NYP TV WEEK • REAllY BIG SHOW r BY MICHAEL Gil TZ It began as a landmark 1989 British min iseries.</p><p> Then director Steven Soder bergh turned it into an Oscar-winlling feature film in 2000.</p><p> So the !lrst question that inevitably greers the new, USA net work miniseries "Traft1c" is: Why? Don't think screen\vriter Ron Hutchin son, who penned the gritty, six-hour drama, which airs three consecutive nights beginning Monday on the USA network, hadn't already asked himself that q uestioll. "How many times will they put that piece of pork in the grinder and make an other sausage om of h?" he Jokes.</p><p> Given the worldv.,-ide success of the previous incarnations of "Traffic," Hut chinson, who also \vrote the BBO TV movie "The Josephine Baker Story," points out that another version was al most inevitable. "There was a period after Soderbergh's movie came out that every time you ,;,"ent to a meeting, people said, '\Ve \vant a:l orher 'Traffic.' v..r e want that la} ~red star\' with three different ideas.'" savs the screenwriter. . "You haven't seen too many of them be cause they're fiendishly hard· to write, es pecially for television where you've got all those act breaks.</p><p> You're telling three or four stories; you've got 46 pages for a full hour to do it: in.</p><p> So it's really hard to come up ;,."rith stories that \vill sustain that kind of comDlicated narrative ." His inspiration came \vhen he heard about :l real-life Italian case where bodies 'l,i.'here \vashing up on shore \'{ith bullets in their heads.</p><p> The answer to that mvs tery fuels the drama, \vhich expands the idea of trafticking beyond the drug trade to include iilegal aliens and [errOrisffi r Among the mOSI prominent storylines, Elias Koteas ("Crash") plays a rogue DEA agent rnissing in Afghanislan .</p><p> His partner, played by Martin Donovan ("The Oppo site of Sex"), is back in the United States, doing his job and comfoning his partner's wife (Mary McCormack).</p><p> Balthazar Getty ("Natural Born Killers") shows IIp as a businessman who joins rhe traffickers be cause he's "tired of flying coach." These criss-crossing stories are all tied together by the tale of Adam Kadyrov (Cliff Cunis of "Whale Rider"), an iiiegal immigrant whose ,:vife and dal!ghter die in a mysterious accident while being sDluggled into the United States.</p><p> Kadyrov pushes to !lnd out what happened and punish those responsible r Once the screenplay was set in motion, the cast was assembled .</p><p> Actress :Niarv McCormack, best known for playing Howard Stern's wife in "Private Parts" and for her recent work in the experi mental REO series "K Street," signed on to play the wife of a DEA agent who may have gone AWOL before the !lnal scripr was ready.</p><p> She trusted director Stephen Hopkins, acclaimed for his work on the F ox series "24." "He's really laid back, bur he also knows what he's doing," says McCormack. "You feel like he's -and he is - a thousand times smarter than you are~ If I mess up, he'll know and he'll !lx it." McCormack knew how high the bar was set going into the project. "I'd seen the British miniseries and the American movie and both are really good, so that's a little bit scary," says McCormack, 34. "I 5 r clways thought, 'Oh, they'll re-title it.' And thev didn't!" In her' conversarions with Hopkins, she became convinced that this "Traffic" could say something fresh. "Vv-hen I talked to Stephen, ! felt convinced that r the storvJ was new.</p><p> It feels that Vlav to me.</p><p> ThOl.igh of course you can see exa'ctly where it came from." \Vhat will fascinate viewers about this ne'iV miniseries is how the trafficking isn't just linked for plot purposes . "\lv' e started digging into the role that heroin plays in this underground \vorld," says Hutchinson . "If YOll want to pay somebody off, money is kind of inconven jent.</p><p> Large sums of money are quite bulky.</p><p> You've got to carry the cash around or turn it into the banking system and there are so rnany l)\"ays you can trace that these days.</p><p> Far better to give the bad guys a bag of heroin.</p><p> It's very portable..</p><p> You can dispose of it quickly if you get 41 5 into trouble.</p><p> You c~n shoot it up yourself if you like it!" The currency in the underground may be heroin, but in Hollywood, it's relatio:rr ships. "I don't think I got the job just because Jeff Wachtel, one of the heads of USA, was my best man, but we did have a very intimate experience," says HutchinsOD _ "I broke both my wrists - I got attacked by German shepherds 10 days before my wedding and I literally couid not zip my own pants ,vhen I went to the bathroom .</p><p> Maybe that forged a relationship that is deeper than most, even in Hollyv;;ood .</p><p> I think it took him 20 years to get over it.</p><p> Actually, he said there were 20 people they'd spoken to about 'Traffic' and I just happened to be the 21st." Traffic Monday -Wednesday, 9 p.m~ USA
