Category Archives: Entertainment Industry Coverage
IR Print Interview: Jon Hamm For “Mad Men” [AMC/Cable TCA]
Don Draper, as a functionality of modern man set within the structure of a 60s era world, has become a focal point and personification of ambition and cool within the modern TV landscape even as his own personal demons threaten to bring him down. Jon Hamm, embodying Draper in full costume with a tumbler of Scotch at the AMC “Mad Men” Cocktail Party at the Winter Cable TCAs, discusses with The Inside Reel’s Tim Wassberg the notion of ambition and the changing face of this titular character.
Tim Wassberg: Can you talk in terms of the new season of the aspect of ambition versus life experience in Don Draper?
Jon Hamm: I think they are very closely related. I think sometimes your life experience can inform your ambition and very often ambition can inform your life experience. And I think that Don has a crazy life experience. He has a double life. He comes from nothing. His ambition has certainly got him where he is. Often the problem with people who are incredibly ambitious is what happens when you get there? Then what?
TW: What questions does Don Draper ask himself?
JH: Is this it? Are we done? What’s next? That kind of stuff. If your ambition is to rise to the top and you get there and there is another mountain, you go “Oh Shit!” Or if you look around and there ain’t no more mountains, then what?
TW: Can speak on the evolution of Don’s psychology both in his physicality and emotionally as he puts up more and more masks.
JH: I think what happens is that everybody gets old. None of us are immune to that particularity. Some age faster than others and other age, psychologically, not at all. What ends up happening is that your life happens, and you get older. And sometimes what happens when you get older is the things you did in your past, which seemed so big and so hard to deal with, kind of don’t matter anymore or matter less. I think Don is in a place in his life where that is beginning to happen.
TW: Does that mean Don is more prone to second guessing himself?
JH: I think he is just getting older and realizing the old saying: “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. And, by the way, it’s all “small stuff”.
IR Print Interview: Jon Cryer For “Two & A Half Men” [CBS TCA]
Revolving in notions of what is said and not said has never been more truthful in the drama of “Two & A Half Men” over the past year. Jon Cryer, long the unsung hero of the show as Alan because of his ability to sacrifice dignity at times for the sake of a joke, spoke to The Inside Reel’s Tim Wassberg on the texture that makes the show more than it might seem.
Tim Wassberg: Can you talk about the story progression on the show after the loss of Charlie?
Jon Cryer: First of all, it was very strange to have the plots hang on Alan which happened a few times last season but was unusual still for me. What’s been nice about the last few episodes we’ve been shooting is that it has mostly been hanging on Walden [Ashton's character] (sighs) just like old good times. I think the hardest episode for me to do is when Alan lost it and started thinking he was Charlie…because to find a tone that worked was difficult. The writing came through so strongly on that episode that it did alot of the work for me. I’d love to take credit (chuckling) but it was mostly the writing.
TW: But you had to angle the comedy differently though to make that angle work.
JC: Yes. Because we didn’t want to do an impression. We thought that would be inappropriate but we had to sort of embody who he was and who Charlie Harper was…and not obviously what Charlie Sheen was. I don’t know. It felt like very risky territory but I feel like we got away with it. And we had to deal with it in some respect. When you lose a sibling, it’s a devastating experience and obviously dealing with it in any way comedically is hard. But I think the writers have jumped through some really amazing hoops on this.
TW: Do you feel that Alan is a more confident character now?
He gets full of himself because he’s actually on the board [of Walden's company] and has an actual job. But I don’t know how long that’s going to last.
TW: Is this different perspective of who Alan thinks he is manifested differently for you through both the physical and emotional comedy?
JC: Part of what’s always been fun is that Alan is “Job” [from the Bible]. He gets humiliated, dresses in women’s clothing and has no dignity whatsoever. And that’s great. I’m happy to continue that. But what I am doing hasn’t really changed. It’s just a small change in the dynamic of the scenes in a general sense.
IR Exclusive Print Interview: Michael C. Hall For “Dexter” [CBS/CW/Showtime TCA Party]
THE INSIDE REEL’s Tim Wassberg caught up with Michael C. Hall, the star of Showtime’s seminal series “Dexter” at CBS’s TCA Party in Beverly Hills to talk about the intention of the sixth season and the incumbent element of spirituality brought forth from the new character of Professor Gellar (played by Edward James Olmos) as America’s favorite serial killer continues to brave the battle between humanity and homicide.
TIM WASSBERG: Michael…I just saw you in the indie “East 5th Bliss” which premiered at the Newport Beach International Film Festival. Can you talk about balancing the approach of the sweetness and genuine quality of your character in that kind of an independent with that of the darkness of Dexter?
MICHAEL C. HALL: I think there has to be with Dexter some sense that there is some sweetness somewhere. In “East 5th Bliss” there is an openness involved and vulnerability that Dexter doesn’t have and certainly doesn’t cultivate.
TW: And that was a conscious decision on your part?
MCH: That was just responding to the character as it existed on paper and what I felt was appropriate.
TW: Could you talk how spirituality shows a resonance but also a renaissance in Dexter as a character going into the 6th season?
MCH: I think that the question that Dexter finds himself asking at the beginning of the 6th season is really about his son. We know that Dexter doesn’t want to pass on his dark passenger. His son is only growing older and only learning more and having more and more of an appetite. Dexter is like: “What do I want to pass on to this kid?” and that leads him to think about what kind of school he wants him to go to. It’s a Catholic school and that cracks open a door to Dexter’s awareness that those issues, while not important to him, might be to his son. At the same time, as Dexter tends to do, he attracts relationships and scenarios and cases that feed into that appetite.
TW: Do those cracks of emotion make him an even darker character? Or more human?
MCH: Both. (pause) I think the more human Dexter becomes, if he does in fact continue to kill, the darker he becomes, because the spectrum between the dark and light broadens, and that is sort of a tougher thing to consider in a way.
TW: Continuing on that, perceiving an evolution of then versus now in terms of the Jeff Lindsay novels. how much did you take in relevance to Dexter as a character then and how it has expanded with the relationship with his children versus the mythology that continues to unspool within the show.
MCH: I think as far as mythology, as the show goes, it has its own mythology. Beyond the first book I haven’t read [any more] honestly because I think it would confuse me. It would be like some sort of parallel universe.
TW: But what about the initial burn in terms of the character?
MCH: I think from the pilot episode we see that Dexter has an affinity for children and a protective impulse in regards to them that is unique and initially incongruous..and it has stayed alive. It is the saving grace (chuckling) that Harrison [his son] has.
Season 6 of DEXTER premiere on Showtime October 2nd, 2011 at 9pm.
Check out the Season 6 Promo Trailer that played at TCA Summer Press Tour & Comic Con.
