Claire Coffee from ‘Grimm’ at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con (Photo by: Mark Davis / NBC)
Claire Coffee (“Adalind Schade”) was one of the many key cast members of NBC’s Grimm to participate in this year’s Comic Con held July 8-12th in downtown San Diego. The Grimm cast are always big draws at the Con, and after the events of season four there’s a lot to talk about for season five. Coffee and her Grimm co-stars couldn’t give too much away, but they all believe this upcoming season will be a real game-changer.
“She’s now having this other child with Nick and sticking around Portland, she’s really finally is like, ‘Wait, this is all I’ve got in the world and now I really have to make it work. I have no dungeons to distract me, no Royal family to be aligning myself with.’ She is committing to making it work,” explained Coffee during our roundtable interview.
With the impending birth of Nick and Adalind’s child and the death of Juliette, there’s a possibility Adalind could become a card-carrying member of the Scooby Gang. But, Coffee isn’t sure the storyline will head that direction. “I don’t know. I think the Scooby Gang is a little thick at this point. Adalind was a lawyer; she has to get a job at this point. So I think maybe she will consult on legal issues with them. But I think the baby is going to be her main tie to them.”
Asked if she sees a new romance in Adalind’s future, Coffee replied, “That’s a good question. No romantic exploits have ended anything other than horribly for her so far. So if there were any, hopefully they would be slow going.”
Coffee’s fellow cast members have described season five as a reinvention of the series, and she thinks that’s definitely the case. “We’re getting back to where Grimm began. Even with Adalind and Nick, there is a conversation between the two of them. She was the first woge that he saw back in the pilot, so it is getting back to what does it mean to be a Wesen and a Grimm. And I think it’s just re-infusing all the characters with different energies,” revealed Coffee. “The scripts I’ve read so far have been pretty awesome.”
Ian McKellen stars in ‘Mr. Holmes’ (Photo credit: Giles Keyte, Courtesy of Miramax and Roadside Attractions)
“If I ever write a story myself, it will be to correct the milliard misconceptions created by his imaginary license,” says Sherlock Holmes (Sir Ian McKellen), referring to all the stories written by his old friend Dr. Watson. Holmes is lamenting Dr. Watson’s imagination to Roger (Milo Parker) as they attend to Holmes’ beekeeping duties in the dramatic film Mr. Holmes.
Set in London in 1947, the movie focuses on a retired Sherlock Holmes who lives quietly in his remote seaside farmhouse tending to his bees with only the company of his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son, Roger. Struggling with memory loss and still haunted by the one unsolved case that caused him to retire, Holmes must rely on young Roger for help in researching that case.
Fortunately, Roger’s only too happy to be of assistance, helping Holmes piece together clues to the unsolved mystery that include an angry and concerned husband, a white ladies glove, and a mysterious, beautiful but sad woman. Together, Holmes and Roger strive to connect the dots as they search for more clues in order to bring the truth of Sherlock’s old case to light.
Marvelously acted by Ian McKellen, Mr. Holmes provides a different twist on London’s famous sleuth but fails to weave any new magic. The mystery Sherlock Holmes and Roger are tasked to solve simply isn’t all that intriguing. Missing any thrills or genuine suspense, the film’s only real charm is the relationship between Holmes and Roger, which plays out very much like a surrogate grandfather and grandson. The scenes focusing on these two characters are the best in Mr. Holmes.
The film’s pacing is slow and ponderous, and the fact the actual case at the heart of the film never grabs your interest makes the movie feel even more sluggish. The result of the investigation is predictable, and the flashback scenes with Holmes working his last case come off stilted and forced, serving only to detract from the relationship between Holmes and Roger.
With almost half the film caught up in a completely forgettable case and the other half being saved by the wonderful talents of Ian McKellen, Mr. Holmes is likely to make audiences yearn for a classic Sherlock Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone. Even the action-packed Holmes, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., is more engaging than this take on the classic detective story.
GRADE: C
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements, some disturbing images, and incidental smoking
Amanda Schull and Barbara Sukowa at the 2015 San Diego Comic Con (Photos by Evans Vestal Ward / Syfy)
Both Amanda Schull and Barbara Sukowa say they’re always pleasantly surprised every week when a new script for Syfy’s 12 Monkeys arrives. Schull and Sukowa were part of the 12 Monkeys cast who made the trek to San Diego for the 2015 Comic Con and in addition to participating in a panel with fans of the science-fiction drama, they also sat down for roundtable interviews to further explore the upcoming second season of the series.
“It’s a real gift to be on a show when you don’t even know as an actor when you’ll be, where you’ll be, and who you’ll get to play off of from one week to the next. I mean, I hit the serious jackpot with this job, and I am very well aware of it,” said Schull.
Neither Schull nor Sukowa weren’t allowed to get too descriptive about the new season, and keeping the show’s secrets was made a little easier by the fact that season two hadn’t started shooting at the time of our interview. “I don’t know that much myself that I could reveal,” explained Sukowa. “I’ve read a few of the episodes. What I can reveal is that it will delve more into the characters. The first season was a lot of plot, a lot of establishing that world. And this time it’s just a lot about the relations of people. And, time travel is going to get really wild.”
“It’s good…it’s really good. We’ve gotten the first three – I got the fourth last night but I wasn’t able to read it. I conked out. But, Cassie has a very different journey ahead of her and it’s going to be really exciting from my perspective,” said Schull about the season two scripts. “I mean, everyone has a great and interesting journey ahead of them, but from my character’s perspective I get to be the same bones of the person that I developed over the course of the episodes that I developed last season. But, I get to take her down a completely different road and that is going to be really exciting to travel her down and encounter situations that she didn’t have to deal with last season.”
Fans are interested in what’s going to happen to the romance between Cassie and James, but Schull points out they never actually had a love scene in season one. “You know what’s so funny is that people really think that they had this big love affair. We never had a love scene. We never had a romance of any sort,” said Schull. “Aaron [Stanford] and I went to France and did some press and one of the interviewers was like, ‘Oh, you know Cassie, she has all these men in her life…’ I was like, ‘She had two, dude. What are you talking about?’ And he was like, ‘No. Cole!’ They never had a love scene. They never had a real romance. It was all implied. I think part of it that comes across is that it was a relationship that’s so unique to anything else that probably is on television from my perspective. But also they need each other in a way that is really desperate and resentful at the same time. It’s really special.”
Sukowa’s Jones has become one of the most intriguing characters on the show, and thankfully the initial plans for the character were changed. “At the beginning my role was only planned to be three episodes,” revealed Sukowa. “To have a complex role for a woman my age it’s not so widespread. It’s a good thing that she’s a female leader, has power. We’re going to see probably a little more vulnerability next season. I have really fun playing that part.”
Watch the full interviews for more details on what to expect from season 2 of 12 Monkeys:
Elyes Gabel, Robert Patrick, Katharine McPhee, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Jadyn Wong (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Executive producer Nicholas Wootton promises action, adventure, and a greater exploration of the characters in season two of CBS’s Scorpion starring Elyes Gabel, Katharine McPhee, and Robert Patrick. The hit series returns on Monday, September 21, 2015 and Wootton says season two’s 24 1/2 episodes will delve further into the personalities and backstories of each character. That’s something everyone involved has been really looking forward to doing.
“One thing that we do love about this show is we do get these amazing adventures and we have all this great fun, but these guys are incredible character actors and we can give them such deep, moving material to do that really goes into who they are as people and how they interact with one another. That is what I think you’re going to see a lot of this season. A lot of that kind of development as we move along,” explained Wootton during our interview at the San Diego Comic-Con.
“We really are a tight unit,” added Robert Patrick who plays Cabe Gallo in the action drama. “You can see it and you can feel it. These relationships are getting deeper and deeper. It’s a lot of fun. These kids are great.”
Patrick said all of last season was terrific but he particularly enjoyed playing the final episodes. “It was such a great resolution at the end, just to really, really put it out on the line. ‘I’ll jump in front of a train, I’ll do whatever I can to save you,’ you know what I mean? It meant a lot to me. It was a great journey.”
After such a successful first season, it will be hard to top what they accomplished with the second season, but Patrick says he thinks they can do it. “From an actor’s point of view, we’re already aware of that. We’ve already showed up and I can tell you we hit the ground running,” said Patrick. “I got there and I know myself I like to keep working and I feel like I might be kind of rusty, but everybody I saw showed up, had their game going, and we hit it right away. We are all aware that we’ve got to go even further; we’ve got to kick it up even better. We’ve got to do much more work than we did in the first season – and we really did work our asses off. So we’re all game. I think everybody’s incredibly grateful for our success and knows what it means. We don’t want to do everything to keep working hard.”
Katherine McPhee (“Paige”) and Elyse Gabel (“Walter”), who were paired up for our interview, agreed with Patrick and believe the writing is even stronger in season two. McPhee says the writers took a look at the best episodes of season one and are expanding on those elements in season two. “It’s still finding its own voice,” said McPhee, adding, “I love that the show is having more comedic moments. I think they feel like the world is always going to end and we’re always going to save it, but you’ll find that the audience will get to see how the individual characters handle those things. You’ll get to see the little quirks about them while they’re doing those crazy things on a daily basis. That’s what makes it interesting.”
The relationship between Paige and Walter will be explored more in season two, and Gabel’s excited about getting into that as well as further examining other parts of Walter’s personality. “I think one of the hopeful benefits of doing something like this for a longer amount of episodes that it’ll really give us…it won’t give us too much in a short period of time. You can believe he has a problem getting at the emotions,” explained Gabel.
Watch the full interviews for more on favorite episodes and expectations for Scorpion season two:
‘Sharknado 3’ star Tara Reid (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! debuts on Syfy on July 22, 2015 and the film’s stars Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, and Cassie Scerbo joined director Anthony C. Ferrante and writer Thunder Levin at the San Diego Comic-Con to talk flying sharks and the campy horror film franchise.
Director Ferrante said he looked at Sharknado 3 as the end of a trilogy, but there’s material for a fourth Sharknado film if Syfy wants one. “At the end of the day, take away all the sharknado stuff and what is the story going on and it’s about Finn and his family. So, yes, there is some sort of story going on in these movies. The first one is about this divorced guy trying to repair the damage with this family. The second one is about him kind of repairing the damage with his wife, and re-proposing to his wife. That’s why you have that love story at the end,” explained Ferrante.
“We had all of these ideas of what’s going on with Finn and April, and the next logical progression is fatherhood and how can we reflect that. That gave us a chance to have Finn with his dad – which is David Hasselhoff – and Tara with her mom. It is a full meal of coming full circle of learning how from his past mistakes of being a crappy husband, a crappy dad to how do you become a real man. That’s really the arc…and then you have sharknadoes that destroy all of these cities.”
Asked how he makes Sharknado bigger each time, Ferrante said he crammed four movies into one movie. “Sharknado 3, literally we’ve crammed four different types of movies in there. We’ve blown the wad on three movies we probably could have done. We DC, we have Universal Orlando so we have theme park destruction. We have a roadtrip and we have another kind of cool thing toward the end of the movie that comes out of left field,” explained Ferrante.
Ferrante’s Sharknado female lead, Tara Reid, could not believe they’re actually on their third Sharknado film. “It’s universal. It’s successful all over the place,” said Reid. “Who knew? The chances of that to happen are like one in a billion. It’s incredible to be a part of this whole franchise and really that’s a credit to the fans. Without the fans this movie wouldn’t be what it was. Social media has made the film.”
Mia Maestro from FX’s ‘The Strain’ at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con (Photo by Richard Chavez / Showbiz Junkies)
FX’s compelling (and disturbing) The Strain returned for season two on July 12, 2015 at 10pm ET/PT with Corey Stoll and Mia Maestro back as researchers attempting to develop a biological weapon to fight against the epidemic. With the survival of mankind at stake, Eph (Stoll) and Nora (Maestro) have to make unethical choices, and during our 2015 San Diego Comic-Con roundtable interview Maestro talked about what fans of the series can expect from this new season.
“There’s a lot of new characters, and also the stakes are a lot higher,” explained Maestro when asked how season two expands on the set-up of season one. “Also, from a story plotline, we don’t have to explain that anymore so you can get really in-depth with the characters and all the nuances between their relationships as well.”
Maestro went on to explain that Nora and Eph will be working on a vaccine. “That’s going to be their mission for a few episodes,” offered Maestro.
This season finds Nora on her own, without the support of any family after the devastating events of season one. “She becomes this really strong fighter,” said Maestro. Mentally, she’s a bit more prepared for what she must do in order to fight the epidemic. “She knows the right thing…you saw her killing her own mother in season one, so she knows the right thing is just to not let those monsters propagate and continue as a race. She doesn’t have that struggle anymore. She knows what the right thing to do is, but you’re going to see Nora with a more human side to whatever’s happening. I think that’s what she brings to the group. She has her own humanity and she has a lot of compassion, and a lot of the characters don’t have that.”
Watch the full interview for more from Mia Maestro on The Strain season 2:
“I believe everyone deserves a shot at redemption. Do you?” asks Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). “Absolutely. My days of breaking into places and stealing sh*t are over. What do you want me to do?” replies Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). “I want you to break into a place and steal some sh*t,” answers Pym who has just helped Scott sneak out of jail by using his old, very special suit in the science-fiction action film, Ant-Man.
Scott Lang is a talented burglar attempting to start fresh and go straight after getting out of prison. His motivation: to be a real father to his young daughter. Unfortunately, no companies are willing to hire Scott with a felony on his record. He does manage to get a job at a Baskin Robbins, but when his manager finds out about his conviction he lets him go. Desperate to make some money fast so he can get his own place (and finally get visitation rights), Scott teams up with his old buddy, Luis (Michael Pena), to pull a burglary job. Successfully getting into an old mansion where they believe the owner is away for a week, Scott is able to break into both a sealed room with a lock which can only be opened with a finger print of the owner and a very old safe. To Scott’s surprise, all that’s in the safe is an old weird-looking suit and helmet.
The next day, Scott is playing with the suit, tries it on, and shockingly ends up shrinking himself down to the size of a bug. He hears a voice inside the helmet telling him this is a test and it will be interesting to see how he does. Scott manages to avoid drowning in a bathtub – which is where he accidentally shrunk himself – fends off a rat, and finally manages to bring himself back to his normal size. It turns out that the whole heist was planned by Dr. Pym who needs Scott to help him and his daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), stop Hank’s old protégé from creating a newer and deadlier version of his original suit for mass production and sell to the highest bidder. With the use of the suit Scott can shrink down in size while increasing his strength. That allows him to control ants and use them as his own little army to help in the heist. It’s up to Scott, with Pym’s mentoring and Hope’s training, to master the suit and the ants and pull off the biggest heist of his career to help save the world from certain chaos.
Funny and creative, Ant-Man is surprisingly entertaining and has some true laugh out loud moments. Paul Rudd is perfect as Scott, the burglar with a heart of gold who not only wants to be a good dad to his daughter but deep down wants to be the hero she believes he already is. He brings to the role a solid mixture of humor and likability. Michael Douglas shines as Dr. Hank Pym, Scott’s mentor and creator of the original suit who fears in the wrong hands his secrets and technology spell certain doom for the world. He brings both an emotional depth and feeling to the film as well as still being as cool as ever. Evangeline Lilly, best known for her role as “Kate” in Lost, is lovely and tough as Hope, the distrustful, judgmental daughter of Hank’s who would rather be wearing the suit and doing the heist herself instead of training Scott. She and Rudd have solid chemistry as she at first beats him up in training sessions and finally, after realizing he’s in for the long haul, begins actually teaching him how to fight and command the ants.
However, the real scene-stealer in the film is Michael Pena as Luis, Scott’s best friend and the second thief with a good heart. He’s comic relief in a film which already has plenty of laughs, and he upstages everyone including Michael Douglas. His scenes during the big heist are hilarious and he raises the film up to an even higher enjoyment level.
The action and special effects are top-notch, reminiscent of the effects in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids films but improved. Ant-Man also has the most original train fight scene put up on the screen. With solid laughs, fun action scenes, and a little bit of heart, Ant-Man is a worthy addition to the Marvel movie universe and shouldn’t be missed.
Fox debuted a brief (as in only 45 seconds) teaser for The X-Files during the July 16th episode of Wayward Pines. The super short clip shows just a little of FBI Agents Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), but it should be enough to get X-Files fans excited about the return of the series. Unfortunately, we have to wait until January 24, 2016 before the new X-Files actually arrives.
The cast of the sci-fi event series also includes William B. Davis as the Smoking Man, Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner, and Joel McHale as news anchor Tad O’Malley. The original The X-Files debuted in 1993 and ran for nine seasons. The show earned 16 Emmys, five Golden Globes, and a Peabody Award.
Production on the second season of Starz’ critically acclaimed Outlander series is currently underway, adapted by Ronald D. Moore from author Diana Gabaldon’s second book of the Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber. The upcoming season finds Jamie and Claire in the French Court attempting to alter the course of history and stop the Battle of Culloden from ever taking place.
Book two of the Outlander series kicks off with an unexpected time jump, and author Diana Gabaldon talked about that during our roundtable interview at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con. Gabaldon also discussed the show’s two lead actors – Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe – and how much she’s involved in the process of bringing her bestselling books alive on the small screen.
Diana Gabaldon Interview:
What was your reaction to the very first episode you were able to watch?
Diana Gabaldon: “Oh, I was blown away by it. I actually got to see it in the production suite with the film editor and with Ron [Moore]. They were showing me the rough cut of the first two episodes together. It was so sweet; the film editor actually cried. He said, ‘It was so great to see you see this for the first time.'”
What characteristics of Jamie and Claire from the books are you looking forward to seeing in future seasons?
Diana Gabaldon: “It’s hard to say because so much of it depends on the actor and what they can do. Sam, for instance, is a very analytical actor. He’s read the book several times and you can see him do Jamie’s little physical things, little drumming his fingers when he’s thinking and so forth, and which you pick up – those are conscious decisions. At the same time, you instantly grasp the emotional sense of Jamie. The very first time I saw him in the audition tape I saw that. I never thought they would find anyone to do that, and he did just like that. It was amazing. At the same time, there’s a certain Sam-ness. It’s very weird to be sharing joint custody with a character.
Caitriona…well, everybody’s take is completely different and it took them forever to find Claire. She just walked into that part and just handled it. Her physique doesn’t match with the book and it doesn’t matter. I’ve always said to people that it just doesn’t matter that much what an actor looks like. It’s how they act, and she just totally nailed it. Again, it’s just instinctive on her part I think.”
Book two begins in a surprising place, compared to the end of book one…
Will season two start out in the same way as Dragonfly in Amber? Brianna and Roger haven’t been cast yet and filming has begun.
Diana Gabaldon: “Well, it actually could. They shoot things out of sequence so it doesn’t tell you anything except that they haven’t cast them yet – or at least they haven’t told you if they have.
I was not involved in a discussion of how to break the story, so to speak. They do show me the script outlines and the script. They show me the footage as they shoot and the rough episodes as they come together, which is great. But I very seldom am in the writers room discussing things. That is their job. I’m happy to contribute opinions. Sometimes I’ll read the script and be, ‘Hmmm, I understand why you did it this way but you could do it that way and get more of the original book in. Move this little piece over here.’ Sometimes they’ll do that. Nine times out of ten if I have a concern or a suggestion they’ll take it. The tenth time they’ll explain why they can’t.”
Have you ever wished you had more input into the scripts?
Diana Gabaldon: “No, you can’t. You just don’t.”
E.L. James does.
Diana Gabaldon: [Laughing] “Maybe she shouldn’t.”
There you go. Thank you. So you would never want to be that involved?
Diana Gabaldon: “No, I wouldn’t. I don’t actually think that’s a good thing, on the whole. It is an adaptation of a separate art form. What makes a good novelist is not necessarily what makes a good screenwriter or showrunner. I don’t know whether I would be good at writing a script because I haven’t done it yet. But I’m positive I would not be a good showrunner. I think it’s much better to let the experts do that. I can quibble over details. I can tell them you couldn’t do this historically or you can’t do that historically. Or, ‘Well, it really was this way but I see why you’ve done it that way. But you better change this just for a little extra accuracy.’ That can be helpful.”
Has anything that’s happened in the TV series made you want to change anything from the books?
Diana Gabaldon: “No. People do ask that all the time and I can see why but, as I say, they’re working 30 years behind where I am. There’s eight books between me and them, and I’ve written all this stuff in between.”
Do you picture Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe now when you see Jamie and Claire in your head?
Diana Gabaldon: “No, I can still see the original Jamie and Claire as they are. It’s fun though because they are totally Jamie and Claire when I’m watching the show. But I don’t have any problems with show versus book. I can easily see both images in my mind.”
Willa Fitzgerald and Amadeus Serafini in ‘Scream’ (Photo Credit: MTV)
Willa Fitzgerald’s character Emma begins season one of MTV’s Scream with a certain innocence to her, but that disappears as the body count begins adding up and it’s obvious someone is targeting her friends. Based on the Scream film franchise, MTV’s Scream centers around a group of high school friends who are being murdered by an unknown killer.
Fitzgerald’s character is described as a popular girl who’s considered the peacemaker in her group of friends. But once the killer begins reaching out with cryptic phone calls, Emma toughens up. “I think Emma starts out this season as very much an insecure, confused high schooler,” explains Fitzgerald. “She’s not quite sure of her friend group or if she’s made the right choice with who she’s friends with. Over the course of the season as the killer raises the stakes by constantly threatening her and her friends, she develops a real badass-ness. She responds to his threats and rises to them. So over the course of this season we really get to see her grow into herself and become more like Sidney Prescott who I see as an incredibly strong, confident woman. It’s exciting to see that change.”
Fitzgerald’s not only a longtime horror movie fan but also a fan of the Scream film series because of how well it pokes fun at different stereotypes. Looking back on her history of horror moving watching, Fitzgerald recalled that the first film of the genre she watched was Stephen King’s It. “I was 13 and that was a brutal introduction,” said Fitzgerald, laughing.
Fitzgerald’s co-star Amadeus Serafini (“Kieran”) is also a fan of the original Scream movies and believes his character is modeled after Billy Loomis, played by Skeet Ulrich in the original film. Scream marks Serafini’s first TV show and he’s having a good time working on the MTV series. Asked if it’s fair to describe his character as a bit of a troublemaker, Serafini replied, “I think he’s constructed as one. I think he’s also a bit heroic as displayed in the pilot, so you won’t be able to place him for a while. He toggles back and forth.”
Watch the full interviews for more on MTV’s Scream:
