Archive for the ‘News’ Category
In ‘New Girl,’ the character Cece, played by Hannah Simone, is known to tell it how it is. As it turns out, character and actress aren’t too dissimilar.
“Curvy is just a polite way of saying fat. And I’m not,” Simone notes in an interview for the April issue of the Canadian women’s magazine Glow. “Curvy and voluptuous-that one also got dragged through the mud, that poor word. It really just means a woman with breasts. [But] I’m confident with my body.”
The 32-year-old former model also talked about feeling grateful to the show’s creator and executive producer Liz Meriwether.
“I remember thanking Liz, and saying, ‘You’ve no idea what you’ve done, that you’ve put this Indian actress in this visible role, where it’s not about her ethnicity,’” she told Glow, adding, “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a comedic actress. There is this demand for smart, funny, attractive women.”
Simone, who has occasionally been called “curvy,” and “shapely” is not the first woman to find offense with the term.
Congrats to everyone on New Girl for their Critics Choice nominations!! The awards will air live on UStream on June 10th.
BEST COMEDY SERIES
The Big Bang Theory
Louie
The Middle
New Girl
Parks and Recreation
VeepBEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Don Cheadle (House of Lies)
Louis C.K. (Louie)
Jake Johnson (New Girl)
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation)
Jeremy Sisto (Suburgatory)BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Laura Dern (Enlightened)
Zooey Deschanel (New Girl)
Lena Dunham (Girls)
Sutton Foster (Bunheads)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep)
Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Max Greenfield (New Girl)
Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory)
Alex Karpovsky (Girls)
Adam Pally (Happy Endings)
Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation)
Danny Pudi (Community)
Question: For the love of a Happy Ending, any word on whether or not USA Network will right a terrible wrong? —Tiera
Ausiello: No news is, in this case, pretty good news. Negotiations continue between Sony and USA, which tells me that the cabler remains seriously interested in giving the show a fourth season. Meanwhile, if the talks collapse — bite your tongue, Ausiello! — it’s an inevitability that Damon Wayans Jr. will find himself back on New Girl next season in some capacity. (You’ll recall Wayans appeared in the New Girl pilot, but was forced to drop out when Happy Endings earned a surprise second season; Lamorne Morris’s Winston was brought in to fill the void.) Jake Johnson, who’s currently shooting the comedy Let’s Be Cops with Wayans in Atlanta, says he’d be thrilled to “welcome [Wayans'] Coach back to the loft,” adding, “I would be surprised if he doesn’t come back for a while” should Happy Endings fail to find a new home. “There would be such funny episodes with the Coach seeing what’s happened in the past two years since he’s [been] gone.”
No Bones about it: Booth and Brennan are on the move. New Girl‘s Nick and Jess, meanwhile, scored the most coveted timeslot in all of TV.
Fox on Monday announced its official schedule for the 2013-14 TV season, and here are the biggest headlines: After launching its ninth season in its regular Monday/8 pm timelsot, Bones will relocate to Fridays at 8 pm in late fall (after the World Series); a special episode of New Girl (in addition to one of Fox’s freshman comedies) will air after the network’s telecast of Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014.
New Girl will still be on Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. this fall. Here is the schedule below:
TUESDAY
8 pm DADS
8:30 pm BROOKLYN NINE-NINE
9 pm New Girl
9:30 pm The Mindy Project
Within moments of meeting the cast and director of the new movie Drinking Buddies, you can see exactly why the end product turned out as funny, loose, and honest as it did. Their rapport in real-life is just as fast and loose and funny is it played out on screen. Case in point: while discussing blurring the lines of male-female friendships, the conversation bouncing between director Joe Swanberg, and stars Jake Johnson and Ron Livingston, sounded like something, well, straight out of a comedy.
Joe: ” I feel like when people who have had that kind of chemistry, through whatever means have gotten past it, and you’ve sort of gotten close to the flame and figured out how to stay close and create a boundary, those can become great friendships and you kind of have to push them past the breaking point and let them break a little bit and then you know where that is and then you both just agree to stay on your side of the line from there on out.”
Ron: ”Or you f**k the whole thing up and move to a different city.”
Jake: “Again.”
Drinking Buddies, which opened to raves and boisterous laughs at the Paramount Theater at SXSW this weekend, is a sexy, smart will-they-won’t-they romantic comedy about two friends Luke and Katie —played by Johnson and co-star/producer Olivia Wilde — who toy with the boundaries of friendship, flirting and their relationships — both to each other, and their significant others Jill and Chris, played by Anna Kendrick and Livingston, respectively.
Actors and directors often say that the script is king. Haven’t you seen movies that – despite rich potential – fly off the rails? The issues often can be traced back to a script issue, a plot hole that swallows all effort and can doom even the most noble of projects.
Joe Swanberg swears by a different philosophy. The grassroots writer-director behind Hannah Takes the Stairs, Uncle Kent and V/H/S prefers not to lock his cast into a fixed screenplay, opting to let them react to conversations and emotions, which allows his dramas to live in the moment. It’s the use of improvisation to search for the beating heart of a particular story helps Swanberg’s latest, Drinking Buddies - which held its world premiere at the South By Southwest Film Festival on Saturday night – stand apart from traditional romantic comedies.
The movie boasts Swanberg’s most recognizable cast, exploring one of his most accessible character studies. It tells the universal story of an endearing yet mismatched couple, played by Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson, who are tested by the temptations of infidelity when they begin interacting with a second couple, played by Olivia Wilde and Ron Livingston. Though Swanberg puts his foursome in familiar scenarios – a joint vacation at a secluded beachfront cabin; work events at the brewery that employs Wilde and Johnson – his reluctance to put words in his characters mouths allows Drinking Buddies to go down unexpected avenues as it searches for its truths.
Following the screening on Saturday night, I attended a private meet-and-greet with Swanberg and his cast and learning how liberating the director’s unconventional approach was to the actors helped me better appreciate the magic that’s captured in the loose, free-flowing but authentic film . “Putting dialogue in somebody else’s mouth has always felt strange to me,” the director told us – though the cast was quick to point out that Swanberg always had a strong vision about where he needed his story to go. The performers just had more leeway than usual in how they arrived at their destination.
Can men and women be friends? That eternal question, perhaps best asked by Nora Ephron in “When Harry Met Sally,” takes center stage in Joe Swanberg’s new film ”Drinking Buddies,” which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on Saturday night.
Swanberg’s latest focuses on two couples, Luke and Jill (Jake Johnson and Anna Kendrick) and Kate and Chris (Olivia Wilde and Ron Livingston), and the too-close-for-comfort relationship between drinking buddies Luke and Kate, who are co-workers at a Chicago brewery. As the title and that description indicate, “Drinking Buddies” features beer drinking, more beer drinking, even more beer drinking and lots of intriguing drama about what is worse for a relationship: physical affairs or emotional ones. As is Swanberg’s style, “Drinking Buddies” is unscripted; instead of writing a screenplay, Swanberg discussed the characters and story with his talented cast and filled in the blanks during the editing process.
Typically, if you’re working from a script you’ve written a joke or moment on the page, and it’s really hard to tell if it’s landed.” Swanberg, best known for making films that fit into the indie sub-genre of mumblecore, said during a post-screening press conference. “You have to rely on the fact that you knew it was a funny joke when you wrote it and then, in the context of the movie, that it will land. This way, I’m watching it as a viewer; I’m watching it unfold. Then I know what’s working and not working.”
Which isn’t to say Swanberg made “Drinking Buddies” by the seat of his pants.
Do you have any Nick-and-Jess scoop for the New Girl finale? — Heather
NATALIE: At Jess’ behest, Nick will put hos before bros when Schmidt asks him to help sabotage Cece’s wedding, according to Jake Johnson. “Nick doesn’t help the guys because he’s trying to be considerate of Jess’ feelings, which leads him into a weird spiral,” aka relationship clarity. “They put a name to what it is and make a decision to how they’re going to move forward.”
Who’s that girl? It’s Swift!
For New Girl‘s relationship-centric May 14 finale, who better to cameo as a wedding guest than Taylor Swift (right, with star Zooey Deschanel) — the music megastar who wrote the (song)book on love, break-ups, and everything in between? Swift cameos as a woman named Elaine. Though showrunner Liz Meriwether remains coy about what exactly brings Elaine to the nuptials of Cece (Hannah Simone) and Shivrang (Satya Bhabha), she admits the casting was no coincidence. “I’m a huge fan of hers,” she says. “I was fully geeking out about meeting [Taylor]. I didn’t go to meet her right away because I kind of had to compose myself — there’s a 14-year-old girl inside of me.” Apparently the feeling was mutual, Meriwether recalls: “She was quoting lines to us from the show. It was a really exciting night.”
Star Jake Johnson notes that Swift was “very good,” and jokes that Swift’s triple threat status was “a little bit frustrating. She came in and is really nice. It’s not an easy scene. There were probably 70 extras there — though I’m sure she performs to so much bigger [crowds] than that on a regular basis. She had, like, a little monologue and delivered it perfectly. Liz gave her alternative jokes and lines, she delivered them all perfectly. It was frustrating!”
Meriwether also compliments Swift, saying, “She kind of came and nailed it. We love bringing in guest stars, but we really try to make it feel like they’re part of the show and it’s not just stunt casting.” After Meriwether & Co. have given her punchline shout-outs and featured her song “22″ in previous episodes, this cameo brings the singer-songwriter full circle — with added value for fans of both: ”She did a little bit of a riff on one of her songs,” previews Meriwether.
Question: I know its unlikely, because she’s on Nurse Jackie, but what are the odds that Merritt Wever will keep showing up on New Girl? I love her with Max Greenfield! – Kasey
Ausiello: “That’s definitely sort of up in the air,” says series creator Liz Meriwether. “I certainly hope so. She’s great.” The scene Wever and Greenfield share in tonight’s “Virgins” episode – a must-watch – is an example of what Meriwether calls “a lot of really great chemistry and fullness” between Schmidt and his college girlfriend. “She doesn’t take any of his bulls—t, and is pushing him to be a better person. That’s what he’s struggling with and what their arc is as a couple.” So you wanted odds? I’d say it’s at 5/2. (Full-disclosure: I have no clue what those numbers mean.)
