Ving Rhames Cast in ' Undercover'

July 5, 2001 -- NBC's fall police drama UC: Undercover is sounding more and more like this year's Miami Vice.

Like that '80s pop culture phenomenon, the new series features two ethnically diverse hotties in the lead: Oded Fehr of The Mummy Returns and Jon Seda of Homicide: Life on the Street. Add a villain or two, cool theme music, and presto: instant hit.

Or so apparently hopes producer Shane Salerno, who announced the high-profile casting of booming-voiced actor Ving Rhames of Pulp Fiction fame, in what's hoped to be the first of several big-name guest stars.

Rhames, currently onscreen in John Singleton's Baby Boy, will join the show as larger-than-life drug lord Quito Real. One or two of his episodes are expected to air during the November sweeps, Variety reports.

Hip-Hop Soundtrack Planned

Salerno, who worked with Rhames on the upcoming Sonny Liston biopic Night Train, says it's a "radically cool honor" to have Rhames sign on for the guest stint. "This guy's cool with a capital K," he says.

Salerno says he hopes that the Golden Globe-winning actor's appearance will "make it cool to play a villain" on the new show. Future guest stars already include Steven Bauer, who played the suburban drug lord in Traffic, and Angie Everhart, who played a killer vamp in Bordello of Blood. While we don't know if any of the characters will have a pet crocodile or sport pastel suits, Miami Vice seems apt as Salerno tells Variety that UC is a "very music-driven series" that will feature musicians and other pop culture personages as guest stars. Beside a weekly soundtrack of hip-hop and trip-hop tunes that "reflect what people are listening to," Salerno says, he will release a remixed version of UC's theme music to radio stations.