(NOTE: I cut what wasn't about Mr. D'Onofrio from this article)
Mr. D�Onofrio was sitting near a fountain with a colleague at the post-upfront party in the Rockefeller Center Summer Garden, smoking Camels, not bothering anybody.
Mr. D�Onofrio was asked what a guy like him was doing here, in television, in 2001.
"Basically," he began, "a lot of people came up to me last year: David Chase, Dick Wolf�who�s the guy that does Ally McBeal? That guy, he�s like the Steven Spielberg of television?"
"David E. Kelley?"
"Yeah," Mr. D�Onofrio said. "A lot of people came to me, but Dick [Wolf] had the best things to say. His stuff is less � soapy. I like that. I don�t like soap."
Mr. D�Onofrio said his movie-business colleagues had warned him about television, told him it was grueling work. They were right, he said. "It is fucking grueling, you know?" he said. "We�re talking 12 to 15 hours a day."
Still, there were upsides. Mr. D�Onofrio got to be with his wife and family, who live in Manhattan. As for the TV stuff�who gets picked up, time slots�the actor said he was leaving that to other people. "I came into this show with a film career, and I�ll leave this show with a film career," he said.
But Mr. D�Onofrio said he was signed up to do Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a long time. He declined to say how long.
"It�s going to cost them a hell of a lot of fucking money, but they�ve got me for a while," Mr. D�Onofrio said. "I�m totally 100 per cent committed for as long as they�ve got me."
