Jagger's a willing victim in penthouse robbery drama

Mick Jagger has been feted, idolised, busted for drugs, schmoozed by French politicians, courted by some of the world's most beautiful women and cast in a number of movies.

But agreeing to be the victim of a Manhattan penthouse robbery for the benefit of US network television is a new one, even for him.

The 62-year-old Rolling Stone has agreed to take the pivotal role in a new ABC television series, which was partly filmed in New Zealand during the band's tour this month.

The premise is both simple and alluring: a janitor in a swanky New York apartment building becomes so enraged by the carefree lifestyle of Manhattan's rich and famous that he and a group of like-minded associates decide to track one down and take him for everything he's got.

Their target, at least in the pilot episode, is none other than Jagger, who read the script a few weeks ago and liked it so much he has already completed his scenes. A hotel room in Auckland stood in for the Manhattan penthouse.

The series is the brainchild of Rob Burnett (whose day job is executive producer for the late-night chat show host David Letterman) and his partner Jon Beckerman.

They were interested in exploring the type of real-time, reality TV-inflected material that has been so successfully produced in shows like 24 (about an anti-terrorism unit and its multiple races against time) and Lost (about the survivors of an air crash) - but they wanted to make their show funny.

Having settled on the idea of a celebrity heist caper, they then needed to find a celebrity.

For months, as they were developing the scripts and pitching the idea to network executives, they thought of Jeff Goldblum, known for his work in The Big Chill, The Fly and Jurassic Park.

The executives at ABC (and at a couple of other networks) loved the idea, but there was one snag: nobody had actually approached Goldblum to see if he was willing. As it turned out, he was and he wasn't.

He liked the concept but was committed to a pilot for ABC's rival, NBC. That was when Mick Jagger's name was first floated.

In time-honoured Hollywood fashion, the script was shipped to Jagger's people, who liked it enough to pass it on to him.

He, in turn, was enthused and called Mr Burnett in the dead of night to tell him he would do it. A shooting schedule was established, and the production team headed out to New Zealand to record his scenes.

"He did a lot of ad-libbing," Burnett told the New York Times. "Some of the funniest stuff in the pilot came from him. He's just a smart, funny guy."

Between now and the autumn, ABC will have to decide if it wants to order a whole season of shows. If it does, Jagger will then be committed to further shoots.

"We'll work around his schedule," Burnett said.

It's unlikely Jagger's participation would stretch beyond a single season, hence the assumption that the show's working title - Let's Rob Mick Jagger - will have to change. Burnett told the New York Times that if the show was extended a different celebrity could be targeted each episode.

- INDEPENDENT