Q&A: Martin Sheen Talks ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and Why He Changed His Name

Martin Sheen is the featured guest on tonight’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, NBC’s show that traces the ancestry of celebrities.

Brought to America by Host and Executive Producer Lisa Kudrow, the episode follows Sheen as he travels to Ireland and Spain to investigate his family roots.

I talked to Sheen on a conference call where he told me that he went on this journey because for his children and grandchildren. He said that, “I felt like I had a responsibility to go to this place at this time. I’m 71 years old and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around and if something could be uncovered that would be meaningful to future generations then I would be a part of passing that on and that would be very, very satisfying.”

In this Q&A, Sheen talks about his roots, his time in Ireland and why as a young actor he changed his name.

Who Do You Think You Are? airs at 8/7c on NBC

After taking the journey like this does it make you feel more like a whole individual as far as giving you perspective about who you really are?

Martin Sheen: Well of course that is the fundamental purpose is to try and identify personally to your foundation. I think anyone that goes on one of these journeys whether it is in front of a camera or on the Internet is really looking for a personal identification with the past.

And what is amazing about that is that as you go back further and further into your lineage in generation and generation and you begin to look at the dates and you start to realize oh like for example, one of my great, great, great grandparents died just at the onset of the American Revolutionary War.

So in that sense it gives you some perspective that you rarely think about in terms of historical value.  Read more

Q&A: Lisa Kudrow Talks ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’

Lisa Kudrow returns tonight as Host and Executive Producer of NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?

The show traces the ancestral roots of celebrities and follows them as they find out, on camera, their family history. The celebrities featured this season are Martin Sheen, Marisa Tomei, Blair Underwood, Helen Hunt, Reba McEntire, Jerome Bettis, Rita Wilson, Edie Falco, Rob Lowe, Rashida Jones, Jason Sudeikis and Paula Deen.

I talked to Lisa on a conference call where she discussed why she championed and brought the show to America, the most challenging aspects of tracing someone’s past and if some of her Friends might one day appear on the show.

Who Do You Think You Are? airs at 8/7c on NBC

If you come across bad news, as I know some celebrities have on the show, how do you approach that situation?

Lisa Kudrow: You know, most people go into it understanding, I mean, there’s, you know, not a formal conversation, but, you know, most of them feel like I just want information whatever it is. Whatever it is. And they already understand that, you know, if they – if somewhere in their ancestry there were some, you know, unsavory people or they did bad things then, you know, that’s not who they are. And, you know, you can just focus on how the family turned itself around.

So, I don’t know, I mean I think people go into it understanding that this about getting information, it’s not about, you know, getting what you want.  Read more

Q&A: Carol Channing on Her New Documentary, Her Inspiration and More

Carol Channing, known as the ‘First Lady of the American Musical Theatre’, is probably one of the most recognized and impersonated entertainers in around today.

At 90 years old, when many people would be happy to accept accolades for past career achievements, Channing made the conscious decision to remove the diamonds, set aside the lashes and discard the wigs in order to dedicate the rest of her life to restore the arts back in our America’s public schools. 

In the new documentary, Carol Channing: Larger than Life (which opens this weekend in New York and San Fransisco), director Dori Berinstein (ShowBusiness, Gotta Dance), follows Channing both onstage and off…past and present. 

The film is both an intimate love story and a rarefied journey inside Broadway’s most glamorous era.  It is, above all, a look at an inspiring, incomparable and always entertaining American legend. 

In this Q&A, she talks about the documentary, what performers she admires and what continues to motivate her.

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Interview: Joe Anderson Talks ‘The Grey’, Rehearsing the Film and Acting in -20 Degree Weather

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:41 — 12.9MB)

In Joe Carnahan’s excellent film, The Grey, Joe Anderson plays Flannery, a loudmouth who constantly gets under the skin of his fellow oil-riggers. When their plane goes down, he and the rest of the survivors (Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale, Ben Bray and Nonso Anozie) are forced to work together to fend of packs of wolves hungry for their blood.

Anderson is the son British theatre actors and he told me that even though he grew up surrounded by the profession, he didn’t think he’d ever actually be an actor. After backpacking around the world, he decided he wanted to become a director. But since he couldn’t afford coming to America and go to film school, he thought he’d go to drama school to learn about actors. And the rest is history.

Joe talked to me about the shoot and what it was like to work in freezing weather, working with Liam Neeson, and one particularly bad audition where he had to play an espresso machine.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes 

I saw The Grey the other night. Freakin’ fantastic film.

Joe Anderson: It’s a fun one. It’s intense, right? But it’s got a lot of heart in there, a lot of heart.  It took me by surprise, the script.

Before I read it, I was thinking of kind of a dude’s movie with guys in the snow and fighting wolves and it is but it’s kind of a way more than that. I was kind of really surprised by that.   Read more

Q & A: Adam Baldwin Talks ‘Chuck’, the Last Days on Set and Playing a Character for 5 Years

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:05 — 15.2MB)

Fans of Chuck will soon be saying goodbye to their much loved series. Over the past 5 years, as Chuck Bartowski has been learning to use and hone his newfound spy-secrets, he’s been protected by the NSA’s John Casey.

The great Adam Baldwin plays Casey and he said in a conference call that he loved his time on the show. Why? “They gave me a lot of fun shit to do,” he said.

I remember first watching Baldwin in My Bodyguard and have been a fan ever since. From Full Metal Jacket, Serenity/Firefly and the over 60 film and TV appearances, it’s always fun to watch him on the screen.

I talked to Adam and Series Co-Creator Chris Fedak about what is was like to work on the show, playing a character for 5 years and what’s next for the prolific actor.

For more Chuck, check out our interviews with Joshua Gomez and Mark Christopher Lawrence

It’s been a fun show to watch and it looks like it’s been a lot of fun to make over the years. What do you guys take away from this series?

Adam Baldwin: What I take away from Chuck first of all, a five-year run on any show these days is a true blessing and to have been able to go through it with people who are nice and creative and funny and hardworking and just lovable. I mean, we’re gypsies really in this business — we’re circus players — and we travel from town to town it seems like and we travel from family to family on different projects. So to land on one for five years has been a joy and, you know, it’s sad to see it go. But at least we have those five years together and we appreciated it while it was happening. So I just feel blessed and honored to have been a part of it.  Read more

Q & A: The Cast of ‘Spartacus: Vengeance’

Are you ready to return to the arena?

Then you’re in luck because Spartacus is back and this time, with a vengeance.

Spartacus: Vengeance picks up where Blood and Sand left off as the gladiator rebellion continues and they begin to strike fear into the heart of the Roman Empire.

Liam McIntyre takes over the lead role of Spartacus from Andy Whitfield who, before his untimely death, told the cast and crew that he wanted the show to continue. Whitfield even gave the thumbs up to McIntyre, saying that he wanted him to have the role. As McIntyre said in the conference call, “To know that the person who made it so wonderful was on your side, as it were, especially considering all the harrowing personal experience he had to survive at the time. That means more to an actor than you can possibly imagine.”

I talked to the cast – McIntyre, Lucy Lawless, Viva Bianca and Peter Mensah – about the upcoming season, the costumes (or lack thereof) and acting in the mud.

Spartacus: Vengeance airs on Fridays at 10pm on Starz

Liam, you played a character that was obviously played by Andy Whitfield. I was wondering, how did you manage to carry on the character that Andy had built, but also leave your own mark as an actor?

Liam McIntyre: Well, I mean I’m very lucky in that I – the writing team is absolutely sensational, and that Starz is really supportive. So Starz early on said, you know, make the character your own, treat it as your own character. You know, that they didn’t expect me to copy anything. I did watch all of Andy’s amazing work. And so I don’t know if any parts was osmosis or kind of like a kind of influenced me in any way. I can’t be sure, but I mean hopefully because he was sensational.

But I mean realistically I just tried to be true to the character which, you know, essentially stays the same. Because the writing is the same and all of that lovely humanity and those difficult choices and all that. Then that struggle that Spartacus goes through, it’s still there this season. So I didn’t get the honor of being able to treat that with respect and truth. And hopefully you have a character that feels the same as the great character that Andy portrayed.  Read more

Interview: Christopher Heyerdahl Talks ‘Hell On Wheels’ and Acting in 2 TV Shows at the Same Time

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:01 — 17.9MB)

Christopher Heyerdahl had a great 2011.

He started it filming the last of the Twilight movies where he plays the vampire Marcus, one of the leaders of the Volturi coven. He then went off film season 2 of the SyFy hit, Sanctuary, where he starred as 2 characters (one has since been killed off). If that wasn’t enough, during filming, he got word that he booked yet another part as ‘The Swede’ in AMC’s Hell on Wheels.

Thanks to some creative scheduling, he would film Sanctuary in Vancouver, leave set and rush to the airport. At 6am the next day, he’d be sitting in hair and make-up in Calgary ready to film Hell on Wheels.

Just the normal life of a busy actor.

And, it was just announced that Heyerdahl would join the cast of True Blood for it’s upcoming season. Looks like Christopher’s 2012 might be as hectic as his last. 

I talked to Christopher about Hell on Wheels and how he got the part, working two jobs at once and more!

For the full interview (including Twilight questions), click the audio link above or download it from iTunes 

You had a great 2011 with Hell on Wheels, Sanctuary and Twilight. Has that been the best year career-wise, so far?

Christopher Heyerdahl: Well, yeah.  I guess it has been the best year so far in as much as I’m alive and well, and I’m working.  What other actor doesn’t want’ that?  It has been pretty intense. 

I mean, I started off the year doing Twilight. I got to go to New Orleans. It was a great way to start the year and then Sanctuary got renewed which is always a tenuous thing with a show that’s privately funded and within maybe two months into doing Sanctuary, I got The Swede on Hell on Wheels. 

Chad Oakes and George Horie, Chad is with Hell and George is with Sanctuary.  The two of them got together and said, “We can make this work” because it was a crazy scheduling, scheduling that I think any producer just wouldn’t normally not want to invite into their daily routine because I was getting on a plane pretty much every night after work, flying off to Calgary or vice versa, coming back to Vancouver in order to do each show.  It was crazy for them and that was a blast for me.  Read more

Q & A: Kiefer Sutherland on ‘Touch’, Coming Back to TV and ’24′

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:06 — 13.8MB)

Kiefer Sutherland returns to FOX in Touch, a show that attempts to ask the question: Are we all interconnected?

Sutherland stars as Martin Bohm, a widower and single father, who is unable to connect with his seemingly autistic son, Jake (David Mazouz). Jake never speaks, shows no emotion and never allows himself to be touched by anyone. Soon though, Martin finds out that Jake has a gift that allows him to see the random events of the universe and how they’re connected.

Touch was created by Heroes mastermind Tim Kring and Sutherland said that even though he wasn’t ready to come back to television, when he read the script, ““It was something that I knew I had to do.”

In this interview, Kiefer talks more about the reason he came back to TV, his hopes for the show and the legacy of 24.

Touch airs tonight at 9/8c on FOX in a special sneak preview. The shows begins airing regularly on Monday, March, 19th.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

At what point did you connect with your character and when did you know that this was a story that you wanted to tell and be a part of? 

Kiefer Sutherland: It was funny.  I was doing a play in New York on Broadway.  I had a film that I knew I was going to go do and so I read Touch almost reluctantly.  I don’t think I was completely ready to go back to television yet.  I was enjoying some of the different opportunities that I had had.  I think it was around page 30, I remember going, “Oh, …,” or I guess something you could print, …, which I just knew I would be so remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity that Touch was. 

I identified with him out of the gate.  There was something interesting because obviously this is very different than 24.Yet there is a real similar through line in the kind of character of the man.  Jack Bauer would be faced with unbelievable circumstances in the course of a day and he would never win completely.  Read more

Interview: James Cromwell Talks ‘The Artist’, Auditions and the Best Perk of an Academy Award Nomination

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:50 — 13.6MB)

Any day I can talk to James Cromwell, I consider a perfect day.

James has had such a wonderful career. He had his first TV appearance on a 1974 episode of The Rockford Files followed by a recurring role on All in the Family (which he auditioned for and “had a great time,” he told me).

Dozens (and dozens!) of TV and film work followed when, in 1995, he got a part in Babe as Farmer Hoggett. The role only had 16 lines but he was so memorable in the part that he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 16 lines! 

As you probably know, The Artist was just nominated for 10 Academy Award Nominations, most notably for Best Picture, Actor (Jean Dujardin), Supporting Actress (Berenice Bejo) and Director (Michel Hazanivicus). 

Cromwell was a big part of the success of that film. As I told him in the interview, I saw a lot of The Artist through the sympathetic eyes of his character, Clifton, George Valintin’s (Deaudrin) devoted chauffeur.

The Artist is absolutely one of my favorite films of the year. If you haven’t seen it, what are you waiting for?

We talk about his work on the film, auditioning and his career. And check out the advice he gives – it’s great!

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes
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Q&A: Sam Witwer, Sam Huntington and Meaghan Rath talk ‘Being Human’

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:46 — 17.0MB)

Sam Witwer, Sam Huntington and Meaghan Rath star as Aidan, Josh and Sally on Syfy’s Being Human. The story of the vampire, werewolf and ghost roommates started it’s second season last week and moves the series far and away from it’s BBC counterpart.

Last year, I talked to them right before the series premiere, they were excited about the show and eager to see how audiences would respond to it. Well, they didn’t have to worry too long. The show garnered great ratings and was quickly given a second season.

I talked to the Sam’s and Meaghan about the new season, how their characters have grown and if there were any specific challenges they had to face in season 2.

Check out our previous interview with the cast here!

Follow Sam Huntington and Meaghan Rath on Twitter!

Being Human airs on Mondays at 9/8c on Syfy

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

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