Author: Rick Porter

October 20, 2015 12:29pm PT by Rick Porter

 Courtesy of Ray Mickshaw/FOX

Dean is more than an “entitled douche,” Lowe promises.

Twice in the span of a 20-minute interview, Rob Lowe describes his character on The Grinder, TV star-turned-would-be lawyer Dean Sanderson, as a “simpleton.”

It’s not meant as a knock — Lowe is clearly is having a blast playing Dean opposite his attorney brother, Stewart (Fred Savage), on the Fox comedy. Dean is still having a rough time letting go of the role that made him famous (on a fictional show also called The Grinder), and “get[ting] to really play two different characters” in Dean and Dean’s TV character.

The first couple of episodes made it seem as though there was very little separating Dean from the role, but Lowe thinks that as the show progresses, more of the real guy will peek through.

“Dean is sweet-natured, really tactile, insecure, upbeat, and a little bit of a simpleton,” Lowe says. “His Grinder character is sophisticated — he was almost done in by a bullet in Macao. I’m not sure that Dean knows where Macao is. Things come easily for the character, for Mitch Grinder, that don’t come so easily [for Dean]. It takes a couple of episodes for that to become illustrated.”

Lowe also talks about working with Savage, Dean’s place in the TV world and the comedy sweet spot he thinks the show is hitting.

Can you identify at all with the way Dean feels so adrift after his show ends? Have you ever felt anything like that after leaving a role?

I think the closest thing in my life would be probably the legacy of The West Wing. It still resonates with people, people still very much identify me with it, and I’m really proud of it. It has arguably almost as big a life now than it ever had when it was on. I enjoy it, and I’m grateful for it.

I think Dean, however, has not figured out how to live with his post-Grinder legacy [laughs].

What kind of show was the fictional Grinder, in your mind? It ran for nine years, so it was obviously successful, but was it good?

Well, it was a ratings juggernaut. My sense is it was one of those shows where two or three seasons in, he cracked the best actor Emmy category, but only for one year and didn’t win it. He probably lost to Jon Hamm or Bryan Cranston or Don Cheadle or somebody like that. But he won the People’s Choice Award every single year. One of those shows.

Last week’s episode seemed to start drawing a clearer line about where Grinder ends and Mitch begins.

One of the things I like about the show is I get to really play two different characters. There are moments when Dean tries on his Grinder persona, for sure. … I’m really excited about the episodes we have coming up, particularly one where you see Dean deciding to quit doing The Grinder. Jason Alexander plays the auteur showrunner of The Grinder in the mode of John Milius, and Timothy Olyphant, as himself, plays a very significant role in Dean’s decision to leave the show. It’s some of my favorite stuff we’ve done, and there’s nothing like that on network television, nothing even close.

Your chemistry with Fred is pretty apparent on screen. Was it that way from the start, or did you have to work at it?

Chemistry is a mysterious thing. You can’t manufacture it, you can never predict it. Fred and I just had it from the first moment, and like any real chemistry it’s sort of effortless. We’ve never discussed the relationship, even. But he’s a family man, has brothers — same with me. He was a child actor — same with me. Seen and done everything in the business over the years — same with me. I think we’re naturally just on the same wavelength.

Does Dean realize the amount of discomfort he causes Stewart?

[Laughs] One of the things I like about Dean is — he’s a simpleton, he’s unbelievably self-involved, but it doesn’t cross into the caricature that we’ve seen a ton where he’s just an entitled douche. One of the ways we’re able to do that is with little moments, like in the pilot, at the very end he says to Stew, “I know you don’t love having me here” — with no judgment. It’s just a statement of fact. … If he were totally oblivious and totally self-involved, I think people would get tired of the character very fast, and I would definitely get tired of playing him. …

Every episode, we take great pains to ground Dean so he’s not a cartoon or a caricature. Just in terms of the storytelling, you have to be able to earn the big swings the character is going to take, because he is a larger-than-life character. But you can only do that if it’s also grounded.

Can you talk a little about his attempts to win over Claire (Natalie Morales)?

I think Natalie is a little bit of a good luck charm. The very first day I was on set of Parks and Recreation, Natalie was working. Hopefully The Grinder will work out as well as that did.

There’s a reason that the cliché of will they or won’t they exists. You need it to drive story and conflict. We’re certainly going to do that. But again, what makes The Grinder special is we have a great laugh at the fact that we’re so overtly doing it. Most shows on television would have you believe that this is something that happens every day in life.

The writers seem to be pretty good at incorporating some meta-humor like that without that being the entire show.

I love that we can do 10 broad-appeal jokes without being too cool for the room, and still do really strong meta-jokes that are fairly smart. My favorite shows that get the right blend of that. I’m not a huge broad comedy, popular comedy type of fan. But I’m also not a fan of shows that are so insular and cool for the room, that feel too hip. I like just the right mix, and that’s what we’re hopefully doing here.

October 19, 2015 8:30pm PT by Rick Porter

 Courtesy of FX

“She can’t let anything stop her” from her search for a better life, Dunst tells THR.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from episode two of Fargo‘s second season.]

Two episodes into season two of Fargo, it’s not yet clear just how the disparate threads of the story will connect. The investigation into the Waffle Hut massacre has just begun; the Kansas City mafia is in the early stages of its takeover attempt; and no one, save for Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) and Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons), knows where Rye Gerhardt (Kieran Culkin) is, or that he’s dead.

One thing that is clear? It’s that Peggy did react the way most people would have to hitting Rye with a car. It’s that reaction, which Dunst describes as one of “shock,” that has put Peggy and Ed in the middle of a brewing mob war. Of course, having Ed grind up the body at the butcher shop — in a shot reminiscent of the movie Fargo‘s wood-chipper scene — and having her co-worker discover her inexplicable theft of toilet paper from the salon where she works don’t help.

Here, Dunst talks with THR about Peggy’s mental state, a piece of back story audiences will never see, the rigors of filming a series — and the toilet paper.

After Peggy hits Rye, does she just go on autopilot, or is her decision to drive home a calculated one?

In my mind it’s like, one way is the hospital, one way is the police station — what do I do? I think she goes, “I’ve got to go home and think about what I should do.” She’s so in shock that I think she just doesn’t know what to do. So I think in her mind she thinks, “I’m just gonna go home and think about it, and then I’ll decide.” 

But I think Peggy is someone — we had a scene that got cut, we never actually filmed it, where Peggy’s saying goodbye to her fiancé who’s going to Vietnam. They’re in the butcher shop, and he’s friends with Ed and is like, “If anything happens to me, take care of her for me.” She lost someone who was probably the love of her life, then she married Ed because yes, they were friends, and out of love … but more like a family and a friendship. Her mental illness comes out — there are little clues in the first episode. She’s hoarding all these magazines and things like that. There are subtle things that I think will show themselves throughout the next episodes.

But another thing is, she’s so desperate to go to this Life Spring seminar. She thinks it’s going to be the key to change her entire life. Then this gets in the way. She can’t let anything stop her.

That’s interesting about the unfilmed scene. In the first episode, it seems more like they’re a couple who maybe are just in a rut.

In her mind, she’s putting things on hold to get to her ultimate dreams. To me she’s someone who lives in her fantasy mind, through her magazines and things like that.

Do you think she’s unhappy? She doesn’t act that way, but there’s a sense that she knows something more might be out there.

I don’t know if she’s happy. I just think that’s the only way she knows how to be in that town and that environment. You just pick up your chin and keep going — it’s a facade, I think.

Is her stealing toilet paper from the salon part and parcel of all that?

I think that’s just one example of things to come. … She’s repressing things and it’s coming out in this hoarding kind of way. But she’s also a really bad liar. She has sociopathic tendencies.

Did you follow the other storylines in the show while you were filming, or did you just stick to Peggy and Ed’s situation?

I made the decision not to read everyone else’s things in the beginning, until things start to come together. Because Peggy’s so in her own world, I didn’t want to be influenced by anything else that was happening in the story. So I just would read things that were happening with Ed and Peg. She’s so tunnel-visioned about her goals and what needs to happen that I didn’t want to think about the whole show. It makes it more fun for me now, because I can watch and enjoy it myself and not know what everyone’s going to say.

So far, it feels like Ed is along for this ride with Peggy whether he likes it or not. Does that dynamic change as the season goes on?

I do think it’s a love story at the end of the day — what you’ll do for another person under any circumstance. There is a real love there, and maybe [their predicament is] her fault, but that’s the type of man he is. I almost think that during this process, they become closer in a way. They do.

What was the appeal for you about getting to spend time with a character for longer than just a two-hour feature film?

These days television is just so wonderful, and this show, the last season was shot so well and so well-acted and well-written. It was just a no-brainer to me. And you know, you work so hard on these independent films, and some people see them when they’re being heralded and things. But even so, the amount of people who watch television and care about TV is so much more these days than people going to see a film, I think. People like to be with a story for a long time, and this show is such quality. I had only received two episodes before I meet with Noah [Hawley] to talk about it. But it was such a crazy character and one of the best female roles I had read in a long time.

Other than the time commitment, what was different about this experience than shooting a feature?

The way I prepare, it’s easier to do a film, because you know where you’re going and you know what you’re going to do for the next few months. But with this, you get new episodes every few weeks — you have no idea what you’re saying [laughs], so preparing for it, the process I do, I feel like by the end of it I would’ve done like five supporting roles in different movies. … In that sense it’s a lot more work. And it moves at a faster pace — it’s not like you have monologues that you know about and can memorize weeks before. It’s like, “Oh — I didn’t know I had a six-page scene.” [laughs] That’s a lot. It’s things like that. I was so grateful in certain episodes where Peggy just kept her mouth shut a little bit.

Fargo

September 21, 2015 7:00pm PT by Rick Porter

 Courtesy of FOX

Fries are healthy in 2065, which will make a certain cartoon character very happy.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the series premiere of Fox’s Minority Report.]

Fox drama Minority Report has its work cut out for it, to be sure. It has to A) convince fans of the 2002 film that the show is a worthy continuation; B) entice people who don’t know about the movie or the Philip K. Dick story on which it’s based; and C) amid all that, build its own plausible (if not entirely believable) world circa 2065.

Time and ratings will tell if the show accomplishes those first two things. As for the third, Monday’s premiere was laden with references to things that the world might hold for us in 50 years. Here are seven things that stand out:

1. French Fries Are Good for You!

When she confronts Precog Dash (Stark Sands) at a burger restaurant, Detective Vega (Meagan Good) makes a crack about how she can’t believe fries used to be bad for people. “Thank God for the genetic revolution, huh?” she asks.

2. The Washington Monument Is Shiny

Sometime between the film, which takes place in 2054, and the show, the white stone monument we’re all familiar with, and the series, the monument was clad in some sort of reflective material. Too bad there’s not a Precrime division for offenses against architecture.

3. The D.C. Suburbs Are Booming

The height restrictions on buildings in the District of Columbia seem more or less intact in the future, as seen in a couple of long shots in the premiere. Across the Potomac in Virginia, however, there are massive towers as far as the eye can see. Note how far away the skyline seems in the shot of Vega and Dash surveying the city from above the Jefferson Memorial.

4. Washington’s NFL Team Has a Different Name

It’s now called the Red Clouds, and the mayor candidate Peter Van Eyck (Andrew Stewart-Jones) led them to a Super Bowl victory before turning to politics. So good news, long-suffering D.C. football fans: Sometime in the next 50 years, you’ll be rid of owner Daniel Snyder and have a Lombardi Trophy to call your own.

5. The Nationals Are Also in for Some Success

Dash wears a Washington Nationals cap in the early scenes with a patch on the back reading “World Series Champs 2054.”

6. Sixty Is the New 40 for Child-bearing

When Dash meets Vega’s family, he mistakenly assumes the young boy in the apartment is her son. Nope: It’s her little brother. Her mom (Tina Lifford), Vega explains, had empty-nest syndrome when Vega moved out, so when she turned 60 she stopped taking birth control. Dash’s surprised look suggests that someone giving birth at that age isn’t all that common.

7. Some Things Don’t Change

Playing in the background during one scene is the following:

What did you think of Minority Report? Will you watch?

Minority Report (TV)