The just-released clip from the comedy movie She’s Funny That Way features Owen Wilson and Kathryn Hahn being so annoying in a cab that the driver gets out and leaves. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, She’s Funny That Way also stars Jennifer Aniston, Imogen Poots, Rhys Ifans, and Will Forte.
She’s Funny That Way opens in theaters and on VOD on August 21, 2015.
The Plot:
When established director Arnold Albertson (Wilson) casts his call girl-turned-actress Izzy (Imogen Poots) in a new play to star alongside his wife (Hahn) and her ex-lover (Ifans), a zany love tangle forms with hilarious twists. Jennifer Aniston plays Izzy’s therapist Jane, who is consumed with her own failing relationship with Arnold’s playwright Joshua (Forte), who is also developing a crush on Izzy.
Chyler Leigh at Comic-Con 2015 (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Chyler Leigh said she thinks it would be pretty cool if her character in CBS’ Supergirl, a bio-engineer named Alex Danvers, got her own action figure at some point. Sitting down to discuss the series in roundtable interviews at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, Leigh also said she believes her character will add a little touch of the unexpected to the mix as she’s not based on a previously established character in the DC universe.
“I really did look it up, and I was like, ‘Nope. Nope. Nothing there. All right, cool.’ Everybody else has a lot of homework to do and figure all that out, and I kind of just get to enjoy it,” said Leigh about tackling a brand new character. “I read along and think that’s cool. I’m excited to be stepping into the show like this because I’m kind of a wild card. I get in everybody’s business and kind of get to shake things up. It really is an opportunity to bring something new into what everybody knows already.”
In the new series, Alex’s foster sister is Kara Danvers/Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (played by Melissa Benoist), and viewers can expect the show to explore the sibling dynamic and the bond between the two women. “When Kara comes into the picture, Alex was the only child – she was the star of the house – and then here comes Kara and she brings so much to the table. She’s super. She has superpowers and for Alex, it’s just a lot to try and live up to, so there’s a competitive nature from her side of it, really. Kara’s just trying to figure out who she is and kind of handle herself and what she’s got with these capabilities, and Alex is trying to keep up,” explained Leigh. “With Kara being who she is, it kind of intrigues Alex to become the scientist that she does become because she’s just fascinated. She really is fascinated and intimated, sisterly. And so it’s cool. It does create a lot of wiggle room for the ups and downs and the turmoil of being sisters.”
Despite the competitiveness, that doesn’t mean that Alex and Kara won’t be there for each other. “Alex loves Kara no matter what. A lot of what she’s doing and kind of like those layers when you start to figure out who Alex is and that she’s been hiding so much from Kara, it is that, ‘I’m hurting you because I love you because I’m trying to protect you but there’s so much that you don’t know,’ and a lot that gets revealed very quickly. She’ll always look out for her. She’ll always be her younger sister.”
Leigh wasn’t willing to give away much about season one, and she wouldn’t confirm if Alex was actually hunting Kryptonians before Kara. “I know nothing. We know nothing. Anything can happen,” said Leigh. “I think the big thing is there are a lot of expectations when you have a show like this and a character like this and it’s a strong female. I think it’s a very appropriate time for that to be out right now. And so there’s a lot of pressure, but at the same time we have so many ways to approach this and enjoy the heck out it, and just kind of make it new in so many different ways. We get to make it new.”
Lionsgate’s releasing The Divergent Series: Insurgent starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray combo pack, and DVD on August 4, 2015, with the Blu-rays containing more than four hours of bonus material. Among the extra material fans of the franchise based on Veronica Roth’s bestselling book series will be treated to on the upcoming Blu-ray release are:
– Audio commentary by the producers
– A behind-the-scenes feature-length documentary
– Adapting the book for the screen featurette
– “From Divergent to Insurgent” featurette
– “The Others: Cast and Characters featurette
– “The Train Fight Unlocked” featurette
– “The Peter Hayes Story” featurette
– Photo gallery
In support of Insurgent‘s upcoming release on Blu-ray and DVD, Lionsgate’s provided us with a copy of The Divergent Series: Insurgent to give away to one lucky reader. It’s super easy to enter the contest:
– One email entry per email address and your email will not be added to any lists.
– You must be 18 years or older to enter and reside in the continental United States.
– The contest runs July 27, 2015 through August 4, 2015 at 9pm PT. Winners will be notified on August 5th.
(The contest is now over.)
The Divergent Series: Insurgent Plot:
The Divergent Series: Insurgent raises the stakes for Tris (Woodley) as she searches for answers and allies in this star-powered, action-packed second installment of the Divergent series. On the run and targeted by ruthless faction leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet), Tris fights to protect the people she loves, facing one impossible challenge after another as she and Four (James) race to unlock the truth about the past—and ultimately the future—of their world.
John Barrowman at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Malcolm Merlyn is the new Ra’s al Ghul in The CW’s Arrow and actor John Barrowman says the upcoming fourth season is going to be an absolutely awesome one for Malcolm. During the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con roundtable interviews, Barrowman was sporting a demon’s head ring which no one caught on to until he pointed it out.
“I had them make me an exact replica of the demon’s head ring and I’ve been wearing it all day and no one has spotted it,” said Barrowman. “It’s just so you know that, not that I take my characters home with me, just don’t f*ck with me.”
Although Barrowman did his best not to give any spoilers away about season four, he did share his theories on a few key plot points. Arrow fans know that Sara Lance has returned from the dead because Caity Lotz is part of The CW’s upcoming series, Legends of Tomorrow, but we don’t know how she will be resurrected. “I can not reveal to you what is going to [happen]. Like the others, I go into the meetings and production meetings and I don’t like to know what’s going to happen because I like to be surprised when I get the script because I’m also a nerd and a geek myself, so I enjoy that kind of thing.
Also, it’s the challenge for me to go, ‘Oh! That’s what I’m doing now!,’ and not have to make that work. That makes it fun, rather than knowing what’s going to happen. Because if you know what’s going to happen, sometimes you play things a little differently. Whereas if you don’t know, you play things for what it is right there and then. It’s more spontaneous for the audience. All I can say is that we know she is alive, will be back – obviously because of Legends – but how she is brought to life, that would be the interesting part. But I would like to think that Malcolm has a little bit of a hand in bringing her back,” said Barrowman.
Barrowman also shared the news that we can expect a very different-looking League under Malcolm’s leadership. “Mark [Guggenheim] just said in one of the interviews and I found out, Malcolm being the head of The League now it will be very different from before. ‘The League will have casual Fridays,’ so there might not be all the gear,” explained Barrowman. “They might be – shall we say – infiltrating in other areas and you just don’t know they are there. It’s like when the League of Assassins showed up before you know it’s them because of the way they’re dressed. Malcolm might devise a way to let them show up and you just don’t know that they’re amongst us.”
The big question about the new season is whether Team Arrow will be under the League’s protection now that Malcolm has taken over as Ra’s al Ghul.
“I don’t have an answer for that. But I, as the fan, would like to see that because obviously Oliver protected Malcolm, so it’s just rightly so that Malcolm will protect him. It was probably the most unimaginable alliance that you ever thought would happen, and everybody was furious at Oliver [played by Stephen Amell]. It introduced Malcolm to the group themselves in a different way because they saw… You know, in fact it was Laurel who said to him – at one point he saved Laurel’s life and she turned to him and said, ‘I wouldn’t have done it for you.’ ‘Okay, I know where you stand but I’ll still help you.’ It’s that kind of thing, like maybe he will be helping them,” said Barrowman, shaking his head yes.
Barrowman is obviously having a good time with the role, and he’s especially pleased to be able to explore different sides of Malcolm. Season three saw Barrowman sharing a very emotional scene with Willa Holland who plays his daughter, Thea.
Barrowman loved that scene and talked about it during our roundtable interview, saying, “I kind of thrive on that kind of stuff because it’s great to have such a diversity of a way to play him. And also when they wipe you from one point you’re an a**hole and then the next minute later on you’re totally in an emotional scene with your daughter and you’re exposing yourself, that means they must kind of like what you’re doing and kind of giving you a complete spectrum to do it, because not everybody gets to do that. I’m thrilled that they will let me be that a**hole and then they’ll let me be that caring father, and then they’ll also let me be the guy who will tell people the real way of what it is, what it’s like, rather than beating around the bush with him. I think he’s the most honest guy on the show.”
Malcolm’s also fiercely protective of Thea and proud that she’s taking on a new identity. “He is so proud of that but, again, even though she will be Speedy – or a little speedy – he will still be very protective of her. He will allow her to blossom and do her thing, but there will always be that protective realm over Thea. However, there’s somebody else in the realm that I would really like. I think we’re going to see that relationship be opened up and looked into.”
Dylan Sprayberry (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Dylan Sprayberry’s ‘Liam’ in Teen Wolf has fast become a fan favorite among viewers of the popular MTV series. Up until the current season airing on Mondays at 10pm ET/PT, Liam’s had anger issues but with season five he’s showing a lighter side, something Sprayberry is really embracing in his character.
“It was a little hard at first just because I played the whole last season angry,” said Sprayberry during interviews at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con. “It’s great. I talked about this with Jeff [Davis] when they asked the action they want for their characters, the real question is what’s going to challenge you as an actor and that definitely challenged me because I had not done that before, especially with this character. I’m loving it. I think it’s so much fun. I love all the writing they’re doing. They’re doing some really great stuff, so I respect that.”
Sprayberry says much of Liam’s anger is genetic and there’s nothing he can do about it. “But an attribute to it is the fact that he comes from a broken family. His dad wasn’t always around. He has a stepdad now, but he didn’t always have a stepdad there to kind of help him,” explained Sprayberry. “I think he probably wishes he had a prominent father figure in his life when he was younger when he was being raised. I think that’s a big reason why Scott’s such a great person for him is because he has someone to look up to like that.”
Speaking of Scott (played by Tyler Posey), when asked whose side Liam would choose if forced to pick between Scott and Stiles (played by Dylan O’Brien), Sprayberry replied, “As much as Liam and Stiles fight and bicker back and forth, they really respect each other. But I definitely still think that Scott and Liam [are] on a whole other level. They’re like brothers in the way that Scott had to invite Liam in. That was the only way that that was going to pan out. He really took him under his wing and was the only one who could do that in that situation. That’s who he goes to for advice. I definitely think that he would choose Scott, especially because he’s his alpha and he’s beta.”
But Scott and Stiles aren’t he only characters Liam is close to. He’s also buddies with Mason, played by Khylin Rhambo, even though he hid a key fact from him that could have changed that relationship. “I think it was really just because Liam was struggling with the fact that he could lose his best friend, his only and best friend,” said Sprayberry when asked why Liam didn’t initially tell Mason the truth. “Liam’s not the easiest person to get along with and the fact that he has someone who cares about him that much and can deal with him, he doesn’t want to ruin that relationship. That was really a big struggle for him. And also just insecurities about himself. He has issues and things that hold him back from letting everything go, from telling Mason everything. But it’s a big load off his shoulder now that he was forced to tell him.”
Characters have come and gone throughout Teen Wolf‘s five seasons, but if Sprayberry had the ability to bring back any of them, who would he choose? “I’d bring Mason Dye back…I’d bring Garrett back because Mason’s my best friend,” replied Sprayberry. “I miss him. I love to work with him. I only got to work one scene with him the whole time he was on and it made me so mad, because I love him and we didn’t get to work that whole time. So I wish he’d come back and be good. Last season, we didn’t know what was going to happen and I thought all those kids they brought on were all going to be like a big group of friends – younger friends. But they all died. I’m like, ‘No!’ But it worked out. The writing was good and the way that they wrote it was fine, but I wish, just for myself selfishly, I wish we could have had a bunch of us.”
Colin Farrell in ‘True Detective’ season two episode six (Photo by Lacey Terrell / HBO)
“You might be one of the last friends I got,” says Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn). “Wouldn’t that be f**ked up?” replies Ray (Colin Farrell) as the two men decide not to have a shoot-out in Semyon’s kitchen after Ray confronts Frank about providing the wrong name of the man who raped his ex-wife in HBO’s dramatic crime series, True Detective.
The tension filled the entire kitchen as Frank and Ray literally solved their differences over a cup of coffee while both holding a loaded gun pointed at each other under the table. Turns out Semyon thought the info he had given Ray so many years ago was good and that he wasn’t setting him up…or so he claims. Ray decides not to shoot Frank but tells him he wants the name of the man who gave Frank the wrong info.
Meanwhile, Paul Woodrugh (Taylor Kitsch) does some solid detective work and discovers that the blue diamonds Caspere had in his safe deposit box were part of a robbery during the 1992 LA riots. It seems it was staged to look like a looting gone bad, but two young girls witnessed the murder of their parents by the thieves.
Ray has his first supervised visit with his son where it’s clear that he’s uncomfortable trying to talk to his son and spend some time with him while every few seconds the social worker writes something down. After sending his son home early Ray goes on a bender, drinking and snorting cocaine. When he finally starts coming down from all the drugs, Ray calls his ex-wife and offers to make her a deal. Ray says he’ll let her win and not contest her having full custody, he’ll even give up his visitation rights and leave them alone forever if she swears to him to never tell the boy about the rape and the possibility Ray isn’t his biological father. “Just let him believe I’m his father, please,” begs Ray over the phone. Resistant at first and not wanting to give in to Ray’s request, she finally agrees and swears she will let the boy continue to believe Ray is his biological father.
Rachel McAdams in ‘True Detective season two (Photo by Lacey Terrell / HBO)
Ani (Rachel McAdams) gets a visit from her sister, Athena (Leven Rambin), and tells her the details about how she’s going to get into one of those sex parties as a high-class hooker. Obviously worried about her, Athena tells Ani she won’t be able to have any knives or guns on her because security will pat her down and check her all over. Training with her knife as she does daily, Ani tells her kid sister, “I’ll figure it out.”
Frank is becoming more and more desperate to find the girl Irina Rufo (she was one of Amarilla’s prostitutes) to see what she knows about Caspere’s personal property that she pawned. He gets a lead after torturing a former associate of Amarilla’s and ends up in a standoff, which he jokes is literally a Mexican standoff, with some Mexicans who were looking to do business with Frank a few months ago in his club. He makes a deal with them that if they help him get in contact with the girl, they can use his club three times a week to move their merchandise. They tell him they’ll get her to call him…maybe.
Ani, Paul, and Ray meet up to go over the details of Ani’s big undercover operation. Both Ray and Paul are a little concerned for Ani but promise to follow her and have her back. Paul gives her a tracer the size of a microchip to wear. The next night Ani is in line with other high-class call girls, wearing a very sexy black dress and dark wig. She gets the approval to get on board the party bus after being padded down, just like her sister warned her. As the bus travels north, both Paul and Ray follow at a safe distance behind in their cars.
Frank finally receives a call from Irina and she tells him that it wasn’t Caspere who she got the items from but a slim cop. Frank tells her he wants to meet in person to show her some photos so she might be able to pick out the cop. At first, she says no, but Frank tells her she can bring her friends with her and that he’ll pay her $1,000 for her time and trouble, so she agrees. When Frank arrives at the designated meeting place he finds Irina dead with her throat cut. The Mexicans he talked with earlier killed her and are still there. “Why?” asks Frank. “She told you she was working with the police,” answers one of them. As they leave they remind Frank of the deal to use his club to move their drugs.
When Ani gets to the big mansion where the sex party is happening, she discovers all the girls who were on the bus have to take a drug. Not seeing any way out of it, she allows a woman to spray the drug into her mouth. Later, as she tries to move around the house to see if she recognizes any of the men there, Ani begins to feel the effects of the drug. She’s light-headed, her vision is blurred, and she has a flashback to being sexually violated as a child. An older man takes hold of Ani telling her he’s been watching her all night and likes the fact she’s older. He starts to take her upstairs and on the way Ani sees there’s a huge orgy going on. Before leaving the main room Ani is able to get hold of a small, sharp knife from one of the tables and slips it into her dress.
While drug-induced Ani is trying to maintain her senses enough so she doesn’t end up getting raped, Paul and Ray are working their way toward the heavily-guarded mansion in full burglar outfits, knocking out one of the guards and getting close to the window of the study. Paul overhears more talk about an investment of $12 million in the upcoming land deal and when the two men leave the room, Paul slips in through the window and grabs the files while Ray keeps a lookout.
The old man has now moved Ani up to one of the rooms where a few women and their clients are engaged in sexual activity, and he encourages her to join in while he watches. She excuses herself saying she needs to visit the bathroom but will be right back. Once in the bathroom, Ani sticks her finger down her throat and makes herself throw up what’s left of the drug she took that’s not already in her system. When she begins to pick herself up, she sees a few women sitting and chatting and recognizes the woman passed out in the shower as the girl who went missing the day before Caspere’s death – the missing woman Ani’s been trying to find. Ani tells the young girl to come with her and that they have to get out. As she’s trying to carry the half-asleep girl across the room and to the stairs, the old man grabs her telling her he’s been looking for her. Ani quickly hits and kicks him in the privates to knock him off of her, and her attack is effective. She tries to carry the girl out when a Russian thug picks Ani up and slams her against the wall, choking her but not before Ani is able to use the knife she hid in her dress to cut him open in several vital places.
As the thug quickly bleeds to death, Ani grabs the young girl and heads for the door. She’s just outside when she’s met by Paul who helps get the girl to safety. Ani, Paul, and the rescued missing girl run as best as they can down to the street while searchlights on the mansion light up the grounds and guards come running out with machine guns. As they run through the grass and trees, Ray comes speeding up in his Dodge Charger and yells for them to get in. Ray, Ani, Paul, and the girl speed down the road with no lights on while the guards attempt to shoot the fleeing vehicle. Ray asks who the girl is and Paul tells him she’s Ani’s missing person. Paul also tells Ani and Ray the documents they took are all about the land deal and lots of signatures are involved. Ray asks Ani if she is okay and she tells him they made her take some drugs and that she thinks she might have killed somebody back there. The episode ends with a shot of Ray’s Dodge Charger, headlights now turned on, racing down the road with the full moon big and bright in the sky.
Suspenseful, dark, and creepy, True Detective season two episode six titled “Church in Ruins” finally proves there’s a connection between the missing girl found at the mansion that hosts the weird sex parties and Caspere’s death. The mansion is also the main location where money is dropped off and secured for the massive land deal Semyon was trying to get in on.
The performances from the cast are extremely strong, but it’s definitely Rachel McAdams who delivers the stand-out performance as Ani as she struggles to find some hard evidence in the mansion while fighting the effects of the drug she was forced to take. Her flashbacks to being tricked and eventually molested as a child are disturbing and heartbreaking. Finally, the television audience gets to see how all that training with her knife pays off as she quickly dispatches a much larger opponent, saving herself and the missing girl.
Colin Farrell delivers another heartfelt performance as Ray, with the most memorable scene featuring Ray talking to his ex-wife on the phone and pleading with her not to tell their young son that he might be the result of her being raped 11 years ago and that Ray may not be his biological dad. It’s a sad and powerful scene which Farrell plays perfectly, displaying both the self-loathing and noble aspects of Ray’s character.
With only two episodes left it’s going to be very interesting to see just how high the murder/blackmail and conspiracy ring goes and if Ani, Ray, and Paul are going to be able to expose it and take it down.
Gotham star Benjamin McKenzie laughed when asked if, after the turn of events in season one, it appears Barbara Keane won’t ultimately become Barbara Gordon’s mother. “Not unless she somehow drugs him and takes advantage of him,” said McKenzie during roundtable interviews at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con.
He added: “Don’t give the writers any ideas. It’s safe to say I don’t think Jim and Barbara will have the procreative future that they do in the mythology. We’re going to change that up.”
Now that Barbara has gone over to the dark side, Jim Gordon’s going to have to deal with her very carefully in season two of the hit Fox series. “He will deal with her gingerly, with great care,” explained McKenzie. “She’s the closest person who’s gone full bad guy, full bonkers, and that doesn’t go away. She doesn’t get less crazy in season two. And sure enough their paths, of course, keep crossing. Jim has to figure out throughout the series how to deal with different bad guys differently, in terms of the nature of the threat.
With her, he’s less concerned with her sort of physical strength and much more concerned with when she is that personally invested in destroying him specifically and knows him better than anyone, what is she willing to do to get what she wants. Having a psycho ex-girlfriend is scary.”
After season one, Jim’s relationship with Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin will also undergo a dramatic change in dynamics. The two started off as friends (at least from Oswald’s point of view), but now that The Penguin has become a major player in Gotham City’s sleazy underworld, that relationship will shift.
“We address that immediately in the first episode back, and there’s a deal that’s struck between the two of them that will immediately shift Gordon to what I think is kind of the next chapter of his evolution, which is now that he sees the way the game’s played, he’s going to do things that are bad,” confirmed McKenzie. “He’ll find himself in situations and he has to do what he has to do to get out of them. And it’s a rougher, darker version of his character – a guy really grappling with compromise that comes with getting power, how you achieve power, how you hold onto power, how you dispense power. At the core of that is his relationship with Oswald.”
With Barbara and Oswald evolving into major villains, that doesn’t mean Jim is left without any allies.
Asked who Jim can still trust, McKenzie replied, “Good question. He can trust Harvey still. The good thing about Harvey is as irascible as he is, he’s very honest – at least with Jim. He doesn’t tend to hide things. Thompkins is obviously an ally, a very close ally. And, increasingly in season two, Bruce and Alfred. They were on the outs. They’ve realized, each of them has realized the value in the other two. They’re forming, in a sense, a bit of a team. Sean [Pertwee] likes to refer to it as Operation Good Guys. There are the good guys and the bad guys at this point, and the good guys have to stick together because they’re outnumbered.”
But even Operation Good Guys has a lot to overcome in order to keep the villains from ultimately winning. Bruce Wayne (played by David Mazouz) and Alfred (Pertwee) are keeping Jim in the dark on exactly what they’re up to at this point.
“You know, I don’t know if he’s going to be aware of it until later in the season when they want him to be. The idea is for Bruce to have his own trajectory, his own maturation to the process some of which is going to help Jim and Jim’s leadership. Some of which is not,” explained McKenzie. “And the more Jim is unaware of certain aspects of that, the more conflict it creates between the two of them. Bruce has to eventually become his own man and Jim has to find his own path as well.”
Michael Malarkey joked he’d like to invite Jeff Goldblum to Mystic Falls to play his dad in season seven of The CW’s The Vampire Diaries. Stranger things have happened on the successful vampire series, but it might be a stretch to think Goldblum would show up for an episode or two. At the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, Malarkey also dropped a few hints about what’s happening with his character, Enzo, in the upcoming season.
Will Enzo be on a good path now that he’s with a family? “Well, ‘good’ is subjective, you know? For him, if he decides to be on Lily’s side it initially would feel like a good thing because he’s found his pack. And I know he spent a lot of his life being an orphan, being the outcast, being imprisoned in solitary confinement, and so for him, a huge need is to have a community of people he can love and trust and maybe eat people with,” answered Malarkey during roundtables interviews at Comic-Con.
“Yeah, I think it could potentially be a good thing, but that could potentially backfire because he also has loyalties to Damon as well. I think if he were to choose a certain path that was against Damon’s path, that would be a conflict that’s bad for Enzo and good for Michael the actor to play.”
Malarkey added, “I think that’s going to be his big dilemma this season is which side does he choose? Yeah, we’ll see where it goes.”
Malarkey thinks Enzo wants more than just to be part of a family and is still seeking fulfillment. “I’ve got my own ideas of what he’s doing and all that stuff, but you’ve got to wait until you get the scripts in for you to find out what’s really going on. We can only pose so many ideas to the writers and stuff. When every episode comes in I literally just tear it open and go, ‘What’s happening now?’ But yeah, we find out as well that he plays guitar, which is an interesting level of character right there,” revealed Malarkey. “I play; I’m a singer/songwriter. […] I was a musician before I was an actor. I played in punk and hardcore bands and stuff. Then I became an actor later on when I was about 22. Yeah, I released an album last year, Feed the Flames, on iTunes. Doing another one that’s coming out this fall.”
Season seven will include a time jump and Malarkey thinks that’s a terrific idea.
“I think that’s an absolutely brilliant trick because what happens with an audience is when they see that time jump they think, ‘What? How did that character get there?’ And then they start to watch the time real time and start to see what’s going to happen in order to lead to that point. It’s like Memento, the film. And for Enzo apparently is something to do with his love life, that we see him together with somebody – maybe somebody we know on the show. So, yeah, there’s a little spoiler. Everyone wants to know about my love life. I don’t know why. That’s the boring stuff,” said Malarkey, laughing.
The upcoming seventh season could be considered a reboot of the series in part due to the absence of one of the show’s main characters. Nina Dobrev has finished up her time as Elena on The Vampire Diaries, and Malarkey feels that “reboot” is the right description for this upcoming season.
“Absolutely. I think that it’s a fantastic opportunity for the writers to revamp the show…no pun intended. But, yeah, I think what they’re doing with this time-lapse trick is really clueing us into a different kind of framework or whatever so that we can kind of lock into that idea of what’s going to happen. I think people, as much as we’re all going to miss Nina, I think when we read the first episode, we didn’t think about it too much. We weren’t like, ‘Oh, where’s the Elena scenes?’ You know what I mean? And I think that’s a really good sign. I think that’s a strong sign. I’m really optimistic. I think it’s a great opportunity.”
Dominic Purcell (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller are back together again for The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, a new spin-off from The Flash. Purcell and Miller first took on the roles of Heat Wave and Captain Cold in season one of The Flash, and they’ll be reprising the comic book-inspired characters when Legends of Tomorrow premieres in 2016.
The duo previously worked together for four seasons on the critically acclaimed dramatic series Prison Break, and during roundtable interviews at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con Purcell talked about their onscreen chemistry.
“It’s something that you can’t intellectualize – I certainly can’t. You either have it or you don’t. People, for some reason, just love Wentworth and myself working together as a team, certainly with Prison Break,” said Purcell. “The response when we both worked together on The Flash as Heat Wave and Captain Cold was massive. It’s just awesome. We’re an inseparable duo.”
“To me, it feels like a second bite of the cherry,” added Purcell. “Doing Prison Break, you don’t…as an actor certainly you realize you’re doing great work and the part’s something special. But it’s after the fact, in hindsight, you go, ‘Wow, I did a really cool show. Will I ever get an opportunity again?’ And I’ve had those discussions with myself. I seem to be getting that opportunity with Legends,” explained Purcell. “The second time around, I’m more in the moment. I kind of just suck it up more. Prison Break was 10 years back…well, not 10 years back, but it was before Instagram. Now I’m doing this show with the new kind of media platform and it’s all exciting.”
Purcell is positive that having a team around Heat Wave won’t decrease his character’s rage in the least. “Heat Wave is a dumber version of The Joker. That’s where I see him. A charismatic psychopath pyromaniac. You know, he’s indirectly very funny. He’s the kind of guy that will make you laugh because he’s so absurdly over the top and full of rage,” said Purcell. “And we identify with that. How many times have we been in the car and want to kill some f*ck?! Heat Wave actually does that. He’s that guy.”
Prior to taking on the role Purcell admits his knowledge of Heat Wave was pretty limited. “I didn’t study because, quite frankly, I didn’t know anything about Heat Wave. I didn’t realize that he was this iconic supervillain in the DC world – that came later after the fact. I have immersed myself in a bit of study on him, and on the peripheral sense, I know what The Joker was like. So for me as an actor it was more or less exaggerating on that.
And yes, you’ve got to take things on the page and some of the stuff that comes out on the page he doesn’t come across as the sharpest tool in the box. So, you know, that’s Snart’s thing. Captain Cold’s intelligent. Heat Wave’s much more instinctively active,” explained Purcell.
As for how he’s going to behave within the group’s dynamics, Purcell said, “He only answers to Captain Cold and we haven’t explored that reason, and that will be revealed as the series progresses. There’s a loyalty there that we haven’t come across yet.”
Alycia Debnam Carey as Alicia and Frank Dillane as Nick in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Frank Ockenfels 3 / AMC)
AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead stars Alycia Debnam-Carey and Frank Dillane joined writer/executive producer David Erickson at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con to chat about the new drama series that explores life in the first days of the zombie apocalypse. Erickson, Dillane, and Debnam-Carey teamed up for roundtable interviews to discuss the characters played by Dillane and Debnam-Carey and the world in which this The Walking Dead spin-off exists.
Alycia Debnam-Carey, Frank Dillane, and Writer/Executive Producer David Erickson Interview:
You have big shoes to fill by following in the footsteps of The Walking Dead, right?
David Erickson: “I sort of intellectually knew that, and I know the numbers the show does. I’m a fan of the show. I was a fan of the comic. They’re very big shoes to fill, but I also think it gives us a little bit of latitude in a way, being this sort of twisted step-kid of the original show.
The wonderful thing is we have the good fortune of working with Gale [Anne Hurd], Robert [Kirkman], obviously, and Dave Alpert and Greg [Nicotero]. So in a way we have people shepherding us through, so we’re minding the rules and the mythology of the original show and the comic. So it’s a bit of a hybrid, but I hope it complements the original show but also tonally creatively explores some different avenues that they didn’t have an opportunity to do just based on the way the comic book’s structured.
Someone asked me what’s harder: Is it to adapt the comic as [Scott M.] Gimple’s been doing so well for the past couple seasons, or to have free rein and a blank slate? I think it’s actually easier for us only because the challenge for Scott and his group is they have to find these interesting little twists and these ways to remix what already works really well and do it in a way that it’s not going to offend the fans too much. It’s not going to really go too far against the grain of the comic, which I think is impressive how they manage that all the time. Whereas we get to go, as long as we don’t have our zombies fly, we get to go pretty much wherever we want to which is kind of nice.”
How are you going to distinguish the show from The Walking Dead?
David Erickson: “That will be the challenge. The thing for us right now, when I say we’re loosely following the period of time that Rick was in his coma, if you really track the days when the show airs, Robert’s always said in his mind it was four or five weeks before Rick woke up. I don’t know that we’re actually at that point when season one ends. So it gives us, what we establish in season one, we can continue to explore going into. So in my mind, there’s a world in season two. Maybe that gets us to the point where we’re full on apocalypse and if we wanted to end that season and cut to Rick in Atlanta waking up, we could do that possibly.
The other thing that I’m excited about for season two is, getting into that now and the room is going to start in August, is this question of Rick and Shane were both cops. One of the very strong themes in that show was, and is, but was initially about leadership. Who’s the captain? Who do we follow? But you had two characters who knew how to handle guns, had leadership skills, had those qualities already.
And you also were stepping into a camp outside Atlanta where people already knew what the rules were. They already knew how to defend. They already knew. We haven’t had a chance. What you’ll see as the season progresses as you get into season two is we don’t quite get that far. So for us season two, the whole aspect of survival and surviving on one’s own, not having any of those skills, not having any of the benefits I think is going to give us a lot of story, which will again continue to cut through.
There’s a seam I think will cut through which is still exploring narrative that Robert didn’t have a chance to do, which honestly I think is one of the reasons he wanted to do this. You write something and you’ll look back and you realize, ‘Oh, I could have done this whole other chapter here.’ I think he looked back and saw there were certain elements of the show that he would like to have explored. That’s really what we’re doing. Whether it’s a question of killing a zombie and what that means, killing a zombie that seems to be more or less human, what’s the emotional toll of that?
He really wanted to, the first time we sat down, he wanted to explore that. He wanted to explore what it meant which is not something you generally see in the genre, which I thought was interesting. So I think we can ride at least two seasons before we get to that place of how do we not make every other episode a supply run – not that there’s anything wrong with supply runs – and how do you avoid, at a certain point we’re going to have to find a sanctuary somewhere. I think that’ll be the challenge season three and beyond is how do we do that and how do we feel like we’ve now stepped into the world of WD1 and we still keep ourselves distinctive?”
Kim Dickens, Cliff Curtis, Alycia Debnam-Carey and Frank Dillane in ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Frank Ockenfels 3 / AMC)
What was the appeal of playing Alicia?
Alycia Debnam-Carey: “For me, what drew me to Alicia and specifically this initial script was that she’s got a toughness to her. She does have that kind of urban edge that is so L.A. L.A. has only very recently become home to me. It’s a very new home and so when I read the script, it actually coincided with my discovery of Los Angeles and what I knew of it, because I’m obviously from not L.A. But, yeah, so reading that, those elements resonated with me, that kind of street quality to her but also coming from an edge, a really cool edge. That’s what drew me actually, quite a lot.”
Frank, playing this character who’s troubled, could he be the guy equipped to handle this?
Frank Dillane: “Well, yeah. I think he probably would do quite well in this world. I think he’s got really nothing to lose and I think that’s quite a good way to approach the apocalypse. I think he’s been living in chaos or a much more visceral [world]. Addicts – or heroin addicts – they’re constantly living with life and death. That’s where they revolve at. It’s always life or death, so I think it’s quite an easy transition.”
When people are turning they look off kilter, but is that normal to him?
Frank Dillane: “I think so. We have how many problems: Am I tall enough? Does my mom love me? All these kinds of problems. If you’re a junkie, you’ve just got one problem: Where’s my next fix coming from? So I think that single-mindedness and that simplicity of action, I think, will fare well. Or not.”
Alycia Debnam-Carey: “Yeah, I was just saying that as well. That was interesting because Frank just said, ‘You’ve got nothing to lose.”
Frank Dillane: “You ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose. That’s the Dylan lyric.”
Alycia Debnam-Carey: “You were right. Nick has nothing to lose. Alicia has everything to lose. And I think when you fall in that position then, you either rise up from it or you succumb to it.”
Frank Dillane: “Because everything you’ve got to lose is like, I don’t mean bullsh*t but it’s material things. It’s not real stuff.”
Alycia Debnam-Carey: “Totally. Like possessions. They’re wants and needs and desires.”
Frank Dillane: “That’s the first thing that’s got to go in the apocalypse. You’ve got to get rid of your ego.”
Alycia Debnam-Carey: “That’s the first thing that goes. You either adapt or you die.”
