I’m a fan of “Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter,” a series in its third season on Sundance TV. In each episode, a Hollywood Reporter editor sits down with six actors or actresses or directors or showrunners to describe the creative process behind the TV shows or movies that have created lots of buzz in both the public and the awards season. The roundtables about television are hosted by Lacey Rose, the magazine’s TV editor, who joined me to discuss the conversations she’s moderated.
Among the topics we covered:
- Why Minnie Driver hates acting in a ditch with shorter actors;
- Why she calls Elizabeth Moss the “Queen of Peak TV”;
- Whether television offers better roles for actresses than movies;
- How actresses still face sexism in casting (including a shocking story from Emmy Rossum);
- Why Ewan McGregor prefers to play losers;
- Whether TV showrunners, who have so many more outlets with streaming services, still get network notes;
- Kumail Nanjiani’s rule for whether a joke should stay in a script;
- Why Kevin Bacon hates The Kevin Bacon Game;
- What NBC, CBS, Fox, and ABC have to do to create more buzz-worthy shows;
- The ginned-up controversy over an upcoming HBO series called “Confederate” (which I mistakenly called “Catastrophe”)
The next two episodes of “Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter” (7/23/17 and 7/30/17) will include roundtables of Lacey talking with comedy and drama showrunners. You can find previous episodes at Sundance.tv
Listen, then click here to subscribe to these podcasts via iTunes!