NorCal actor finally lands a starring role in series
PASADENA >> Russell Hornsby, star of NBC’s “Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector,” is hanging out in the crowded bar of a ritzy Pasadena hotel. In the background, TV screens are lit up with the San Francisco 49ers’ playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings.
Hornsby, a Bay Area native and devoted Niners fan, is busy doing an interview but manages to sneak an occasional peek.
“I’d love to just watch the game,” he says, “but work before pleasure.”
These days, it just so happens that work, for Hornsby, is providing loads of pleasure. After decades of building a resume packed with mostly secondary roles, he is at long last the leading man of a drama series on a major network. Even better: “Lincoln Rhyme” debuted last week to solid ratings.
“Honestly, it does feel different. It’s a little surreal,” he says. “And I’m a little choked up by it all.”
Inspired by a best-selling crime novel and a 1999 movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, “Lincoln Rhyme” has Hornsby playing the titular legendary New York Police Department detective and forensic genius.
Three years earlier, Lincoln was left paralyzed by a trap set by an elusive serial killer known as “The Bone Collector.”
Now, the killer has resurfaced, bringing Lincoln out of retirement to team up with a young officer named Amelia Sachs (Arielle Kebbel). The cast also includes “The Sopranos” alum Michael Imperioli.
For Hornsby, who played a cop for six seasons on NBC’s supernatural thriller “Grimm,” the new show presents a very different challenge. Outside of a few flashback scenes, his character has been immobile in scenes, communicating with detectives and aiding their investigation from bed. It’s a challenge he embraced.
“What I have to focus on are the words,” Hornsby says. “I learned from(doing) Shakespeare, that, above all, the text is sacred. You have to use the words for tone, for emphasis. Now it becomes about a look — about an elongated stare. It becomes about how do you drag out a word, or shorten a phrase? It’s really using every part of my acting ability to convey the emotions and sensibilities of Lincoln Rhyme.”
“Lincoln Rhyme” showrunner Barry O’Brien believes Hornsby has it nailed.
“Russell mentioned Shakespearean training, and we feel the power of that every day,” O’Brien says. “He commands a room with his voice and eyes. It’s such craft.”
That he is getting more of a chance to wield that power is a welcome development for the 45-year-old Hornsby, who grew up in Oakland and was bitten by the acting bug as a student at Saint Mary’s High School in Berkeley.
After graduating, Hornsby studied acting at Boston
University and Oxford University in England. He went on to accumulate several years of stage experience in New York before scoring a steady diet of solid credits in movies such as “Fences” and TV shows including “Lincoln Heights,” “In Treatment” and “Grimm.”
Yet when it came to his Hollywood profile, Hornsby admits that he often was frustrated, feeling as if he existed somewhere off the radar.
“I was always able to get a job and make a good living,” he says. “But as you get older, you start to see others kind of pass you just from a notoriety standpoint. I was always looked at as a good actor, but I hadn’t done that signature thing yet, where people go ‘Wow.’” A “wow” moment finally came with 2018’s “The Hate U Give,” a feature film that tapped into the tragedies at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement. Hornsby played the outraged father of a teen girl who witnesses the fatal shooting of a friend at the hands of a white police officer during a traffic stop.
His performance was lauded by critics and caught the attention of the producing team behind “Lincoln Rhyme.”
“They asked me to come in for a meeting, and it was the first time in my career where somebody was actually pitching me,” he recalls. “I walked in all ready to sell myself. I got one sentence out before they started saying, ‘We think you’re great. Here’s what we want to do.’ I felt the tension leave my body. I just sat back in my chair and I listened.”
Hornsby is quick to point out that his professional frustrations didn’t stem from the need to be a “star.”
“It was more about getting the requisite work that reflected my talent and ability,” he says.
“I felt that I had taken advantage of my opportunities and that I had delivered in a way that says I’m an actor of distinction. And let’s be honest: I’m a black man. I’m 6-foot-1. I think I’m objectively attractive. And I’m talented. So what’s not to like?”