LOS ANGELES — At an audition for the new ABC series "Eyes," creator John McNamara got a jolt when Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon whipped off a free-flowing wig to reveal her own hair pulled back in a bun.

McNamara hadn't even realized she was wearing the wig. "It was just right for the part," he said. "The character's a chameleon ... she has to surprise you."

Not surprisingly, Beauvais-Nilon got the role of Nora Gage, a private investigator at a high-end detective firm functioning on the fringes of the law. Tim Daly plays her morally ambivalent boss.

The actress played assistant district attorney Valerie Hayward in 2001-2004 on "NYPD Blue," and was highly recommended to McNamara by series creator Steven Bochco.

Sharply suited with hair drawn back, Hayward manifested stylish efficiency. Gage, when she's not in disguise, also wears her hair pulled back and is described in ABC publicity notes as "ruthlessly efficient."

Beauvais-Nilon is amused that she seems to "get these tough-chick roles, telling the boys what to do."

They're against type. "I'm the most nonconfrontational person ... this is me," she says, dressed in a vivid orange skirt and white T-shirt, her long hair flowing free.

The challenging time slot is opposite two powerful procedurals — NBC's "Law & Order" and CBS' "CSI: NY."

"It's only fair, it's exactly what I deserve," McNamara says of his time slot. "I've got to put my money where my mouth is. I've been shooting off my mouth for two years that Americans are ready for a detective procedural that's fun."

McNamara thinks crime shows have gotten too serious and are becoming parodies of themselves, so he designed a character-driven series that echoes the tongue-in-cheek style of old crime-solving hits such as "Magnum, P.I." and "The Rockford Files."

Beauvais-Nilon says the show's fresh writing and her character's chameleon nature proved appealing. So did the fact that "Eyes" is shot in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and teenage son.

Born in Haiti, Beauvais-Nilon, 38, moved to Massachusetts when she was 7, after her mother came to America to attend nursing school "to provide opportunities" for her seven children.

"I thought mom had lost her mind. First we were in a country where it's freezing in winter ... and I didn't know how to speak any English, so I couldn't go to school right away."

Later the family moved to Miami. She began taking dance lessons, and by her midteens family and friends were encouraging her to be a model.

She drove to Fort Lauderdale to try her luck at an agency's open call. She was stopped at a red light putting on some lip gloss when "a hand comes into the car and startles me. It's a woman with a card in her hand. She goes, 'Are you a model?' I go, 'Well, I'd like to be.' "

The woman turned out to be from the agency she was going to. "It was just like an intervention, or whatever you like to call it," Beauvais-Nilon laughs. "Being from Haiti, we are, like, superstitious, so I took it as a sign, and that's how I got started."