April 26, 2005 |
Shield Star Dishes Close Encounters
TVGuide.com: Danny's always trying to be understanding of Julian, but he clearly frustrates her.
Catherine Dent: [Laughs] That's a diplomatic way to put it. It's interesting because Michael Jace and I love each other, yet we have to play these conflicted partners. We actually shot this scene last night where we're really upset with other. In our personal lives, we care for each other very deeply. We've been partnered for four years now, so there's definitely a tight bond. TVG: What's your big conflict nowadays?
Dent: Julian's upset. He's starting to feel like the police property seizures that [Close's character] Capt. Monica Rawling put into place are hurting the community, rather than helping. He has issues with black and Latino people being hurt, because the fictional neighborhood of Farmington, which we police, is predominantly black and Latino. He wants to help the community, and we're at odds about how that should be done. Danny's more pro-Monica [on this issue]. It's frustrating because it's sort of a lose-lose situation. But my husband is a civil rights attorney, so he loves this show because it shows the not-so-great aspects of things. TVG: How is it "working for" Glenn Close?
Dent: It's fine. She fits right in. It doesn't feel weird. She's just another good player to play with. TVG: So there's no movie-star diva stuff?
Dent: No, not at all. She sits and plays backgammon in between shots just like we all do. Her daughter's come and hung out on the set. It's very cool. I think people have such a misconception about how actors behave. You hear about divas and tantrums in hotel rooms and things like that, but we're just all working Joes all trying to pay the mortgage and send our kids to school. I hate to dispel the myth! TVG: People might imagine Glenn Close is scary because she's played formidable women in Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons...
Dent: ...and Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians! [Laughs] She's thin, petite, fair and blond. She's not this menacing creature! That's all smoke and mirrors and makeup. And she was nervous about coming on this show because we're a tight-knit group. We've been together for four years. That's hard for anybody to step into — I don't care how big your britches are — especially when it's senior year, and you're the new girl coming in as head cheerleader! TVG: Anything happening with the recurring attraction between Danny and Vic?
Dent: Usually we revisit that once a season. It's kind of this weird tease the writers do where Vic and Danny do this little dance... We've got another little tryst coming up. [Laughs] Danny's clearly lonely. TVG: So does Vic catch her at a vulnerable moment?
Dent: I don't know that he catches her at a vulnerable moment. It definitely won't be a domestic scene at home, let me put it that way. It's one of The Shield's trademark shockers where it comes out of nowhere. Danny is no shrinking violet. TVG: Oh, so it's Miss Danny who initiates some action with Vic?
Dent: [Coyly] I think so, yeah. [Editor's note: Our spies tell us to look for the tryst in the first week of May.] TVG: Well, Danny's a woman who knows what she wants.
Dent: Exactly, which I think is pretty sexy. TVG: At least Vic is single now!
Dent: Exactly. My father will have an easier time watching the show. The first season, I heard, "I can't believe you're with a married man." I said, "Daddy, that's not me, that's my character!" TVG: So where is Danny going in her career?
Dent: Danny would like more action, other than just answering domestic calls where husbands and wives are beating each other up. Supposedly, Danny failed the detective's exam the only time she's taken it. Maybe there'll be an opportunity for her to take it again. TVG: You had a budding romance with Dutch (Jay Karnes) last season when he was tutoring Danny for that exam. It seemed to fizz out before anything really happened, though.
Dent: Yeah, they do that a lot. They introduce things, drop it and then reintroduce it. TVG: So were you disappointed you didn't become a couple?
Dent: With Dutch? No! Jay Karnes reminds me so much of my big brother in real life. Every time we started to fake kiss, I would get the giggles because I felt like I was kissing my brother! It was a little too close to home for me. |
Girl Talk with Alexis Bledel
TVGuide.com: What do you think of the new, sexual Rory?
Alexis Bledel: It's been different. I hope that it's more about relationships than it is about just her being slutty. TVG: Since you have such great chemistry with Matt Czuchry (Logan), I'd say that's a given.
Bledel: I think our scenes are turning out well. He's stuck around for a while, so that's a good sign. I think it's cool just to see a fresh, new relationship with all of its problems and complications. TVG: Everyone's talking about the show's big resurgence this season. Do you feel it on the set?
Bledel: Yeah, it seems refreshed. It's felt that way for me, especially, because we have all these new young kids coming in for the college scenes. That's really fun for me, because for a long time, I was the youngest person by far. It's a lot of new blood, new energy coming in. TVG: How do you feel about doing the show for a couple more years?
Bledel: It's very all-consuming. While it's certainly positive that they would want to continue the show for a couple more years, we're probably closer to the end than we are to the beginning. And for me, personally, it's exciting to think of how much my life will change when the show does end. When you are on something like this for so long, and it's so all-consuming, it's just exciting to... [Pauses thoughtfully] I like change. So that prospect excites me, whenever that may be. But it's not in my control at all when it'll be. TVG: Actually, it kinda is. Your contract is up in two years, so you could either quit or stay and do both the show and movies.
Bledel: That's a decision I'll make at that time, if it's a possibility. I have no idea, because I don't even know if we'll be lucky enough to do a seventh year. It's sort of year by year with television, so I think, as it gets closer, it'll be easier to decide. TVG: Speaking of movies, you play a prostitute in Sin City. Did you worry at all that you might alienate your younger fans?
Bledel: I used to worry about that [kind of thing] when the show first started. But my perspective is that when you're a kid, if your audience is a group of children or teenagers, you do have some level of social responsibility. I feel that. But other entertainers will say that that's not their responsibility, and I can see how they might feel that way as well. But I sort of feel like once [your character is] 18 and moves on to college, you sort of decide what you do. You [as an audience] can sort of decide how you feel about people and their choices from there, but they're their choices once they're 18. So I think it's OK at this point — especially with the way the show's gone this year. TVG: Let's talk a little bit about your relationship with your TV mom. How do you and Lauren Graham get along when the cameras aren't rolling?
Bledel: Well, we had just met when we went straight to shooting — we didn't know each other at all! But she was very patient with me, because I didn't know what I was doing, and she was always helping me out to get through the day. She was always very respectful of me and very much on my level... much more of a peer than trying to be a parent or anything like that. Now it's leveled out, and we really are like peers. TVG: In other words, it's more like a friendship.
Bledel: It's happened more as we've gotten to know each other more. We have hung out outside of work, and it's fun, but we see each other so much at work that it's almost like if we hung out outside of work, we'd hang out all the time! We'd never be apart. TVG: That would certainly cut down on the time you have available to spend with your boyfriend, Milo Ventimiglia (ex-Jess). How's that going, by the way?
Bledel: [Laughs nervously] It's going good. TVG: I know you don't like to discuss your personal life.
Bledel: It's just, the articles I read when I was younger, they said the only way [a Hollywood romance] works is if you don't talk about it, and I agree with that. And also, it's your stuff, and if you share things that are too personal with a magazine or with your public, it's sort of like it's not really yours anymore, it's shared information and it's not special to you anymore. I don't like that. I think people with personalities who like to talk about what's going on in their lives, they'll talk without really knowing how it's going to come back and bite them, and generally, it does. And luckily, I have the kind of personality where I am extremely private. I don't really like to tell everyone my business. I'd much rather people wonder or not know. TVG: Is Milo on the same page with that approach?
Bledel: We're both fairly private about our personal lives. I don't really talk about it, because relationships are so personal, but they're also so fragile. They're so ever-changing — people are constantly evolving within their relationships. You may always be together, but the way you feel on a day-to-day basis, it either stays the same or it changes, and I don't usually talk about it. TVG: Enough said. |
Harry Hamlin's Life on Mars
TVGuide.com: How did you prepare for that scary scene? It looked draining.
Harry Hamlin: I went to the gym a lot and stretched out a lot so that I wouldn't get creamed, because it was physically very challenging. Emotionally, I suppose I just drew on that well of rage that we all have when we contemplate our children being beaten up by somebody. TVG: So being a real-life father was helpful?
Hamlin: Absolutely. I'm saving that bit of tape to show my daughter's first boyfriend. I'm going to say, "Son, I just want you to look at this before you take my daughter out. I want her back by 9:30." TVG: Was Aaron always planned to be such a big part on Mars?
Hamlin: I'll be in all the remaining episodes. I'm not sure whether it was always planned, but I think the chemistry between me and my son [played by Jason Dohring] worked out. We've had some great scenes together and I think they wanted to write more of those to create the father-son conflict. I have really had the best time; it has been a career highlight for me to do this show. The character I play is so, kind of, delicious. TVG: Well, speaking of conflict, earlier in the season, they showed you hitting your son.
Hamlin: I'm not your model dad. TVG: You also got to work with your wife, Lisa, which seems like it'd be fun.
Hamlin: But, obviously, I drove her first to drink and then to commit suicide! [Laughs.] TVG: Is she upset that her character got bumped off?
Hamlin: I had a meeting with the head of the network at UPN [Dawn Ostroff]. I asked her what about Lisa, after [her Lynn Echolls character] had ostensibly jumped off the bridge. And she said, "Well, they never found the body." So I think there is a crack in the door open there. TVG: What do you know about Aaron's backstory, since we mostly just see him as Logan's dad?
Hamlin: I don't know that they ever actually showed [Aaron's] study in detail, but the art department went to great lengths to show this egomaniacal actor's cocoon. Every single wall was covered with vanity posters of me from movies like Hair Trigger 1 and Hair Trigger 2 and Slash and Grab. The titles were unbelievable — and the odd thing is that I had all these action posters in the office, and then I also had three Emmys and two Academy Awards nestled behind my desk. So, somewhere along the line, I must have done something that got the respect of the Hollywood community. But most of the movies I had done were pretty awful, at least based on the titles. [Laughs] TVG: So did you base your arrogant character on anyone in particular?
Hamlin: It is based on myself, I guess. TVG: You're not really like that, are you?
Hamlin: [Laughs] Certainly, I've met actors before who have [vanity] rooms like that in their homes. I don't live that way myself, but the character is so multidimensional. He's a huge public figure, on the one hand. On the other hand, he's trying to have a family life and he can't control his impulses, and probably was raised by parents who beat him with a belt, so he feels it is OK to beat his kids with a belt. TVG: Aaron quit acting to spend more time with his family. Have you ever thought about that?
Hamlin: Yes. In fact, I did that. I never announced it to anybody but, about four years ago, I took my son, who is now almost 25, on a trip to scuba dive near Belize. We spent about 10 hours in a car together driving through the jungle. After hour five of being cooped up in the car, it sort of all came out how I was gone when he was a kid and working so much in the '80s. This was new news to me. We'd never discussed it; he'd never revealed to me how painful it was not to have his dad around all the time. He was really traumatized by that. It was helpful for our relationship but I decided then and there that I wasn't going to do that with my new family. I have a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old [now], and basically, I bailed on Hollywood three years ago. TVG: What made you come back for this show?
Hamlin: Most of the work I was doing, up until three years ago, was being done outside Los Angeles, in Canada and Australia. I decided to stay close to home and that, if I was going to work, it would be in L.A. — and only on things that really interested me and in ways that wouldn't impact on the family. Veronica Mars came up and I did eight episodes over five months. That doesn't take too much out of your family life. TVG: Are you coming back to Mars next season?
Hamlin: Well, we've had some conversations about it, but the last time I actually spoke to any producers about it was before they had gotten their official pickup. So no one could say anything because they didn't know if they were even coming back. It would be fun to do. I had a great time doing it this season. TVG: On a fun note, they recently made reference to Clash of the Titans within the show. What did you think of that?
Hamlin: I didn't see the episode, but they described it as Veronica [catching] a glimpse of it on TV in a motel room. I thought it was kind of a fun thing. A lot of actors have done toga movies in their lives, and most of those disappear without a trace. Somehow, Clash of the Titans has just kept on going. |
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