by Crystal Ann Taylor
When you think of Mick Betancourt, it’s as a writer of serious crime/thriller drama such as Law and Order: SVU, Detroit 1-8-7, Breakout Kings, The Mob Doctor, The Black Donnellys or even the upcoming Ironside. You may even have caught him as an actor in CSI: Miami. What you don’t expect is he’s a co-executive producer of the lighter-hearted sports drama Necessary Roughness, and a standup comic.
“I started out in Chicago, doing standup comedy and Improv, training at IO, Annoyance and Second City,” Betancourt revealed. “I got ‘discovered’ as a comic at the 2000 Chicago Comedy Festival which garnered me an agent in Los Angeles. After going back and forth about moving out, I finally moved to Los Angeles in 2001. I did stand up every night, as many times a night as I could, while auditioning for TV and movie parts during the day.” Eventually, he booked a dramatic pilot that gained him the friendship of a writer and, possibly, a CBS series.
“I took him out to lunch about six months after the show folded and told him about an idea I had for a dramatic series. He liked it and agreed to go out and pitch it with me.” Though they sold the pilot, it was never shot, but it was his foot in the door for dramatic writing. “I have been working in that field ever since,” he said.
Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, Kelli Giddish as Detective Amanda Rollins and Danny Pino as Detective Nick Amaro in Law & Order: SVU (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)
Despite that success, Betancourt has never stopped performing live or writing comedy. “I moved to LA to be the next Jackie Gleason!” he teases. But while that would seem to lead to a career in sitcoms, “it just seems that the Universe wants me writing drama,” he answered. “I always loved dramas—Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, the first season of Miami Vice, The Sopranos. I always wanted to write dramas, I just thought it would be after a successful career in comedy.”
Although he could have continued to chase after that desired career in comedy, Betancourt also recognized the need for a stable environment for his family. “When my son was born, I felt like being on the road performing at comedy clubs was not the best way to parent. It felt selfish. And if I could do something creatively satisfying and still be at the dinner table every night, I wanted to do that. I am very grateful that it worked out.”
Asked if his acting experience gave him a leg up in the writer’s chair, Betancourt suggested that all writers take an acting class, or shoot a No-Budget short film, even if it’s with an iPhone, just to be able to feel what it’s like to be in an actor’s shoes. “Sometimes a script can live in your head for so long, you forget that people have to actually say the lines,” he explained. “And to the actor’s credit, the great ones really, they will say in a look what you had written down in three lines. So yes, acting helps me as a writer, as well as being a producer. I can have an honest talk with actors because they know I understand, from experience, what they are going through.”
Craig Shapiro & Elizabeth Kruger’s Necessary Roughness
Recently, Betancourt has been co-executive producer of Necessary Roughness, one of USA Network’s delightful ‘characters welcome’ dramas. Necessary Roughness stars Callie Thorne as psychotherapist Dani Santino who provides therapy for pro athletes facing blockages in their successful careers. The idea originated with co-executive producer Joe Sabatino whose real-life sister is the in-house therapist to the New York Jets football team.
In the first two seasons, Dani Santino was the in-house therapist for the New York Hawks, although she took on troubled high- profile clients as diverse as racecar drivers to newscasters. In the third season, she moves from the Hawks to working for a sports agency owned by Connor McClane (John Stamos). Also working for McClane is Nico (Scott Cohen) whose vague problem-solver/muscle job description is even more shrouded here than it was with the Hawks.
Callie Thorne and Mehcad Brooks in Necessary Roughness
Perhaps then, it isn’t so much a surprise to find Betancourt on the darker third season, although Betancourt revealed he first met creators Liz Kruger and Craig Shapiro for a job on season one. “The meeting went great, but they hired another writer. That’s part of doing business. I actually got a chance to meet the writer who they hired when I came on in season three, and it made total sense why they hired her. She is amazing and incredibly talented. Liz and Craig liked my writing sample but thought it was ‘dark’ for the tone of their show. But they are very smart open-minded producers. They also knew I have been a comic for the last 15 years and am capable of writing comedy and character. When season three rolled around and they were adding some more procedural elements to the show, they reached out again, and we had a second meeting. It clicked, and they offered me the job.”
Asked if he could tease us for any episode he wrote, he said, “I wrote episode #302 and the story for #309 for Necessary Roughness. I can only tell you that things will turn upside down on Necessary Roughness very quickly, and if you are into that show, you know what I am talking about.”
What Betancourt had to say about Ironside and how writing for Necessary Roughness differs from writing Law and Order will be in part 2 of this interview. Click here to read it.
Photo of Mick Betancourt by Hal Ardell.
