Loading ...With the silky whispering, persuasive voice of the diabolical Jim Profit as a guide, viewers are drawn into the dark, funny, suspenseful world of high stakes corporate intrigue in PROFIT. Profit has his sights set on the top and will stop at nothing to get there. with his extraordinary ability to size people up, Profit coolly assesses the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents, then using an array of people-handling skills ranging from blackmail, to flattery, to murder-methodically destroys them. By telling the story from the point of view of the bad guy, PROFIT creators set out to create a new kind of storytelling for series television. the show�s unusual sense of humor is largely due to Profit�s insinuating voice-over, which opens and closes each episode and provides wry commentary on situations as they develop, inviting the audience to view the story�s events from his own skewed perspective.
Adrian Pasdar (Jim Profit) likens the show to a dark comic book for adults, clearly a larger-than-life portrayal of the struggle between good and evil in the high world of big business. “It�s not a reality-based show. It�s a send up to a degree with its inflated characters and characterizations,” says Pasdar, “and I think the voice-over lends itself to the human, to comment on situations with a unique perspective.”
One of the inspirations for creating this new kind of television character was Richard lll, Shakespeare�s portrait of the gleefully malevolent king. The other jumping off point for PROFIT was producers� desire to create a story that explores why the villain does the awful things that he does. to develop Profit�s character, Greenwalt and McNamara talked to several psychologists and read books and articles about clinical sociopaths, culling details from case studies to provide a realistic underpinning to Profit�s story. The pilot episode reveals the extremely abusive childhood that gave Profit his warped outlook on the world.
[NOTE: Profit was raised in a huge cardboard box so that his father didn�t have to take care of him, which producers actually found in a case study. The highlight of the show is at the end of each episode Profit climbs naked into his box, assumes a fetal position, then looking directly to the audience, whispers, “Goodnight.” When direction his film, CEMENT, Adrian was jokingly given a large cardboard box from the cast!]
The social boundaries that keep most people�s behavior in check are meaningless to him. �He knows where your boundaries are, but he doesn�t have them,� says Greenwalt. �He�s truly a self-made man, who is extremely focused, has enormous self-discipline, and works tirelessly at his goals. He�s a bit like a Zen warrior,� says Greenwalt. �It takes a tremendous amount of work and effort to be Jim Profit.� And McNamara adds,� But a tiger doesn�t think about the fact that it has to hunt all day. It just does it.� Adrian Pasdar sees PROFIT as someone for whom every act serves a purpose, a large function. He�s not evil because he wants to hurt people. It�s just a matter of form following function,� says Pasdar. The world of cyberspace is an important element of PROFIT�s visual style, which is largely the creation of Co-Exectuive Producer Robert Iscove, who also directed the pilot and several episodes. Working with Northwest Imaging in Vancouver, Canada, Iscove created a techno-sauvy look that is a distinctive feature of the show. When he�s using his computer, instead of looking at the screen full of words, Profit actually walks down the hallways of a virtual office, going in and out of doors, opening files, and sometimes meeting opponents who block his passage. �To extend the virtual reality environment and add excitement to the show, Iscove added imagery involving wire frames and cubes in which we see Profit�s enemies actually explode on his computer screen once he�s eliminated them.
In the pilot, the producers used an amalgam of three separate locations to create the massive Gracen & Gracen offices, but for the series, Production Designer Richard Hudolm had to re-create the Gracen & Gracen offices on a soundstage. With a talented crew of scenic [painters and artists, Hudolin created a 175 foot backdrop, and turned one entire soundstage into the offices. Even the art on the walls was created specifically for the show, to match styles of Thomas Hart Benton and the WPA murals. In fact, every piece of art in the show was designed and drawn for PROFIT by artist Barry Kootchen. Unlike most TV shows, there is not a single good guy in the show. Instead there are characters who are all graduations of good and evil, and Profit can�t corrupt any of them unless there is something to corrupt. As Pasdar says,� Profit always gives people a choice. And they always take the easier choice. He adds, � The show is ultimately a cartoon that operates on the conceptual basis that most people, when faced with a moral dilemma, will choose the lower road. They�ll preserve their own physical being and their emotional stability, regardless of the consequences their actions have on others.� He�s whispering in the ears of people who are ambivalent. �I think the most important question to ask after you watch an episode of PROFIT is not, did I like him, but did I have fun.� adds Greenwalt. PROFIT is Pasdar�s first involvement with a television series, and he�s proud to be associated with a show that has such high quality writing. “This is as good as television gets.� Adrian says. Though Profit is a bad guy, Pasdar was eager to tackle a character of such complexity. �I thought the series would be a terrific opportunity to explore a character like this on a continuing basis, to create a whole character in much the same way as you create a character in the theater on a nightly basis,� Pasdar states. Far from being reluctant to play someone evil, Pasdar finds that the biggest challenge in playing Jim Profit is “Not to let on how much fun it is to play this guy.”