07-07-2025
Beloved 'CSI: Miami' Star Talks Returning to TV For New Cop Drama (Exclusive)
Beloved 'CSI: Miami' Star Talks Returning to TV For New Cop Drama (Exclusive) originally appeared on Parade.
It's been a dozen years since CSI: Miami went off the air, though it's currently streaming on Paramount+. And Jonathan Togo hung up his badge as CSI Ryan Wolfe on the popular CBS spinoff of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Ryan was a crime scene investigator in the Miami-Dade Crime Lab specializing in trace and DNA analysis, but he wasn't without flaws. He had a gambling problem that he managed to get under control in later seasons, but it caused him problems initially.
Now, Togo's playing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer Damon Drew, who joins an elite task force formed to track down a murderer after a beloved Department of Homeland Security officer (Milo Ventimiglia) is killed in broad daylight in Prime Video's new thriller Countdown, created by Chicago Fire and FBI: International former showrunner Derek Haas.
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Togo tells Parade that playing law enforcement again 'was familiar at times, but the familiarity could be deceptive. I'm used to acting with a badge and a gun, and I was used to the style of acting that procedural, crime television entails. When you're solving a case on TV, the acting demands urgency. You're the audience's conduit. What was different, though, was the humor and intelligence that Derek's writing brought to the experience. Not to mention being surrounded by my castmates, Jensen [Ackles], Eric [Dane], Jessica [Camacho], Uli [Latukefu], Elliot [Knight], and Violett [Beane]. They're all such forces of nature that what I had done for eight years felt so fresh when I was with them.'
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When Countdown begins, Drew is the right-hand man to task force head honcho Nathan Blythe (Dane). He was a family man whose son had died tragically, but he was overcoming his grief by dedicating his life to keeping Americans safe.
'Before we began, Derek told me he pictured Damon as the Watson to Blythe's Sherlock,' Togo describes the character. 'Damon is thoughtful; his role is that of a sounding board to Eric's character, Nathan Blythe. My other take on the character was that it was Ryan Wolfe, but grown up. When we shot CSI: Miami, Ryan was written as ambitious and a little impetuous. I think Damon may have been that at one point in his career, but he's gotten older and wiser and mellowed out a bit. Similarly, when I did CSI: Miami, I was a bit younger, and it felt nice to play a character whose maturity since his 20s mirrored my own."
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Sadly, though, Togo and Drew's time on Countdown was short-lived. He takes a bullet at the end of the third episode when the task force gets involved in a shootout while rescuing Mark Meachum (Ackles), who has had his first encounter with the terrorist Volcheck (Bogdan Yasinski), the big bad for Season 1 of Countdown.
'When Derek told me about the show and the role, he was upfront about Damon's early death in the season,' Togo says. 'He said he wanted the audience to feel the danger that these characters were up against, and communicate that anyone on the show could die at any time. To be honest, I think his choice is brilliant. I think it will raise the stakes and immediacy for the audience. And even though I was so sad to leave this amazing group, who I treasured seeing every day (and sometimes night shoots), I was willing to fictionally die for the art!
"I think we think of law enforcement as an afterthought sometimes," he continues. "But I'm super proud to be able to portray them as an actor. They're the bravest among us. I think Damon's death tells the audience that these characters, despite their peccadillos, are, at their core, selfless and courageous.'
Countdown streams new episodes each Wednesday on Prime 'CSI: Miami' Star Talks Returning to TV For New Cop Drama (Exclusive) first appeared on Parade on Jul 2, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
