How Can Television Networks Fix the Broken ‘Pilot Season’ Production Schedule?

As anyone working in television can tell you, for every ultra-successful television series like Seinfeld, Friends, CSI, or NYPD Blue there are dozens of shows that don’t make it past their first seasons — and dozens more that never make it past their first pilot episode. 

And while that is the breaks of show business, pilot season — the period between January and March in which scripts for new television series are considered and, in a handful of lucky cases, put into production — is often an intense period of gambling for television actors, who might work on several potential pilots over pilot season and end up with nothing come May, when studio executives decide on which pilots will go forward with a full-season order for a fall debut. 

An insightful article from New York Magazine written by producer Gavin Polone details how stressful the pilot season is for everyone involved, and how networks might go about revamping it to bring higher-quality shows to their channels. Read more

Dustin Hoffman: “With acting, I didn’t know if I was any good — for many years — but I knew that that’s what I wanted to do”

Two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman has surprised many people by starring in the HBO series Luck.  Many assume that Hoffman — star of such classic films as The Graduate and Rain Man — is somehow “above” weekly episodic television, or that he’s far too busy with his award-winning film roles to do a television series.

This is certainly not the way Hoffman himself views it, and in an interview with the Los Angeles Times he explains why he’s starring in a TV series at this point in his career, and how his career now parallels his beginnings as an actor.

What seems to have most intrigued Hoffman about the series is the opportunity to “live” with a character longer than a film.  He says, “If you go into a restaurant, every single person there has a three-dimensional life — there’s people with divorces, with cancer… There’s barely a table in the place without a long story.  And that’s what this piece does. I was so aware of that — whether it’s Nick Nolte [who plays a grizzled horse owner], the Irish jockey or the degenerates [a quartet of roguish gamblers]. Those are three-dimensional characters who are given their time, onscreen, to reveal that dimension.”  Read more

Raza Jaffrey talks ‘Smash’: “I did Bombay Dreams on stage in London, a year’s worth of auditions and workshops for that, there’s an awful lot of similarities”

“There’s an awful lot of truth to it, there really is,” Raza Jaffrey recently told The Wall Street Journal about the new musical series Smash. 

Jaffrey, who plays Katherine McPhee‘s very likeable on screen boyfriend, Dev Sundaram,  has plenty of experience when it comes to both Broadway and his latest role in the TV series that follows the glam, glitz, and the downfalls of working in theater.  “I did Bombay Dreams on stage in London, a year’s worth of auditions and workshops for that, there’s an awful lot of similarities to when a musical is starting. They’ve done a great job making that stuff accurate.” 

And since Broadway is at the core of Smash‘s storyline, it has to be believable.  “When I first got the script, a year or more ago, a lot of people in the industry were cynical, “Would this show be too niche?” “How would you draw out a story about a small set of people in the entertainment community?” “In the Broadway community?” It’s a small group. I think “Smash” is obviously an ode to New York and an ode to Broadway, but it is about bigger things and human relationships. Everyone knows what it’s like to strive for things and want things.” Read more

‘Mad Men’s Bryan Batt Balances Acting and His Own Brick-and-Mortar Business

Mad Men actor Bryan Batt is a man with a plan. Known for his role as Salvatore Romano, an art director on AMC hit show, Business Insider recently caught up with Batt to talk about his backup plan, a New Orleans shop called Hazelnut. 

The forty-eight year old explained that when one of his roles didn’t pan out he decided to take the plunge into the world of design, an interest that was previously something he did for fun. “I always wanted to be an actor, but I always loved design, and growing up in New Orleans there was such great style, great architecture.  I would decorate my little apartment in New York over and over again, because it only had a couple of rooms. And I did it for friends and family on the side just for fun.” 

After “the funding fell through on a show that I was supposed to do in New York,” Batt explained, he decided to branch out after putting all of his eggs in one basket.  He is now the owner of Hazelnut with his partner Tom Cianfichi.  A home accessories and gift shop, the actor spends a lot of time there when he’s not in Los Angeles and New York. “Tom and I had always talked about opening up a home furnishings design store in New Orleans. When that [job fell through], I said ‘Now. The window is open. Let’s jump out and do it.’”  Read more

Actor/Rapper Donald Glover Has “More to Prove with Music”

Record store clearance bins are filled with albums recorded by actors and actresses who should’ve stuck to their day jobs, but Community star/up-and-coming rapper Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) is aiming a little higher with his first proper studio album, Bonfire.

“A lot of actors or comedians do music and they might even do an album but that’s it and people think it’s a vanity project and it feels like one because it doesn’t seem like they’re really into developing it and getting better,” Glover recently told BBC.

In March, Glover will embark on a nationwide tour while the fate of NBC comedy Community, a cult hit about a study group at a community college, is decided. NBC pulled the third-season series from its spring 2012 schedule and has not yet announced when it will return. It seems like Glover, who also moonlights as a stand-up comic, will have plenty to do even if he never steps foot on the Community set again. Read more

DebbieSpendItNow.com Actress Apologizes for Portrayal of Chinese People

U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) didn’t win himself too many fans with a recent campaign ad that portrays Chinese people as job-stealers with goofy voices, and the 21-year-old actress who portrayed a Chinese woman in the spot probably wouldn’t a popularity contest right now, either. 

At least recent college graduate Lisa Chan is trying to make amends for her role in the controversial DebbieSpendItNow.com advertisement.

“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” said Chan in a recent post on her Facebook page. “As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am.” Read more

Sutton Foster on Her New Show ‘Bunheads’: “It just seemed like such a perfect fit for me”

Sutton Foster is best known for her Tony award-winning roles on Broadway’s Thoroughly Modern Millie and Anything Goes but she’ll soon take to the small screen in Gilmore Girls producer Amy Sherman-Palladino’s new ABC Family show Bunheads.

The show revolves around a ballet dancer turned Vegas showgirl who follows her new husband to his small hometown in California.  She ends up working in her mother-in-law’s dance studio, which could lend itself to showcase Foster’s amazing dancing and singing skills. 

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Foster said, “The show’s centered around dance.  There’s one production number in the pilot, but I have no idea how it will parlay into the series.  We’ll see.  I’m really excited to see where it goes.  It’s so exciting to have so many shows on-air and coming on-air that are centered around the arts, and dance, and singing.  It’s really cool.” Read more

Jean Dujardin on ‘Saturday Night Live’

Jean Dujardin made a surprise appearance on this weekend’s SNL

That guy has got ‘star-quality’ all over him. You can’t not watch him when he’s on screen. Plus, he’s one hell of a dancer.

Check it out below.  Read more

Katharine McPhee Talks ‘Smash’: “In this part I get to live the best of both worlds. I get to play a character who wants to live on stage”

Katharine McPhee has had a rough start to her career after placing second on American Idol in 2007.  She was dropped from her record label only a year after being introduced to the public, and had only previously appeared in supporting roles in movies like The House Bunny and Shark Night. 

But all of that is about to change—McPhee is starring in a breakout role in NBC’s Smash, set to premiere tonight.

The actress will play a young performer fighting to be cast as Marilyn Monroe in a Broadway production.  The type of show fits perfectly into McPhee’s wheelhouse as a former musical theater student. 

In an interview with Reuters, McPhee said, “I have intentionally not pursued musical theater.  I toyed with the idea of doing some stage but over the years, there wasn’t the right projects for me… In this part I get to live the best of both worlds.  I get to play a character who wants to live on stage.  It is pretty rare.  If someone had told me five years ago you will get to be on a show where you get to do it all, I’d have said, ‘You are crazy!  It’s not going to happen.’”  Read more

Watch: NBC Stars Sing ‘Brotherhood of Man’ from ‘How to Succeed’

For the Super Bowl, NBC got the casts of 30 Rock, The Office, Community, Parks and Recreation, SNL, Parenthood, Law & Order: SVU and a handful of others to sing ‘Brotherhood of Man’ from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

It’s probably one of the coolest promo’s I’ve ever seen.

Check it out!  Read more

Next Page »