Category: Interviews (Page 32 of 46)

The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Jordan Hembrough (Travel Channel’s “Toy Hunter”)

August 15, 2012 / Will Harris

In my experience, you can generally gauge how legitimately excited a person is about the impending premiere of their TV series when they take the time to thank you for your interest. By this I mean that, while it’s certainly nice of them to respond to an opening salvo of “it’s nice to talk to you” with an equally polite “my pleasure,” it’s taking it to the next level and beyond to both open and close the conversation by telling you how thrilled they are that you A) actually want to talk to them, and B) have shown legitimate interest in their project.

These comments, as you may have guessed, are the way Jordan Hembrough, host and star of the new Travel Channel series “Toy Hunter,” bookended our phone conversation a few days ago. Like myself, he’s both a father and an unabashed sci-fi geek, so it should be no surprise that I enjoyed watching the initial installment of his show, which finds him traveling the country in search of various toys and action figures, including just about everything that was part of my pop culture diet growing up, including “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” and even relative obscurities like “Space 1999” and Disney’s “The Black Hole.”

“Toy Hunter” premieres tonight at 10 PM (9 PM CST) on Travel Channel. If it isn’t already programmed into your TiVo – and if you’ve ever been called a geek or a nerd in your time, it really should be – then perhaps this chat will inspire you to fix that situation post-haste.

Bullz-Eye: First of all, I’ve got to tell you that not only did I enjoy watching the screener, but I’ve got a seven-year-old daughter, and she was digging it right along with me.

Jordan Hembrough: You know, Will, I’ve got to tell you: you just hit something that’s…it’s a real special chord with me. I’m really hoping that families will watch this show together, because when I watched it with my kids, they were enjoying it and asking me about old toys as well.

BE: One of the funniest things – and you may have experienced this, too – was that one of the most frequent comments I heard from my daughter was, “You really played with that?”

JH: [Laughs.] You know, that’s exactly what my son said to me. He goes, “So did you get this with an iPhone application?” “No.” “So does it hook up to a computer?” “No, it doesn’t hook up to a computer!”

Entertainment, Interviews, News, Television

Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America Battlestar Galactica Boba Fett Comic Book Men Hollywood Heroes Jem Jordan Hembrough Kevin Smith Man vs. Food Space 1999 Star Trek Star Wars Starlog Strawberry Shortcake The Black Hole The Light from the TV Shows The Six Million Dollar Man Thundercats Toy Hunter Toy Hunters Travel Channel Will Harris

The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Iliza Shlesinger (“Excused”)

August 8, 2012 / Will Harris

A hallmark of attending the Television Critics Association press tour and the various panels and events surrounding it is that you really never know who you’re going to end up chatting with. On one evening this time around, I went to the Paley Center and found myself chatting with Joe Regalbuto (known to most for “Murphy Brown”, though I’ll always remember him best as Rex Smith’s scientific sidekick on “Streethawk”) and “Waltons” creator Earl Hamner, Jr., then had a chance to say “hello” to one of my past interview subjects for both Bullz-Eye and the Onion AV Club, Ed Asner. But that was a special Warner Brothers event celebrating the history of the studio’s TV series, so I wasn’t entirely blindsided by their appearances there…unlike the gorgeous blonde in a traffic-stopping dress who strolled into the CBS all-star event even though, I felt quite certain, she wasn’t actually on a CBS show.

I mean, you wouldn’t forget someone who looks like this, would you?

And I was right, as it turns out.

Well, sort of, anyway: Iliza Shlesinger isn’t on CBS, per se, but she hosts the syndicated dating show “Excused, “which – provided it appears in your market – appears in on your TV screen courtesy of CBS Television Distribution. Funnily enough, I’d worked with her publicist on several past projects, which is why the publicist came up to me and asked, “Would you like to talk to Iliza?” Like I’d turn down an offer like that…

(Plus, as I told Ms. Shlesinger a few minutes later, I also immediately thought, “Hey, I’ve actually watched that show, so I won’t have to sit there bluffing my way through the next several minutes!”)

Entertainment, Interviews, News, Television

CBS Earl Hamner Jr.Ed Asner Excused Iliza Shlesinger Jenny McCarthy Joe Regalbuto Just for Laughs Last Comic Standing Paley Center TCA Press Tour The Light from the TV Shows Will Harris

The Light from the TV Shows: Executive Producer John Coveny talks A&E’s “Longmire”

August 2, 2012 / Will Harris

If you haven’t been watching A&E’s new series “Longmire,” you’ve been missing out on arguably the best original drama on the network…and in case you think that might be damning it with faint praise, I’ll go ahead and up the ante and suggest that it’s one of the best new dramas of 2012. With a tone that places it somewhere between FX’s “Justified” and CBS’s “Jesse Stone” movies, “Longmire” has the modern-day-western elements of the former but the pace of the latter, resulting in a series that isn’t afraid to take its time to get to where it’s going. I was fortunate enough to speak with “Longmire” executive producer John Coveny about the series wrapping its first season, prepping for its second, and how much more of the supporting cast we’ll get to see when the show comes back for its sophomore year.

Bullz-Eye: Season 1 of Longmire is just getting ready to wrap up. How have you enjoyed working on the show thus far? Do you feel like you’ve gotten a handle on these televised adventures of Walt Longmire?

John Coveny: I feel like we do. I’ve said this before, but when I come home, I’ve said, “I’ve never been more tired or more proud in my life.” [Laughs.] Just as far as what we’re creating, that kind of crazy creative alchemy that shows have, with the crew and cast, the writers and editors, the studio and the network, all seem to be on the same page. Or, by virtue of the experience of seeing a couple of episodes, they’ve gotten on the same page. We’re all making the same show, I guess you’d say, and we’re all ready proud of it. And we’re looking forward to ramping back up for Season 2. We like being kind of the unknown show that people are starting to discover. It’s a nice place to be right now.

Entertainment, Interviews, News, Television

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The Light from the TV Shows: Live from the Summer 2012 TCA Press Tour

July 25, 2012 / Will Harris

Yep, that’s right: much as I’ve done every summer since 2007, I’m coming to you straight from the Television Critics Association press tour. Unlike previous years, however, I’ve got my daughter with me this time around, since her birthday fell smack dab in the middle of the trip. As you can imagine, this is keeping me pretty busy, but I wanted to bring you at least a little bit of the TCA experience while I’m out there…and, rest assured, next week’s column will provide much of the same, since I’ll still be here then.

At this point, we’ve had panels for PBS, Fox, NBC, NBC’s subsidiary networks (Oxygen, E!, etc.), and a few locations on the web (Yahoo!, YouTube). I’m not in a position to go into great detail about everything I’ve seen and heard – I’ve got a little girls birthday to celebrate, after all – but you can find some key moments via my Twitter feed. I’ve had a few enjoyable close encounters here and there, talking to Sir Kenneth Branagh (PBS’s “Wallander”), William Forsythe and Zeljko Ivanek (Fox’s “Mob Doctor”), and Billy Burke and Giancarlo Esposito (NBC’s “Revolution”), and I’m looking forward to chatting with Lily Tomlin on ABC’s day and Kyle MacLachlan when CBS’s panels roll around. For the time being, however, I’ve pulled together some of the highlights from Fox’s panels. Hope you enjoy!

Nigel Lythgoe on why there’s never been a proper “So You Think You Can Dance” best-of DVD: “We’ve looked at doing it. It’s the music clearance is just really difficult, as well you know, in this country. There are no blanket agreements like there are in Europe. You can’t just use anything that’s been out there. If you want to use an Eagles track, you have to ask the publisher, the writer, every single Eagle. It just, at the end of the day, doesn’t make money because you’re laying so much money out on that early stage.”

Mindy Kaling on headlining her own show, “The Mindy Project”: “It’s awesome. Even more (than I imagined it would be). I mean, like, every day I wake up and I’m, like, ‘Oh, I’m the star of my own show that has my name in it and I get to write it and hire people, actors that I’ve loved for such a long time.’ It’s amazing. I’m going to turn into a monster. Like, I can’t handle it.”

Zach Gilford on his lack of job security on “The Mob Doctor”: “I think on a show like this, if someone wants to get back at (Jordana Spiro’s character), they could take out one of us. So you’ve got to not be an asshole on set and say the lines just right, because we’re all expendable.”

Entertainment, Interviews, News, Television

Britney Spears Demi Lovato Fringe Gordon Ramsay J.J. Abrams Mindy Kaling Nigel Lythgoe Simon Cowell The Light from the TV Shows The Mob Doctor Will Harris Zack Gilford

Flo Rida Previews New Album at Manhattan Event Sponsored by HP

July 12, 2012 / Ezra Stead

Last night at the Hotel on Rivington in Manhattan, ArjanWrites.com presented a special ARTIST #TALK session with Miami-based club rapper Flo Rida, a massively successful artist who has sold 60 million records and scored 14 hit singles, including the ubiquitous hits “Low” and “Right Round.” Arjan describes the ARTIST #TALK series as “as a listening session meets ‘Inside The Actors Studio‘,” and this is a fairly accurate way to put it. The evening began with a basic interview summing up Flo Rida’s career thus far, and then proceeded to a preview listening session for his new album “Wild Ones.”

Flo Rida began as a hype man for the legendary 2 Live Crew, who were equally loved and hated in their time for boundary-pushing songs like “Me So Horny.” Of this experience, Flo says, “I heard about the crazy things that went on, but I never took part in that. I just went out and did the shows.” This is a large part of of his persona as an artist, a relentless positivity that embraces partying while avoiding explicit lyrics about drugs, guns or any other negative tropes often heard in club music. He says, “I was happy to have music that my mom could listen to … and put smiles on the faces of young and old people.” He has even started his own charity, Big Dreams 4 Kids, to give back to underprivileged youth in slums like the one in which he grew up. When asked about the way his music has mixed Hip-Hop with electronic dance music, he also points to his upbringing: “Growing up in Miami, Florida, it’s like a gumbo of different cultures.”

Entertainment, Interviews, Music, News, On Location

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