‘24’ vet Haysbert proudly commands ‘The Unit’

updated 1:36 p.m. ET Dec. 7, 2006

NEW YORK - Dennis Haysbert makes no secret of the satisfaction he gets from his role on “The Unit.”

As Jonas Blane, leader of a covert team of Special Forces operatives, he gets to play a man of fierce conviction and unyielding courage.

Also, a man of action.

With a flash of pride, Haysbert describes the scene from a recent episode where Blane and his “undercover wife,” their cover blown, dodge bullets in a perilous escape from the villa of a corrupt Latin American official.

“I had to fashion a rappelling harness on myself and the actress at the edge of a cliff,” he says. "I didn't have to go down too far in the shot, but I had to know it would work — and with someone else on my back. And I had to do it pretty fast. I was taught right there, minutes beforehand.

“The physical action I love. It keeps me in shape,” says Haysbert, who, at 52, surely is. “But it's not just action for action's sake. I think it's something that's going to inspire.”

Airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on CBS, “The Unit” premiered in March as an unusual blend: a tough-guy drama reinforced with tough-enough wives, who tackle patriotic duties of their own on the home front.

If members of the unit aren't racing to Afghanistan to take out a Taliban leader, they're dropping everything to rescue missionaries hiding out in the Philippines. And when the phone call comes and each man gets his top-secret orders, his wife responds in the necessary way: She suppresses a sigh and lets him go, then carries on with her workaday domestic support, all the while guarding secrets she will never know.

“On the base, these ladies have to find ways to navigate the maze of protocols: the Army's idea of what's right and wrong, what's accepted and not accepted,” Haysbert says. “And they're in a constant state of ignorance.”

“The Unit” was created by David Mamet, whose writing revels in the male psyche. Executive producer Shawn Ryan created the gritty FX cop drama “The Shield.” And it draws on the experiences of writer-supervising producer Eric L. Haney, who served in the Army's secret counterterrorist Delta Force.

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