized crime dramas are nothing new for Loughlin.TheFull Housealumhas credits on televised cop shows likePsych,Major Crimes, andBlue Bloodsthroughout her career. La Salle comes from another branch of emergency service programs, as he is best known for his work as Dr. Peter Benton on NBC’s medical dramaER, a role that led to three NAACP Image Award wins.
On Call Cast & Character Guide
Amazon Prime Video’s On Call walks through a compelling and realistic police procedural while also featuring memorable performances from cast members.
In celebration ofOn Call’s streaming premiere on Prime Video,ScreenRantspoke with Loughlin and La Salle to discuss how their previous work influenced their performances in this series, the dynamic of theveteran officers compared to the rookies, and what both of their characters’career-altering “one call"could have been.
Lori Loughlin Reflects On Crime Television History
“This is a very different character that I’m playing this time around…”
ScreenRant: Lori, you’ve worked on shows that deal with crime throughout your career.Blue Bloods,Major Crime,Psych, the list goes on. How did your work previously in a similar genre prepare you for something likeOn Call?
Lori Loughlin: I think On Call was different. This is a very different character that I’m playing this time around. I was so grateful and thankful to get the opportunity, thankful to everyone at Dick Wolf for supporting me, for Eriq bringing me on board. But I think [to play] Bishop, it took a village. I came to work and it was new for me. I was a little apprehensive. Eriq was a great cheerleader. He really gave me wonderful directing advice and if I was timid at all, he pushed me a little further and so it really helped develop the whole character for me to drop into her.
How Do On Call’s Veteran Cops' POVs Compare To The Rookie Officers'?
“There’s history there and some tension…”
Eriq, your character of Sergeant Lasman is in a unique position in this show. He’s one of the vets. A lot of this story, I feel, is told through the eyes of some rookies involved in the force. You have a very interesting dynamic that goes on between yourself and Officer Harmon. Could you tease what that dynamic is like?
Eriq La Salle: Well, I think on the surface there’s history there and some tension. The cool thing is at the end of the season you start realizing that there’s much more going on in a very cool way. I think the key to the show is everything is not what it seems to be, and I think that there are more layers to things. It’s not just conflict, sometimes it’s a misunderstanding. Sometimes it’s miscommunication.
I think if you, not to get too far off, but if you think about how that happens in the world so much where, ‘I don’t like you because of a misunderstanding I have of you,’ not sometimes directly. I think we get to explore that. I think there’s some really unexplored history between these two of being the two senior people that I’m intrigued to know more about their history as two of the longer or more tenured cops that we get to deal with. We get to see it from the fresh rookies' point of view. Harmon is in the middle. We are on the other end of having like 20 plus years. So you get to see a nice diversity of the point of view of what it takes to police a community and try to maintain your humanity in that process. Diaz is trying to do it as he first comes in. Harmon is doing it, having been a cop longer. Lori and I have been there, so it’s a really cool perspective.
What Were Bishop And Lasman’s “One Call”?
The best line I felt is shown in the very beginning of the official trailer. ‘We think we know what this job is until we get that one call.’ Do you both know what your character’s ‘one call’ was?
Lori Loughlin: That’s a really good question.
Eriq La Salle: No, but I’m going to make the writers let me know. Thank you, Liam.
Lori Loughlin: And what I would say is, would we possibly have been in a squad car together for that one call? Wouldn’t that be interesting? Alright Liam, you get a writing credit.
Eriq La Salle: You know what, Liam? Should we get a second season, we’re going to attempt to convince the writers to name a character ‘Liam’ because you just gave us something good.
About Prime Video’sOn Call
On Call, a thrilling new half-hour drama series from Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, is an adrenalized and visceral police drama that follows a rookie and veteran officer duo as they go on patrol in Long Beach, California. Incorporating a mixture of bodycam, dash-camera, and cellphone footage to create a cinema verité effect, the innovative series explores the morality of protecting and serving a community.
