Q 6

PLAYBOY: Then you ought to be expert enough to tell us whether women ought to be interesting or pure.

Philip Michael Thomas: Both. I don't like uninteresting anything. I like someone to give me a run for my money. And pure? I like someone who looks good, smells good, tastes good. You wouldn't want to be involved with someone with B.O.

Don Johnson: [Laughs] Yes. [Laughs] Wow, that's a good one. Hold that thought. [Laughs] Women who are interesting are most definitely not pure. But I like all kinds--period. I don't even know if what I want is sex in the classic way--it's sort of a desire to melt into women and then out of them. I can be satisfied just to be near a woman and smell and touch her, to hold her hand, to watch her. But this is very hard in a world that by and large sanctions monogamy. It's murder on relationships.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: What do you think about when you pull the trigger?

Don Johnson: There was one scene we did that caused more uproar and got more mail--pro and con--because we pulled the trigger. It was in an episode where we shot from the hip. We were up against the wall, making up scenes as we went along. Michael Mann wrote the scene and gave it to me over the phone. I was trying to rescue a little girl being held hostage by this guy. Michael told me, "This is what happens. The guy says, 'If I twitch, she's gone.' Your line is, 'Maybe you won't even twitch.' Then you blow him away." I wanted to suspend time, and the way I read the line was what made it sell. I went, "Maybe...you won't even...twitch." Boom! The cadence threw him--and the audience--off. It was devastating. But, then, the violence in our show is not cartoon violence; it's real--which I think is a deterrent and not an encouragement. When someone goes down, he bleeds and stays down. And because we use a process called step printing, in which you print the same frame twice, it appears as staccato slow motion, which heightens the reality and the violent tone. I'm immersed in character and weighing the rights and wrongs--legally and morally--of what I'm about to do when I pull the trigger. Well, morality is not a question that Crockett answers. It's what he does.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: What's atop your TV-cop-show hit parade?

Don Johnson: M Squad, with Lee Marvin.

Philip Michael Thomas: The Adventures of Superman. He was able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, faster than a speeding bullet. Mighty Mouse, too. They were both undercover. [Laughs]

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Who are the most unforgettable real-life undercover cops you've known?

Don Johnson: One is one of the DEA agents who busted John De Lorean. We became very good friends. He told me fascinating stories about working the Texas/Mexico border on a drug bust, about how the Mexican authorities were completely ruthless, corrupt animals, and I would eat that stuff up. He described the adrenaline rush before a bust and what it was like to live undercover for weeks and to party with a guy and get close to him and know the whole time that you were going to nail him to the wall. The undercover cop is also acting--only it's the big acting in the sky. If you fuck up, you don't get a bad review; you get shot.

Philip Michael Thomas: I've talked to some who are insane. They do some wild shit. They're like a surgeon who enjoys cutting up people because he likes the flow of blood. I've heard stories about some cats who took a house in a shoot-out and blew some guy's arm off. They went in, picked it up and laughed, saying, "Isn't this funny? The fucker's arm. Get his ass out of here!" They treat criminals like animals. They have a license not only to kill but to cut your nuts off and mutilate your face--and all because you broke the law.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: As undercover cops, your characters are trained to be suspicious. In reality, do you trust people easily?

Don Johnson: No. I have to practice giving people the benefit of the doubt. It's my business to read people. I'm pretty good at telling when someone is feeding me a line of shit. But I've made mistakes in judgment.

Philip Michael Thomas: I've been called a sucker for trusting people easily, but I love people. Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." If I love you, I will do anything, within reason. I'm not one to put chains on and ask questions. I love a woman who feels that way, too.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Although Crockett and Tubbs are tight friends, with all the trappings of TV cop partners' camaraderie, Johnson and Thomas had never met before Miami Vice. Is there pressure to be buddies? Describe the stages through which an off-camera friendship grows.

Don Johnson: We had a long conversation while doing the pilot. We were sitting in my Miami hotel suite for a couple of hours. It was twilight. We had a view of the bay, and we were talking about how beautiful the city was and about spiritual things. We both knew what was at hand and what kinds of pressure we were going to deal with. We knew that people would be jealous of our relationship--on and off screen--be threatened by it and want to tear it apart. So we agreed that the moment either one of us felt slighted--which is never going to happen--we would discuss it. From then on, we knew that we had to be not only friends but each other's protectors. And part of that protection is to allow ourselves the space we need after spending 18 hours on the set. We don't pressure each other to have dinner together or to meet each other's families. We could ask, but we wouldn't demand it.

Philip Michael Thomas: We also trained with each other. I told Don about my goal, EGOT, which stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony--I want to win or be nominated for each award in the next five years. And he told me about dreams he wanted to develop. So we made an effort to work out together, to jog together before the sun rose, to learn our lines together. We trained with policemen in undercover work. Don knows a lot more about guns than I do, so he taught me about weapons. During the making of the pilot, we practically lived together. We worked on Saturdays and Sundays--and you don't get paid for those days. And we always gave each other space, because we didn't want to force a relationship. We just wanted to be together so we could find out how we functioned. We didn't have to, but we knew this was our shot.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: If the two of you could change places for just one show, what would each of you do to improve, expand, modify the other's character?

Philip Michael Thomas: I would play Sonny a little more insane. I would like to see him go over the edge. I say this because the real undercover cops we've met are nuts. Other than that, I'd have more chicks. [Laughs]

Don Johnson: I'd like to see me get more chicks, too. [Pauses] That's a dangerous question. Philip's character is a very bright, highly sophisticated, urban black man. He is knowledgeable about the art world, architecture, film, culture in general. It's probably one of the most attractive role models a black man has been able to portray in years. I'd like to see more of that. But the one thing Tubbs does not do as much as Crockett is make mistakes and deal with them in a human way. I think we need to see more vulnerability in Tubbs.