The Good Wife has tapped Dallas Roberts to play the potentially recurring role of Alicia’s (Julianna Margulies) never-before-seen gay brother, sources confirm to me exclusively.
Exec producer Robert King, however, says don’t expect a whole lot of drama to arise from his sexual orientation. “We just thought [it would be interesting] if it didn’t matter.
“Everybody around them thinks it’s an issue between them, but there’s no issue,” he reiterates. “We kind of like that it voids expectations of what will happen between them.”
So what will happen when Owen, a University of Oregon algebra teacher, passes through Chicago as a visiting professor? “What this character allows us to do is access more of Alicia’s back story,” King explains. “She was always the good older sister, he was always the younger, more free-spirited brother.”
“And,” he adds, “we’ll see a little bit about what their parents were about.”
by James Hibberd | August 3, 2010 at 9:08 am | View Comments
FX has renewed the Louis C.K. comedy "Louie" for a second season.
Plus the network has ordered a comedy pilot from the makers of "Reno 911" that's set in space. Titled "U.S.S. Alabama," the show is from Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant and will be part-scripted and part-improvised, just like "Reno 911."
At TCA, the network's entertainment president John Landgraf said he hopes to expand FX's original series to "six or seven or eight" comedies and about a dozen shows overall.
Landgraf also said that, for actors, in recent years it has become more prestigious to land a cable show.
"It's become a status symbol for an actor to have a cable show," Landgraf said. "A lot of being a movie star is being in a latex costume in front of a green screen wearing guide-wires and learning to do karate."
Finishing up the session, Landgraf noted, "I haven't said anything Tweet-worthy," then announced: Peter Rice told me I could deny that Steve McPherson is becoming a judge on 'American Idol.'"
Bones is jumping on the Jersey Shore bandwagon in a big way. Series creator Hart Hanson confirms to me exclusively that he has approached Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino to guest star in an upcoming episode inspired by the MTV phenom.
“We’re trying to get The Situation to play a murder victim,” Hanson reveals. “A guido is killed and Booth and Brennan enter that world to find out what happens. We’re not sure if it’ll happen or not. Talks are ongoing.”
According to the latest casting intel, The Sitch would play fitness guru Ritchie “The V” Genero in the October episode. The search is on for an actress to costar as Ritchie’s Victoria Gotti-esque mom.
At Fox’s press tour party last night, Bones’ main man David Boreanaz revealed that Brennan will “understand them because she considers [guidos] a tribe.” Added leading lady Emily Deschanel: “Brennan anthropologically studies them and knows the lingo and the behavior. [She's] down with the whole guido stuff.”
Deschanel predicts that the episode will be packed with Jersey Shore references. Laughs the actress: “I guarantee that there will be a fist pump.”
That's all that can be said on behalf of you fans who were not-so-secretly hoping for the death of a certain love triangle (one that 30% of TV fans are "so totally over") on Grey's Anatomy.
And if you're an Office fan, I have one giant bear-hug of a scoop for you, too—thanks to the stars we love. Plus, the latest on Smallville, 90210, True Blood and more. So get on in here...
Jake from Aspen, Colo.: Any idea what's happening in Michael Scott's life since this is his last year at Dunder Mifflin?
What? Steve Carrell's leaving the show? Nobody told us! Thank god Angela Kinsey filled us in: "Michael Scott will leave. Which is gonna make for great television, because how's he gonna leave? Does he get fired? Does he come up with some ridiculous reason to quit?" she spitballs to us during NBC TCA's press rounds. Michael may be leaving, but not before some people come back, and not just Holly. "Michael gets a medical condition and he has to find his lovers to talk to them about what's going on. So, we're going to see Jan [Melora Hardin] coming back," Angela spills.
Luca in Santa Monica, Calif.: Seriously? The Office without Michael Scott? Can it be done?
His co-stars are all saying that yes, it will happen! "I don't think it will end at all, because I think there's so much to keep going," Ellie says honestly. Angela dittos her cast member. "I really think as a cast, we feel like an ensemble, and the writers write us that way," Angela tells us. "I know there's usually a main Michael Scott storyline, but we have such a great group of people, I think that anyone could really step up to take on a bigger role of running Scranton branch." We vote for Kevin! Who do you vote for?
And check out what the always hilarious Leslie David Baker and Phyllis Smith have to say in this exclusive video interview, complete with bear-hug plan of attack:
Wendell: Did you catch up with Scott Patterson at the NBC party? How about Lauren Graham? Yes, I'm still having a hard time letting Gilmore Girls go.
Aren't we all? Which is why you should check out this video below in which Scott confirms to me that his freaky-deeky new mysterious show, The Event, is all about: a Lorelai and Luke reunion! (Sorry to spoil it for you.) And yes, they were both at the party and the fangirl in me did many an inner squeal.
Jace in Oxford: Any chance Maura Tierney will pop up on Parenthood anytime soon?
Lauren Graham is snug as a bug over on Parenthood, and Maura is ready to kickass on her new ABC show The Whole Truth. But that doesn't mean the folks in the 'hood aren't still partial to their onetime costar. In fact, there is still a picture of Maura in one of the kitchens on the show! And since we know you care, Maura is happy and healthy and excited to get back to work. "It's a really wonderful feeling to know that people care about something that you do," she tells us. "[And] it's a priority for me now to work with people I really like and watch."
Jackie in Los Angeles: I'm so excited to see Maura Tierney back on my TV. Can you tell me anything about her new show The Whole Truth?
First, the lovely Miss Maura isn't the only pretty face in The Whole Truth. Numb3rs star Rob Morrow joins her back on the small screen this fall, and in case you're concerned, this is not your normal procedural. "Every week you get to decide whose case you're liking, and if my case a stronger case or Rob's case is stronger," Maura tells us. "Unfortunately in life, justice is not always achieved. The bad guys don't always get convicted and the good guys don't always succeed, so the audience is privy to that." Plus, Maura's got a teensy bit of insight on the topic—her dad is a lawyer and her brother just passed the bar.
Kristin in Laguna Beach, Calif.: I need Modern Family back in my life. Do you have any scoop to give until it comes back for season two?
At the TCA Press Tour, Emmy nominees Ty Burrell and Sofia Vergara told us they could not wait to get back to work (starting today!), so they are right there with you. And because Ty was sporting a beard that he had to shave off come shooting time, he and Sofia brainstormed a way to keep it for Modern Family. "We could write it into the first episode somehow," he reasons. "Phil's been in the jungle…" "…in Colombia," adds Sofia with a laugh. I bet that would be an awesome episode. Ty and Sofia also let us know that the gang has had a table read for just one episode, so it looks like we'll have to wait until later before we can drop more spoiler bombs on you.
Tom in Dallas: Is it true that Jimmy Johnson is going to be on this season of Survivor? Stay tuned: We will reveal the identities of all the Survivor: Nicaragua Castaways next Monday, Aug. 9 at 6 a.m. PT. We interviewed all 20 contestants—plus Jeff Probst—on site in Nicaragua during their first week of filming and have tons of scoop to spill...but we are sworn to secrecy until next week.
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Bradley in Missouri: What happened to that Glee audition process on MySpace? Has anyone been chosen?
Right now, Ryan Murphy is focusing on core character development, so no one has won the big prize yet, but Fox exec Kevin Reilly told reporters Monday morning that it's still very much in the process. " The characters Ryan originally envisioned will be added later [in season two]." So keep your eyes peeled!
Rain in Ohio: Will Adrienne Palicki be back on Friday Night Lights?
She tells us…yes! She confirmed today while promoting her new show Lonestar that she just shot the last two episodes of the upcoming and (likely last ever) season, adding that it was basically like a "big family reunion" and that nearly every original cast member was there.
Jessica in Ohio: Just heard David Cross has joined Will Arnett's new show on Fox. So excited!
Felicity is right there with you! Er, make that the extremely talented (don't you dare say otherwise!) Keri Russell, who will play the girlfriend of David's character on the new Running Wilde, told us this morning: "We fly home this afternoon and start shooting at 6 a.m. Tuesday. He's amazing and I'm so excited!" (And be sure to check out our earlier chat with show runner Mitch Hurwitz here for more news!)
Max in New York: Any fun stuff to share about Matthew Perry's new ABC show Mr. Sunshine?
It's all pretty fun (as evidenced here), but Matthew himself is looking forward to one scene in particular a few episodes in: "It's women, in lingerie, playing football." And really, what guy could say no to that? He also teased casting his Fools Rush In costar Salma Hayek in the role of quarterback, but yeah, that was a joke.
Justin in Rockford, Ill.: I am so over that whole Teddy-Owen-Christina triangle on Grey's Anatomy. Is it over? Please tell me that it's over!
I can't tell you, but Kim Raver can. And she can report that, yes, "for now, the triangle with Owen and Christina is done." Hollller! Let's chest bump on that one, shall we? Plus, she tells us that we'll get to see Teddy try her hand at romance—with someone new, who is presumably named neither Kevin nor McKidd. "We have some people coming in, very talented, very good looking," she says with a sly smile. "So, Teddy gets to dive into that world, which will be a lot of fun to watch." And watch we will.
Carrisa in St. George, UT.: Did Jessica Capshaw tell you anything else about the new season of Grey's Anatomy? Thanks for the great scoop from her!
That she did! "The main thing you're going to see [when Grey's returns] is who delivers and who doesn't deliver on promises made during the season finale," she tells us. "It's definitely a come-to-Jesus moment for everybody. 'Sh*t or get off the pot.' And the season builds from there. Shonda [Rimes] and the writers found a really beautiful, delicate middle ground from which to spring to the next season. It's going to be really great!"
Mike Coppola/FilmMagic
Please tell me you have some leftover Smallville scoop from Comic-Con?
Justin Hartley is hopping on the Tom Welling bandwagon and taking a stab at directing an episode later this year. "I'm directing episode 20, I think," he told us in SanDiego. "That may change, but it's what I've been told. It's really late in the game so I couldn't really mess things up at that point, right? Or I could ruin it. People might say, 'What is that?! Oh it's Justin's footprint, great. '" Um, we doubt that, but it's cute to know he's a little nervous. And Tom's directing another ep this season, too, so good things are happening all around!
Janine in Yucaipa, Calif.: Any word on when we'll see Clark in the actual Superman suit on Smallville?
There's no exact "when" available at the moment (although Bryan Petersen and Kelly Souders did say during Comic-Con that we will see it in some form in season 10), but Tom Welling tells us this: " Whatever we do, I want to make sure we earn the suit at the end." So expect to see Clark going through some big things before he dons the blue and red.
Joey in Grand Rapids, Mich.: Loved your Bones scoop! Anything else you can spill?
Well, I'm heading to interview David and Emily right now at the Fox party, so stand by! In the meantime, we know we'll be seeing Booth in Afghanistan, but did you know that Emily Deschanel is directing that episode? While talking to us at Comic-Con, they hadn't started filming those episodes quite yet, but Emily had been to the Afghanistan set in Los Angeles to scout it out. "It's very hot," she informs David. "I do not envy you." So, a shirtless scene then, right?
Peggy in Santa Barbara, Calif.: I'm really worried that with the shocking Dexter finale, my favorite serial killer will be totally different next season. Can you ease my mind?
Dexter will be dark this season. Very dark. But, says new show runner Chip Johannesson, it might be a good dark—like a throwback to the Dex of yesteryear. "In a weird way a big weight has been lifted and he's back to the Dexter we know and love from the first season."
Lizzy in Memphis, Tenn.: How does Taylor Kitsch's storyline wrap up on the fourth season of Friday Night Lights? Everything works out, right?
Er, sure. Happy endings are just everywhere in Dillon. And unicorns really leap over rainbows to run wild with puppies that chase bunny rabbits. Come on! You know with the combo of the chop shop and the birth of Billy's child that something bad has to happen. It's the perfect storm, and the perfect opportunity for Taylor to exit with an amazing performance. I'm telling this not to hurt you, but to prepare you. Someone has to do it, after all.
Betsy in Idaho: Any other Cougar Town scoop to spill?
S#*! My Dad Says' loss is Cougar Town's gain, because Ryan Devlin will definitely be back as Laurie's boytoy Smith Jerrod on the sophomore series this fall, big boss Bill Lawrence tells us. Hell to the yes!
Kelly in Austin, Texas: Can you talk about the 90210 premiere and where things are when it returns?
Better yet, well let Michael Steger (Navid) fill you in: "It starts off strongly with Naomi's character dealing with how it left off the season finale," referring of course to the perceived rape in the season finale. And as for that sicko teacher, Michael says: "It's a pretty intense storyline, and he's still around." Still very much around, we're hearing.
Reggie: Is it true that one of the main guys will be gay on 90210 this season?
Yes, it is.
Hannah in Richmond, VA.: Thanks for all the Castle scoop. Nathan Fillion is my boyfriend. Can I get some more goods on the new season?
He's your boyfriend? I guess we can share. Well, you saw that the will they, won't they aspect of Kate and Castle hits a real snag when Kate arrests him in the season opener. Bummer. But the writers told us at Comic-Con that they definitely love playing with that relationship and all the push pull that comes with it, so prepare for more sexual tension! Hooray!
Jessie in Chicago, Ill.: Castle news, if you got it.
Castle's daughter Alexis will be all up in the dating world next season! And even though she takes care of her dad more than he takes care of her, we'll get to see somewhat of a father figure from Castle. And how does Nathan think his character will deal with his daughter's dating life? "I'm sure he'll take it real well," he says sarcastically. Can't wait to see Castle chase off boys with a shotgun!
Jenna in Flemington, N.J.: Do you have any scoop on Psych?
"We're gonna need a Speak 'n Spell and seven pounds of mashed potatoes—that's how much scoop we got from the Psych crew after their amazing panel at Comic-Con, including more details on their upcoming Twin Peaks homage. "It's my favorite TV show of all-time," said star and episode cowriter James Roday, adding, "I think we're going to be able to deliver on a promise of several Twin Peaks alum" in the cast. "We're hoping that we can somehow work Ray Wise [who starred as a priest in last season's Exorcist-themed ep] back into it," said Steve Franks. Most important, said Franks: "There will be pie! And there will be a woman of some sort carrying some sort of log."
Elizabeth in Knoxville, Tenn.: Do you know anything about Psych? I'm excited for some Shawn and Gus psychic detectiving. "Mr. Spencer (James Roday) and his associate (Dulé Hill) will square off against their nemesis Despereaux again in the winter season premiere, Psych's Steve Franks told us at Comic-Con. The detectiving duo return to Canada to extradite the criminal mastermind back to the United States, and "let's just say, stuff happens in this episode," Franks said. "If we get him, Cary Elwes is coming back to play Despereaux."
Nevin in Atlanta: Good lord, True Blood is offing people left and right! Can you tell us what's coming up next?
You've probably heard 90210's Michael Steger is stopping by True Blood later this season, and this new gig is a far cry from his West Bev sleuth. "I'm a drug runaway who has a very interesting trade that feeds into his drug addiction and his lifestyle.," Michael tells us. "It's a really dark youth and he's just a lost soul. I meet the King of Mississippi, and I resemble his love of 700 years. They have an interesting chemistry." Whoa, whoa, whoa—what about Talbot?!
Wendy in Glendale: How does the Jeff and Annie finale kiss affect Troy and Annie on Community?
We're not going to lie. He's going to be pretty bummed. But really, it's Annie who's struggling to deal with the makeout sesh. "Her emotions will run high either way," Alison Brie tells us, "But Annie is so impressionable!"
Kellie from Las Vegas, Nev.: The Office. I only care about one couple in Scranton: Dwight and Angela. What's the word?
Babies! No, seriously. "They start this season with a procreation contract. And Angela is very business like, so she's determined to have her "sex appointments" with Dwight in order for procreation," Angela tells us. Meaning, Angela flat-out corners Dwight about babies. "She does come up to him and they have a system that I don't want to reveal, but it's funny." We hope it doesn't involve trading beets for sex. Actually, that'd be kind of awesome…
Gracie in West Lafayette, Ind.: The cutest couple on TV is Andy and Erin from The Office! Is there hope for them?
Hate to break it to you, but after getting the scoop from Ellie Kemper, it doesn't look so good for Andy and Erin fans. "I'll tell you, at least in the beginning, I think there is romance for Erin, but not with Andy," she reluctantly reveals. In that same answer, she also mentions Zach Woods coming on full time, so we can only assume Erin and Gabe will be doing some work outside the office, if you know what I mean. "I think there's some love between the two of them. I don't know if I can say too much!" Ellie laughs. Darling, you just said more than enough.
Hung‘s lady pimp is expanding her service area to include Wisteria Lane.
Rebecca Creskoff—who currently stars as Jane Adams’ rival man merchant on HBO’s Hung—has been tapped to guest star in an October episode of Desperate Housewives, sources confirm to me exclusively.
Details of her Housewives role are being kept under wraps, but it’s my understanding that Creskoff will be playing a new adversary of Susan’s (Teri Hatcher).
Stacy Keibler is joining the Nerd Herd. The wrestler-model-What About Brian actress has signed on to guest star on this season’s third episode of Chuck, sources confirm to me exclusively.
Keibler will succeed Olivia Munn and Isaiah Mustafa as undercover agent Greta, a new recurring character that will be played by a different actor every week.
“Greta can be a guy or a girl, which is brilliant,” Zachary Levi explained to me over the weekend at NBC’s press tour soiree. “The Buy More has now been taken over by the CIA and it’s a fully functioning operation by the government, so there are these constant agents that are in the store. First it was Olivia Munn, who looked hot in her little Nerd Hereder outfit, and [next was] Isaiah, who was a hoot to work with.”
The two-hour opener of AMC’s third original series, political thriller Rubicon, became the network's highest-rated and most-watched original series premiere ever, attracting two million total viewers. For comparison, Mad Men averaged 900,000 viewers and Breaking Bad 1.2 million viewers in their first seasons. Following the two-hour Rubicon premiere, the second episode of Mad Men's fourth episode drew 2.5 million viewers, down 14% from last week's season premiere. "With last night's premiere of Rubicon, AMC is now three for three with our original series," said Charlie Collier, president and GM of AMC. Rubicon, which moves to its regular Sunday 9 PM time slot next week, had already been sampled by 4.6 million viewers via the network's sneak peek on-air as well as on VOD, iTunes and Hulu.
Despite a dip in ratings last season, Fringe remains a key asset for Fox. That’s the word from the network’s entertainment prez Kevin Reilly, who sang the show’s praises at press tour this morning.
“We have no intention of screwing with Fringe because the show has been going great,” assured Reilly. “It really came into its own last season. If I have any frustration it’s that I’d like the audience to be bigger because people deserve to see the work.”
Reilly went on to say that “the first batch of scripts with the alternative universe” have been particularly strong.
What’s up with TV and Texas this season? This fall’s crop of new TV series includes NBC’s Chase shooting in Dallas, and ABC’s My Generation, shooting in Austin. At today’s TCA, Fox presented the new drama Lone Star -- which, with that title, couldn’t really be set anywhere else. The show's lead character (played by relative newcomer James Wolk) has two wives and two lives in two different locations, Houston and Midland. It will actually be shot in Dallas, the setting for another Fox series introduced earlier this year, The Good Guys. (Executive producer Peter Horton, who plans to direct some episodes, he joked of his involvement: “I thought it was going to be shot in San Francisco.”)
Lone Star creator/executive producer (and native Texan) Kyle Killen explained that when he pitched the series, "I sold it as Dallas without the cheese.
It definitely has things in common -- it's big, it's Texas, it’s got oil. I would like to think we will go for a few season without hair-pulling cat fights. But we might run out of ideas.”
Executive producer Amy Lippman said that in Dallas the old fashioned soapy characters wwere more black and white with no shades of gray. In 2010, Lippman says of Lone Star's characters: “They each in their own way do bad things, but their motives are pure. It is not simply about the acquisition of power and money. At the heart of it, they are holding on to people that they love.“
There's no question this marquee Steven Spielberg- and Peter Chernin-produced adventure drama series is important to Fox. So it's getting the full-on Glee treatment. Terra Nova, originally slated for midseason, will now premiere in fall 2011 after a preview in May. “Terra Nova will be one of the most visually stimulating and dramatically grand series to air on network television,” Fox's entertainment president Kevin Reilly told the TCA today. “It deserves to have an equally unique launch to distinguish that the show is unlike any other, and the spring promotional platform will give us the perfect opportunity to introduce this bold show to audiences.”
Terra Nova follows an ordinary family going back in time to prehistoric Earth as part of an experiment to save the human race. The series, which will feature elaborate sets and visual effects, was never given a firm midseason launch date because of its elaborate production process. It also has been slow in casting its leads, with Jason O’Mara the only actor locked in so far. Terra Nova is produced by 20th Century Fox TV, DreamWorks TV, Kapital Entertainment, and Chernin Entertainment. Spielberg, Chernin, Brannon Braga, David Fury, Jon Cassar, Aaron Kaplan, Katherine Pope, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Craig Silverstein and Kelly Marcel serve as executive producers. Alex Graves is set to direct the pilot.
Fiona Gubelmann has landed the female lead opposite Jason Gann and Elijah Wood lead in FX’s comedy pilot Wilfred, while Malcolm-Jamal Warner has been tapped for the male lead opposite Tracee Ellis Ross in the BET comedy pilot Reed Between the Lines.
Based on the Australian series of the same name, Wilfred revolves around a guy, Ryan (Wood), the girl next door/potential love interest (Gubelmann), and her mixed-breed dog Wilfred (Gann).
Reed centers on Dr. Carla Reed (Ross), a busy psychiatrist, wife and mom struggling to balance her job and her happy but chaotic homelife. The Cosby Show alum Warner is expected to play her husband.
Midway through the broadcast networks’ portion of this week’s Television Critics Association press tour, NBC Universal threw a rooftop party at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Being primarily an NBC/USA Network function, imagine my surprise to spy ‘House‘ alum Jennifer Morrison in the crowd (on the arm of beau Amaury Nolasco, one of the star’s of NBC’s new ‘Chase’ drama).
I seized the chance to a) bask in Morrison’s pretty and b) find out what she is up to these days, and if those plans might involve a ‘House’ call.
Many, many of your fans write in to me asking for a status report. For starters, tell me about the film you have coming out.
It’s a Lionsgate film called ‘Warrior,’ and they’re promising to announce a release date in two weeks.
What’s it about and where do you fit in?
It’s a family drama involving the MMA fighting world. It’s two brothers who grew up with an alcoholic father (played by Nick Nolte) who encouraged them to be fighters. They have two very diverging lives – one brother (‘Inception’s Tom Hardy) ends up married and teaching, and the other (Joel Edgerton) ends up in prison in Mexico. I play [Hardy's] wife, and I’m very involved in trying to keep him from fighting again, because he almost got terribly hurt.
So, you’re Adrian to his Rocky?
Exactly. If you’re going to make that reference, yeah.
Has ‘House’ reached out to you yet about putting in any of those oft-rumored Season 7 appearances?
I don’t know. They have a contract that allows for three episodes if they decide to write the episodes and if I’m available. So, like, if I’m off doing a movie and I’m unavailable then they probably won’t write those episodes, but if they write those episodes and I’m around then of course I would do it. But they may not write those episodes.
OK, my head hurts from that.
I know. Basically, they don’t have a first-position hold on me anymore.
Know what? We’ll let Chase (Jesse Spencer) get involved with some bimbo or something, and then Cameron can resurface to bust his chops.
[Laughs] Well, I don’t know. I wouldn’t hang my hat on that.
Did you go up for any pilots?
No, because I was doing the play [Broadway's 'The Miracle Worker']. I really wanted the creative experience of being back on stage.
Well, we just want to see you again on a screen, big or small – and it isn’t gonna happen with the new ‘Star Trek‘ movie, since Kirk’s mom would be a bit old by now.
I don’t know – it depends on if they mess with the time continuum!
You make an excellent point.
Yeah. Don’t worry, you’ll see me around.
Michael Trucco is the first to acknowledge that things didn’t work out too well between his ‘Castle‘ character, Detective Tom Demming, and Stana Katic’s Detective Kate Beckett.
“In that season finale, she kicked me to the curb,” he relates. “‘Don’t let the door hit you in the a–’!”
But Trucco is also the first to say there is a need for – and possibly will be – better closure for Beckett’s short-lived workplace romance.
“It’s complete rumor and hearsay, but there is a chance I could come back to resolve that,” Trucco tells Fancast.
The catch of course is that Trucco now is busy with a lead role on the USA Network series ‘Facing Kate,’ premiering this fall and on which he stars opposite Sarah Shahi (’Life’).
As such, he notes that assorted “powers-that-be, scheduling conflicts, rival networks” could stand in the way of him mixing it up with Castle (played by Nathan Fillion) again. “But if they asked me to do it and I could, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Trucco says.
Speaking of the new Kate in his life, Trucco describes the dynamic between him and Shahi’s titular lawyer-turned-mediator like this: “We are ‘exes with benefits,’ so we end up in bed together just about every episode – even though we shouldn’t be! It’s a dysfunctional relationship… toxic, even.”
‘Castle’ fans, would any of you like to see Trucco return for one more episode? Or are things already too complicated for Kate and Rick now that her former training officer (played by Jason Beghe, ‘American Dreams’) – with whom she may have once been involved with – is showing up this season?
With complex plots cloaked in mystery, Rubicon is not going to be every TV viewer's cup of tea — and that's OK, star James Badge Dale says.
"What we try to concentrate on is people who do want to sit down and be told a story and be told a story in this manner," he tells TVGuide.com. "It's a subtle story, but it's a very specific story."
Dale plays Will Travers, an analyst at a New York think thank who stumbles across a conspiracy.
"It's very important that the audience is never behind or ahead, and that we can kind of go on this journey together," Dale says.
ABC's new character-driven procedural Body of Proof stars Dana Delany as an ambitious medical examiner whose first career as a brilliant neurosurgeon was dashed after a car crash. Executive producer Matthew Gross dismissed parallels to the 1970s NBC series Quincy, M.E. "This is not your father’s Quincy; it's a new take on medic examiners," he said. "We set out to do a character-driven procedural, started off with Dana’s character and grew form there."
Delany cracked a joke about her resemblance to Quincy star Jack Klugman and went on to say that, of all TV roles she has played, the one on China Beach feels closest to her turn on Body of Proof. "She’s complicated, smart, addicted to the job and to power, but she has lost it all, so she needs to redeem herself," she said of her new character.
Two intriguing details surrounding Delany's casting in the pilot. Delany herself was in a serious car accident mirroring that of her heroine a couple of months before she was approached for the role. And she was approached for it because ABC brass had just seen her two-episode arc on Castle, which stemmed from an invitation by her friend, the show's star Nathan Fillion. So Fillion is essentially responsible for Delany's new gig on Body of Proof.
Delany also highly recommended that everyone witnesses an autopsy. "It's fantastic; makes you take care of your body."
As for the show being set in Philadelphia but shooting in Providence, Rhode Island, the producers defended the filming location, noting that it is being fondly referred to as "Pro-ladelphia."
Steve Levitan, 47, is known for creating the TV series Just Shoot Me! Stark Raving Mad, Stacked, Back to You, with varying degrees of success. He's also known for being highly vocal in his displeasure with the networks (like NBC and Fox) at times. And, in the words of one producer, "for being the only Jew in Hollywood who wears a 44 long". But the veteran writer/producer -- who won an Emmy Award as executive producer of Frasier and has written for the Larry Sanders Show, Men Behaving Badly, The Wonder Years and other comedy shows -- is now a happy guy at the helm ABC’s Wednesday night sitcom hit Modern Family, which he co-runs with Chris Lloyd. While he has some strong feelings about the state of the TV industry, he admits in this Showrunner Q&A with Deadline contributor Diane Haithman -- done before Modern Family was nominated for Emmys -- that these days he’s finding it pretty hard to complain:
SL: Obviously, everything I say in this interview is [about] myself and my writing partner Chris Lloyd, we were doing this together.
DH: OK. How did you come up with the mix of characters for Modern Family and decide: This will be our neighborhood?
We knew we wanted to do something about family, and we started to realize we wanted to do something in the documentary form. We wanted to do multiple families, because we both liked the adult relationships. We didn’t want to be constantly doing kid stories, we wanted to be able to do both. Frasier was based on an adult brother relationship, and an adult father-son relationship. Just Shoot Me was a complicated adult father-daughter relationship. So then it was a matter of populating it with multiple families, and the idea was, how has family changed recently? So let’s start in the middle with a very conventional, right down the middle family -- a working husband, a stay-at-home mom, and three kids. And the kids were kind of loosely based on my family in terms of the sexes and ages of the kids. And then we wanted to do a gay couple. And we wanted to do something cross-cultural as well. And what was nice there was the older man/younger woman thing. We could have done three siblings, and one of them was married [to someone from another culture]. But we liked the idea of the father being with the younger woman because you’ve got multiple things going on. There was nice conflict and tension.
DH: On other shows, there’s one gay character (the gay sidekick) but you don’t see the couple dynamic.
SL: We wanted to paint a more complicated picture. We have many [gay] friends who have been in long long relationships. It’s certainly in the zeitgeist right now with gay marriage and gay adoptions and all that, and it’s a wonderful thing to explore. In many ways, they are the most conventional couple.
DH: There always seems to be one who is out there, and the other is perpetually embarrassed by it.
SL: Yes, the worrier vs. the free spirit -- why doesn’t that person lighten up? That was a struggle for us to find the right combination. Because we want them to be funny and interesting, but we didn’t want to just create Will and Grace's gay characters with a kid. As wonderful as that show was, there are a lot of gay men who are not that fabulous, and those were the guys we were interested in. We just got so lucky with the casting, the magic and the chemistry between them, I marvel at it all the time.
DH: You talked about choosing the documentary format. Other shows are doing the same thing. Certainly NBC’s The Office does it.
SL: Because it is a wonderful device. One of the things that we did that was smart, we basically did everything that would help the comedy. Who cares if it had been done before, in terms of the documentary style or the way we shoot it, or having multiple families -- if it helped the comedy, we did it. Consequently, we have a show that really runs smoothly and efficiently. And we shoot fast, and that’s enormously helpful. The documentary form itself is such a wonderful device to get to the heart of a story, cut to the chase of what a character is thinking. You don’t have to work in funky, awkward exposition. You cut to it, and you are right there.
DH: Is the show difficult to write?because the characters themselves don’t always know how they feel. It's very complicated.
SL: That’s what so great about it. Yes, and the interviews are visually interesting, and funny, so they are not just exposition, a way of tying scenes together. We made a conscious effort to differentiate ourselves from The Office. We are all big Office fans, and they really in many ways paved the way for Modern Family’s success because they got people used to that form. It didn’t seem jarring. But we went for a lot of the couple interviews, so you get a lot of a sense of the dynamic in those interviews. And we tried to go for a slightly more cinematic feel, where The Office is more sort of ‘caught’ movies.
DH: Here there actually is an interviewer.
SL: We wanted to make it more pure and real, and our choice is to make it more beautiful, sometimes at the expense of that. It’s just a different style.
DH: How far can you go with the network? Are we living in an era where we can laugh at just about anything?
SL: They are pretty trusting. When we did the pilot, we got a couple of notes about some specific jokes that they were very concerned about -- we had three Asian jokes in the pilot, and they wanted us to cut them all. We ended cutting one of them and keeping two. We just said, it’s important. And there was also a line where the little girl Alex said: “The bitch shot me,” about her brother, and that was very important to us to keep. First of all, it’s something that my daughter has said, so it’s real. And it’s also something that said right away, OK, this is not a cutesy show. This is not kids saying sweet things. There is going to be a little bit of edge to this.
Early on in the pilot [the gay couple] Cam and Mitchell made a joke about lesbians being angry, and that was important to us because it showed that here are these two gay guys who have their own biases. They have their own issues and their own flaws. They were very concerned, but once they got over that – and we fought, but we fought in a good way, and they relented -- and there was just virtually no pushback, I mean really, it was crazy: the silence was deafening.
And because the tone of our show is so warm, and people seem to like the characters so much, they trust our instincts. Occasionally will be a note over something like: 'You can’t say this movie title because it’s not a Disney-owned movie [Disney owns ABC]. We had a joke that mentioned The Hurt Locker in it, and that’s not a Disney owned movie. And we said, you just can’t put those kinds of constraints on us, that we’re only going to be mentioning your movies. And to their credit, they relented. So they’ve actually been ridiculously reasonable, I have to say. I’m pretty vocal about my dissatisfactions.
DH: I was hoping you would be.
SL: In a weird way, it kind of highlights how dysfunctional those past experiences were. We’re in a good position now. The network is happy, so of course we get treated well.
DH: How different are the networks from each other in terms of what they want? Since you have had so many different shows out there, for so many different entities, is there a way to characterize them?
SL: The truth of the matter probably is, despite all the fun that I have at Fox and NBC’s expense, the quality of one’s experience with a network depends largely on the success of your show. If Modern Family was not a hit, and was not in the good time period and was not being promoted and [ABC Entertainment President] Stephen McPherson didn’t care about it, I might have a very different feeling about ABC. But because things are going very well and because Steve McPherson cares about it and they have promoted it very heavily, I couldn’t be happier. I know, I feel bad -- I should have more controversial things to say. But it’s hard to be bitter when there is nothing to be bitter about.
But I do think there are certain challenges that particular networks pose. I think certain networks find a landscape that is simply more difficult in which to succeed. Like Fox -- it’s a schizophrenic schedule, it changes, you’ve got your Idol schedule, your pre-Idol schedule, baseball, and it’s very difficult to get any consistency there unless you are on Sunday night, which is its own unique thing. It’s hard for me to do a show that probably fits into that lineup. So that’s a difficult place, and I tried too many times to succeed there.
And there were other mistakes. I don’t think it was marketed particularly well at Fox, I didn’t think there was a lot of logic to their scheduling. Clearly comedies work in blocks. The only comedies that are working right now are Sunday night on Fox, Monday night on CBS, Wednesday nights on ABC, and to some degree Thursday nights on NBC. You need a flow, and you need the personality of a night, and if you don’t have that it’s just very, very difficult to pop out. If people sit down and say, I’m in the mood to watch comedy, they do it in blocks.
DH: So Modern Family is the anchor of your block?
SL: Yes, there hasn’t been a single week that the night hasn’t peaked at Modern Family, considerably. So we are feeling very good about the strength of our show. But without that flow, it’s very difficult.
DH: What comedies to you watch? Or have you had enough of comedy and find other things to watch?
SL: Yeah, I watch 30 Rock and The Office, I certainly watch those shows. And I even admire elements of Community; I think the dialogue in that show is just crackling, very strong. There are definitely times when I don’t even want to turn on TV, and that was more the case in the past than it is right now. In the past if it was a show I liked I would feel bad that I didn’t write and create it, and if it was a show that I didn’t like, then why am I watching it? There was really no winning for awhile there. But now I am at peace and happy, and so I can really enjoy shows. I’ve probably seen every episode of 30 Rock, and most of the episodes of The Office. I am definitely a fan and I feel like other people are doing great work.
DH: I understand that you got into this business by writing spec scripts.
SL: I wasn't writing them with hopes of selling them to the actual show. It was just as a sample. It was a Cheers and a Wonder Years.
DH: You were trying to get on the staff of the show.
SL: Yes, and you were more likely to get hired on a different show. Because the people writing that show are likely to look at your script and say: “This kind of missed the tone a little bit.” But to the rest of the world it’s, hey, that really sounds like a Cheers. People read more pilots now than they used to. When it’s a pilot, it’s supposed to stand on its own, so in some ways it’s easier to read. I read a really bizarre pilot when we were staffing for Modern Family, and it was a comedy about terrorists, and a really difficult subject to make funny, and so we ended hiring that person.
DH: What’s the most difficult thing about being a showrunner?
SL: First of all, in a nutshell, it’s two jobs that are opposite ends of the spectrum in one. You have to be a writer. But this is also a job that takes being very thoughtful and very empathetic to people, very sensitive. And writers tend to be introverted, and tend to have an inferiority complex. And on the other end of it, you have to be a manager of people, you have to be strong, you have to be the broad shoulders for 200 people, you have to fight for them, you have to make tough decisions, you have to fire people, and you have to find a more efficient way to do something. You’ve got budgets. You've got to call up the network and know when to put your foot down about something -- and when not to. You are constantly taking one hat off and putting one on.
DH: You can’t just sit in an office and write.
SL: You have just written a scene that is very heartfelt. And then you have to make a phone call and say: Why did you give away the ending in that promo? Or a script comes in that you’re not happy with and you have to figure out how to deal with it.
DH: When anything is as successful as this show, there are going to be imitators.
SL: I just saw an article about the “Modern Family Effect,” which is pretty surreal. I heard a saying once that the definition of Hollywood is 10,000 people running to the spot where lightning just struck. People tried to recreate Friends for many many years. It’s so elusive and there’s so much serendipity that goes into getting a show to work. It’s not like we cracked the code, so the next thing we do is going to be just as brilliant – we got very lucky here, things happened to come together, and we’re just holding on for dear life.
DH: What are the notes like? Your reputation is that you don't listen to notes anymore which is why Modern Family is successful.
SL: We get notes from ABC. And 20th TV [the producer] weighs in. Chris Lloyd and I are a very strong presence in that process, and we can be a bit intimidating at times, so we try to discourage people from wasting our time. But we also try to listen when people have good ideas. But both of us feel strongly about this: we simply never, ever, ever do anything we don’t agree with. We’ll never take a note from anybody that we don’t agree with. We won’t do it to make somebody happy. We might say that’s a lateral move and it’s making them happy, fine, but we’ll never do something that we think is wrong. I think everybody should do that. I’ve always done it, even when I didn’t have a history to fall back on. And I think it’s what you need to do in this business.
There are a lot of people chiming in because it is their job to chime in. And while they may be very well meaning, and might have very good things to say at times, certainly everything they say is not going to be right, like everything I say is not going to be right. So you have to learn to listen to everything, and cherry-pick the good notes.
DH: With multiple shows over multiple years, I assume you get a certain amount of authority that helps you.
SL: Just Shoot Me was the first thing I did. I had had five years or so of writing experience, but this was the first time I was a showrunner and all that, and I stuck to my guns right off the bat. Even then, when I didn’t have any power and Just Shoot Me was a fragile show on the network, I decided I was going to succeed or fail on my own terms. I did it with respect. I would tell people why. I would never say: “Screw you, you guys are idiots, you guys are fools.” I’ve never done that. I try to be friendly with people. I try to show people the same respect I would show any human being. But at the end of the day, it’s my job to protect the vision of the show. You have to be reasonable. There are a lot of people in my job who want to flex their muscles and scream and yell and all that, and I find that counterproductive. Sometimes you do have to scare people a little bit: if someone is not acting in the best interest of the show, then maybe you need to scream and yell a little bit, or let them know you’re in charge. But you do so selectively, and do so with forethought so that you’re in control of the situation, not out of control. You are doing it because you need to let someone know, hey, you’re crossing a boundary here. That’s what being a leader is.
DH: Does it help to be taller than they are?
SL: It probably does, yes. I’m allowed to lie back a little bit, as opposed to the league of Napoleons of our time. Look, there are some people who do not handle power well, and I just don’t have a lot of respect for those people. I said in my WGA speech the business has gotten so screwed up and mismanaged that we benefited from that because people were so gracious about our show, so happy with our success, because thank God something that they liked was actually working. People who are our competitors were going out of their way to say the nicest things to us. So that’s been a wonderful thing.
When Leno moved to 10PM, in my mind, I quickly did the math and said: “There goes about 800 jobs,” and it’s such a negative approach to programming. The bottom line is, if you don’t think there’s a future in network television, and that network television can be big and can be what it was, then you should not be in that chair. Because if you don’t believe it, certainly your dwindling audience isn’t going to believe in it, because you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by playing for margins.
DH: The last thing I want to ask you about is Twitter. Like the tweet you wrote, “What is Na’Vi for “Shut the fuck up, Jim Cameron?” As a comedy writer I imagine Twitter must be so attractive. Because brevity is the soul of wit and all that.
SL: That was just a gut reaction to the situation, to him speaking us to us in that [Avatar] language at the Golden Globes: “I’m going to make up a language, and then speak to you in it.” I found that a little odd. He certainly is a talent, and I respect his moviemaking, but that was just a little absurd. Twitter is fun – I’m a tech guy, I love anything new, I’m big on all that stuff; I got onto it for the same reason I got on Facebook – well, I’m hearing all about this, the only way to fully understand it is to participate in it and see if I like it. I have 3,000 people or something like that following me, it’s so tiny. Cartoon characters have more people following them. Dogs. Rico Rodriguez, who plays Manny on Modern Family, he went on and in one day got more people than I have.
I do think that Twitter serves a really valuable purpose for television in that it creates that shared experience once again. If you search for Modern Family, say, as the show is airing, people are tweeting the jokes they like in real time as it’s playing. It’s a way for us to track what jokes people like, what people are saying. For us it’s fun to respond to. But more importantly it makes people want to watch the show as it airs, because then they get to go online and talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it three days later, when it’s no longer news. I think it gets people to watch the show live again. It becomes the virtual water cooler, and it’s a way to reinvigorate network television.
DH: We're done. Anything you’d like to add?
SL: No, I am just ridiculously grateful right now. It’s sappy, but true. For awhile I thought maybe I should start switching over to features, start living that life, because TV is getting very tiring. But now there’s literally nothing I’d rather be doing than Modern Family.
As a Detroit native, I can confirm that Detroit is an economically troubled, crime-ridden, racially polarized city that for decades hasn’t seemed able to catch a break. And at today's TCA, it became clear that the fact ABC has set and is shooting its new crime series Detroit 1-8-7 in the Motor City, while a boon to the local economy, is already causing controversy there. Discussed today were the clashes with the Detroit City Council over the possibility of negative stereotypes from a cop show about the town nicknamed “Murder City.” The code 1-8-7 stands for homicide. Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta has called for a resolution that asked the show to change its title, because he says it associates Detroit with murder. But executive producer Jason Richman said there is no plan to change the title: “1-8-7 is another way to say homicide. We think it’s cool and represents the visual identity of the show, “ he said. “It’s just kind of a pop culture reference. It wasn’t meant to mirror the radio codes of Detroit. It’s a crime show, and we’re sticking to the title.”
More woes: The reason that the show has scuttles its plans for using documentary elements also has to do with the real-life situation in Detroit. While executive producers Richman and David Zabel were in the city, a 7-year-old girl was accidentally shot and killed during a nighttime home police raid. (Police pursued a murder suspect into the house.) The raid was being followed by a documentary TV crew. The girl awoke during the commotion and ended up in the line of fire. Zabel said that some community leaders believed the police might have “amped up the situation a little” for the cameras and put the girl at higher risk. Said Richman: ”That was pretty real and pretty scary stuff and the city was very concerned about that. They patently said that no documentary film crews could follow the police. We were sensitive to their concerns. It was a huge, huge story that traumatized the city."
Added Zabel: “At the end of the day, creatively we are convinced [that] while the documentary conceit was very interesting and compelling in the pilot [and later episodes], we were going to feel a little hampered and hemmed in by that.” The altered format, he said, has “freed us up to explore a lot more.”
At ABC’s TCA panel on his new show Mr. Sunshine, which he stars in, executive produces, and co-writes, Matthew Perry was in fine form. He was sardonic about everything, even his own well-publicized problems with Vicodin addiction in the mid-1990s that made him something less than a Mr. Sunshine. Perry made clear that his character, Ben Donovan, who's the manager of a second-tier sports arena in San Diego and in Perry’s words a “selfish jerk, was not-so-loosely based on himself. “The reason that my character has only thought about himself is I knew somebody for whom that was the case for a long time.. I’m much nicer now.” Perry, now 40, was asked whether anything specific changed him for the better. “I would say if you want to find out the answer to that, just pick up any newspaper from 1996 or look at any magazine cover.” Perry cracked. "They say, hey, write what you know. I knew if I wrote something, I would like that to be a component of it."
Quizzed about his former sitcom castmates, one questioner noted how “All the Friends are cooking along pretty well these days except it seems for David Schwimmer. We don’t see him. Where is he?” To which Perry responded, “If we weren’t here, would you say, 'Except, it seems, for Matthew?'" Perry quipped back. Of his own feature film efforts, Perry said: “You can tell how successful the movies are by the fact that I’m here."
