Interview: Michael Steger on ’90210′, How He Got His Start and Bad Auditions

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:07 — 8.4MB)

90210 just started its fourth season and the kids from West Beverly High School are growing up. Some are headed to college and some are going right into the world to make a name for themselves.

Michael Steger’s character, Navid Shirazi, is doing the latter; taking over his father’s porn business (man, if my dad had a porn business….) and trying to make it into something legitimate.

I talked to Michael recently where he said that Navid is basically a 19-year-old kid “trying to find himself.” We talked about his time on the show and how he dealt with the new showrunners, how he got his start and one particularly bad audition.

Follow Michael on Twitter!

90210 airs on the CW on Tuesdays at 8/9c

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

You have new show runners this year. When that happens, how does that work?  Do they call you and talk to you about your character, or so it more like, “This is the direction we want to go?”

Michael Steger: Well, we were always kind of, you know, a bit nervous because we didn’t know what to expect, but they all made appointments with us. We had like an hour-and-a-half meeting about character and it was great because, you know, they mentioned that they were really big fans of the show, that they really didn’t want to change it. They just wanted to continue it and add on to it because they really dug what Rebecca [ ] did the past few seasons. So it was a seemless transition where they wanted to continue the exploration of the character.  Read more

90210′s Shenae Grimes: “A character that’s one-note is the most boring character to play, and it was very frustrating for me”

From Movieline:

It’s no secret that 90210 went through a lot of retooling last season. How much input did you have in that?
Last year, I was really nervous as to where my character was going because it didn’t feel like she was going very far. Like I said, a character that’s one-note is the most boring character to play, and it was very frustrating for me — I think Rebecca could sense that and could see it in my eyes. My instincts were to play up the emotion, and oftentimes we would get notes like, “OK, we have to do it more network,” or “We have to be more smiley,” or “Don’t get too upset, because that’s not what people want to see from Annie.” People got annoyed with seeing Annie smiling all the time!

So Rebecca picked up on that and I picked up on it, and I think both of us were dying for a change. Everything seemed a little one-note until that [season one] finale, which kind of kicked me in the ass. I was like, “All right, here we go!” Like, I’ve been asking for it, so how do I deal with this huge challenge? How do I make the audience buy it? Rebecca’s big thing is subtlety, realism, character development. Annie’s not been falling 24/7, she’s not always devastated and distraught, it’s something she’s processing and going through internally. Her behavior’s demonstrating what she’s going through on the inside, but it’s not thrown in your face like the drama was last year, because that’s not realistic. Nobody is that upfront with their shit. [Laughs]

Was the network OK with Annie’s transformation this year?
I think so. You know, when I say “network,” I don’t really know who that is — I’m hearing it through the director’s voice. Old producers, new writers, old writers…I think everyone’s opinions got a little bit muddy, you know? This year, Rebecca came in with a clear vision of what she wanted, and she made sure she had a team together that was ready to make this vision come to fruition. The network, I think, was really excited about it, and once they saw that material cut together, I think they really appreciated what Rebecca did.

Read more

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