Liev Schreiber Pulls CSI Duty

Wed., Oct. 25, 2006 8:18 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Liev Schreiber has landed his first TV series—and if you're going to start somewhere, it may as well be at the top.

The Tony Award-winning actor is joining the cast of megahit CSI later this season as a veteran detective who comes on board to fill the void left by lead investigator William Petersen, who's taking a few episodes off in 2007.

Schreiber, whose stage and screen roles have ranged from Macbeth to Orson Welles to the creepy but wrongfully convicted Cotton Weary in Scream, will appear for the first time at the Las Vegas Crime Lab in January.

"I'm a huge Liev Schreiber fan," CSI executive producer Carol Mendelsohn said. "On stage or in film, I think he's one of the finest actors of his generation."

The 39-year-old actor, who's engaged to marry The Ring star Naomi Watts, snagged a Tony for his work in the 2005 revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. He played Ricky Roma, filling the shoes worn by Al Pacino in the 1992 film adaptation.

"We knew it was a long shot—he really doesn't do television," Mendelsohn said. "But he was patient and I think amused—we promised we'd create a character for him he couldn't refuse to play. Excitingly for us, he collaborated in this process.

"And we've got a wonderful, complex character as a result."

Schreiber, who counts himself as one of CSI's 20 million-plus fans, couldn't resist.

"After meeting the people who run CSI, it immediately becomes apparent why it has consistently been one of the top shows on television," he said. "I am a fan—how could I say no?"

He's certainly not alone. Nearly 20.5 million people tuned into the crime procedural last Thursday, making it the third most-watched show of the week, behind only Dancing with the Stars and a little medical drama called Grey's Anatomy—the only scripted series capable of putting a dent in CSI's formerly bulletproof dominance.

When he wasn't tearing it up onstage this year, Schreiber battled evil in his own backyard in the remake of The Omen and worked on two other films: The Painted Veil, with Watts and Edward Norton, and The Ten, an ensemble comedy with Jessica Alba, Paul Rudd, Adam Brody and Amanda Peet.

Schreiber is also set to star in Mike Newell's long-awaited adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera alongside Javier Bardem, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt and Catalina Sandino Moreno.