Eads himself has different wishes for his character. In the past five years, jovial Nick has been transformed by his job, and Eads believes the depressing nature of the crime scene investigator job has been eating away at Nick. "I think what's always been interesting to me than the science and the criminality with this job is what happens to your persona, your disposition, after day in and day out dealing with life and death," Eads says. "And not just death itself-I think that once your spirit leaves your body, it's just a shell. But day in and day out, how does that wear on you personally and how does that start to change even your tone of voice. Does it affect your patience? Do you start to drink away from work? Is there drug use? If you have a job like this, can you really see the good in a beautiful day, when the flowers are in bloom? I don't think so, not when you do this for a living.
"And that's starting to really formulate in my head a persona. I want to see Nick in a good situation and not see[ing] the good in it. I wouldn't mind seeing him so callous that he gets in trouble, to where he may need a break. To where Grissom may say, 'Hey man, you alright?' and where I'd say, 'No, maybe I'm not.' Or even to get some counseling and take a break, where I'd have to go away for a while to see okay, life's good, life's beautiful. I think my character's getting to the point where he can't even eat spaghetti with red sauce anymore, where he has horrible nightmares, he can't sleep anymore. He can't sustain any kind of relationships anymore, he's afraid to love something because he's afraid it's going to die. These are all things that I think of for my character.
Eads envisions Nick heading for a breaking point, with the job wearing him down. "I've even started to getting at the thing that scares him the most is that he might not care anymore," Eads reveals. "He used to care-then he was scared by how much he cared. And now he's come to the point where it looks like he doesn't care anymore because he's turned it off. I think that's sort of scary. Grissom's learned about it-somewhere along the way he lost it. It happens to a lot of criminalists-somewhere along the way, they go, I gotta take a break. Somewhere along the way [Grissom's] learned to handle it, and it would be cool to see him mentor Nick one last time, [give] one final lesson."
Though Eads hasn't gone through the dramatic change that Nick is coping with, he has learned first hand what it's like to be a star on a hit television show. "It was really fun at first. It was fun at first to just go out and you're like the prom king!," Eads exclaims. "But after that first year it went from man, this is cool, to now, I can't go into the grocery store."
Eads hasn't had all positive experiences, either. One night, he was out having a drink when a man came up to him and started a fight with him by throwing a salad in his face. "On nights where my buddies [were busy], I would go out by myself and have a drink. I used to do it all of the time," Eads notes. "And now I can't, not for fear that someone's [start something]. But some guys want to say they got into a fight with the guy from CSI-it doesn't matter whether they won or lost! Just to say, 'I whopped his ass' or 'he whopped' mine, or 'he's a big punk.' Then you're the big guy at work the next day. So [fame] makes you a little bit of a target."
The fan encounters vary, from everything to friendly greetings to people offering to buy Eads a drink. But Eads knows there's a need for caution. "I've gotten some letters from fans that [his publicists] won't let me read," he says. "So you never know, when you're out and somebody says, 'Oh, can I buy you a drink?' And you say, 'Sure, send a drink over. Thanks!' You never know. You don't want to live in fear, but there is some agoraphobia that comes with the popularity [of the show]."
Eads offers advice on the best way to approach a star: "People on TV shows, they can tell-they know that you know who they are. They know you know. Sometimes it's cool to not even come up-just give the thumbs up," he suggests. "Sometimes it's cool if you do walk up, just to say, 'Love the show' and go off. That's the coolest stuff. I saw Billy Crudup cleaning off his clubs after golfing and I walked by and said, 'Hey Billy, I love what you do, man, everything that you do. Just keep it up!' And I walked off. And he literally kind of almost jogged after me and said, 'Hey man, that was really cool, thanks!' And that was it-that was just a really cool way to do it."
Eads has nothing but gratitude for the show's many fans. "It couldn't be more cool. Really, this is awesome. Thirty million people watch," he marvels. "I love what I do and I love the fans. We've got fans who care about the show, and we've got work. I work so hard for the fans who watch our show."





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