Monday, 8 October 2018
The latest Walking Dead victim speaks out about death
Gregory’s equally cunning and cowardly ways to come to an end on Sunday’s season 9 premiere of The Walking Dead. Upset over being replaced by Maggie as leader of the Hilltop, Gregory sought his revenge in the grief of an alcoholic father who had just buried his son. Gregory manipulated Earl into attacking Maggie, and when Earl was foiled, Gregory attempted to finish the job on his own. He too failed, and the retaliation was swift and severe as Maggie hung him for his crimes.
While the man who played Gregory, Xander Berkeley, was happy to see Gregory go out in a similar fashion to his comic book counterpart, he also feels his exit was rushed and should have played out over a longer stretch of time — which he reveals was the initial plan. Read on as Berkeley discusses Gregory’s untimely demise and his feelings about why the character deserved more. (Also make sure to read our season premiere Q&As with showrunner Angela Kang and director Greg Nicotero.)
I’ve always been very philosophical because I’ve made my living dying. There’ll always be another job and there will always be a time in which you got to go, whether it’s with the show or prior to the show’s going in order to keep the show viable and vital. There’s only so long a douchebag like Gregory can stay alive, so I wasn’t shocked to find out, even though it was very much at the last minute and I had been a little bit set up to expect a very different journey. That was when [former showrunner] Scott Gimple was guiding it.
Last year, this assistant had given me ideas of where it was going to go and then he switched over to Fear the Walking Dead, and Angela [Kang] came in and she had her whole set of ideas — which is part of what Scott does and any good show writer will do when handing the reins over to the new showrunner is, let them run with it and go with their ideas. I know there was a certain amount of up-in-the-airiness about Lauren [Cohan], and then we all know about Andrew [Lincoln]. All that shuffling must be involved in the balancing out of storyline so, yeah, it was very last-minute for me, but I have no hard feelings about it.
That’s interesting to hear that there was originally a different plan for Gregory than what we saw, or at least a different timeline.
Well, what I had been led to believe at one point — not through Scott directly, but through an assistant — when I was stuck in that damn pen. I had so much fun on the show. I mean they gave me such great stuff right off the bat, and it was just so much fun no matter how unctuous or devious the character was. But the stuff in the pen last year in season 8, it got a little purged for me. It was just a long way to be away way from home at my stage of the game and to be away from the children.
That was the first time on the show that I was in conflict because I was like, “Kill me out.” You know, “Give me something exciting. Kill me out so I can get home to my children and/or other more interesting projects.” I’ve always got more interesting things to be doing than sitting around in a prison pen saying the same lines that I said more or less five times before. I’m like, “I don’t deserve this.” You know, how many times can you do that? And then they did come up with some cool stuff in getting out, and then when he gets hauled back in and the bumping of the head — I loved that episode. But I told Scott’s assistant, “I’m languishing a little long in the pen,” and he said, “We’ve brought Gregory down here, and the intent of course is to bring him back up into power before the inevitable demise”.
As for his actual demise, I had always hoped they were going to follow through with the hanging, because I’ve never been hung before and that would be good with all the death reels. I’ve got three falls from 30 floors. I’ve got three explosions in planes. I’ve got at least 15 stabbings and 25 gunshots. I needed a hanging. So I was counting on them following through on the comic book’s inevitable swinging from the tree at one time or another, but I just wasn’t sure it was gonna happen.
It felt a little bit jammed into an also-ran for a season premiere, but eh, it’s just me. It’s a bit mustache-twirly when I turned on her. They did as much as they could, but I think they just had so many stories that they were trying to juggle. Angela is a good writer and I think she knows what she’s doing, so I don’t really question it. I can’t imagine having her job with all those characters and then all the actors that go behind them.
What do you think it is that drives Gregory to this heinous act? Is it just his lust for power or is it revenge on the woman who took it away? A little bit of both? Something else? What is the ultimate thing that drives him to this?
Well, that’s the thing. I’m my mind, it did happen so abruptly and suddenly. I had hoped to see it played out a little bit. It felt like it was jammed into the first episode. If for the sake of the show to effectively begin the season off with a bang, then great! I’m happy if I could jump-start the season in that way, but… I would have really liked to have seen a little more depth go into it because, especially if you’ve waited a couple of years, where you’ve seen him humble himself and he’s gotten back. He’s gotten himself out of the pen. He’s gotten himself to become a member of the community enough to where he’s gotten the trust of his old compatriots back, and he’s humbled and working among them and he’s able to speak at the funeral — I would have liked to see that played out a little bit more.
I love that scene with Lauren where Gregory confronts Maggie outside. I love that scene, but then to send someone else into the fray… I would have liked to have been able to cover his tracks a little better and not just go straight away into pulling a knife on her. Because I felt like they needed me to actually try to stick a knife in her in order to justify her hanging me. So from a selfish point of view, I would have liked to have seen that played out in a little bit more elegant and interesting way, but if it works for the show, then that’s it.
Tell me about filming the execution scene. What was that like?
That was intense. It went on all night, and they shot if from every possible angle. That was my last day. I’ll tell you a little secret: They always save the killing of a character for the last scene, and in my experience because it’s usually dangerous, if they’re going to actually kill you they want to save it for the last day. [Laughs] They did ask me if I was willing to be blindfolded and have my hands tied behind my back on the horse, which was a little bit unruly, with a noose around my neck, but I thought at this point it’s the law of diminishing returns and I’ll get the stunt man to do that bit. That guy said, “Dude, I think you made the right call. That thing freaked me out!”
I wanted to get three or four different really strong choices to the editor and the director to have to play with and the context of the episode as they were editing it — to see what would play the best and in terms of the overall arc of the character. I wanted one for just to kind of break your heart a little bit, and one to just go, “Oh, you f—ing sniveling piece of s—, shut the f— up and die!” What I did in that last take was just beyond bizarre and disturbing because I didn’t have to stay straight with the script. I’ve done a whole lot of deaths — maybe 75 death scenes in my life. I usually try to air on the side of discretion, but I went for it, and because of being in the noose and everything I figured I could really go for it because it was so visceral.
For more Walking Dead scoop, follow Dalton on Twitter @DaltonRoss.
- Goodbye, Andy! Walking Dead actors past and present write tributes to Andrew Lincoln
- Here’s what happened on Andrew Lincoln’s last day on The Walking Dead
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Friday, 5 October 2018
Crazy Rich Asians' Constance Wu returns to Fresh Off the Boat after movie success
getting right back to work on Fresh Off the Boat.
“The scheduling has been challenging, to say the least, but the experience of going back, other than the scheduling, has been just great,” Wu tells EW of shooting her ABC family sitcom while doing press for her hit film.
“It’s kind of nice to have the stability and the family-like atmosphere of our show. Everyone there, we’ve known each other for over four years, most of the crew and all of the cast, so it’s very familiar,” Wu says of the comfort of returning to the Fresh Off the Boat for season 5, which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET. “We’ve done four seasons, so there’s not that much pressure. And when you don’t have pressure, you can be free and experiment with the characters and play around.”
In season 5 of the comedy, Wu‘s character, mom-of-three Jessica, is getting her own taste of the spotlight as her crime thriller, A Case of a Knife to the Brain, is published.
“You’re going to see her deal with the realities of publishing and putting her work out there, and what it means to her and how it will affect her whole family,” says Wu.
Plus, NBA superstar Scottie Pippen guest-stars as himself, Jessica and Louis’ (Randall Park) eldest son, Eddie (Hudson Yang), is learning to drive, and neighbors Honey (Chelsey Crisp) and Marvin (Ray Wise) bring home their baby.
“It’s interesting to see the different parenting styles,” says Wu, who adds that, of course, “Jessica has her opinions.”
As for the much-discussed Crazy Rich Asians sequel, which has been put into development by Warner Bros., Wu is waiting until the project has been officially greenlit to let herself get too excited.
“I’m just enormously grateful. But, I mean, I feel like we’re jumping the shark a little bit because it hasn’t been greenlit,” she says. “They’ve just been given the go-ahead to start writing it, and of course studios always have notes and want it to go a certain way, so I’m trying not to put the cart before the horse and [instead] be like, ‘Oh great, this gesture shows that they have interest and appreciate the work that we have done and are doing.’ And that is a win, but we don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
- Crazy Rich Asians: All the differences between the book and the movie
- Fresh Off the Boat adds Jimmy O. Yang, Ming-Na Wen for guest star roles
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Versailles stars Alexander Vlahos, Evan Williams on season 3 and saying goodbye to MonChevy
Without the foppish wigs and the frippery of their coats and high-heeled shoes, Alexander Vlahos and Evan Williams seem quite far — centuries, in fact — from the men of King Louis XIV’s court whom they bring to life on Ovation’s Versailles.
But there’s one key thing they share with Philippe (Vlahos) and Chevalier (Williams), the fan-favorite couple viewers have dubbed MonChevy: As intensely as Philippe and Chevalier love each other, so too do Williams and Vlahos share a deep bond of friendship, forged over four years of working together and frequently baring it all, both emotionally and physically.
“We would pull each other above water,” Vlahos tells EW. “We kept each other afloat, both of us holding each other up and going, ‘We’re doing this.’”
Williams adds, “We just lucked out with chemistry with each other from the beginning.” Indeed, the pair’s very first rehearsal involved a kissing scene, and things got more intimate from there.
Now having wrapped their third and final season, Williams and Vlahos are taking a victory-lap press tour before Versailles returns stateside Saturday on Ovation. Their bond is evident as they look to each other for assurance and jovially interrupt one another.
Fans should lap up the warmth and playfulness while they can because, as Vlahos teases, season 3 leaves “the relationship of the Chevalier by the wayside.” Williams adds, “We get to examine what happens when two men have wildly different experiences and then come back expecting it to be the same, and what do we do when it’s not the same relationship that has been the whole arc of the show.”
For Vlahos, that meant a chance to play Sherlock Holmes, as Philippe becomes obsessed with uncovering the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask alongside Fabien Marchel (Tygh Runyan). “Tygh would say it’s Sherlock and Batman,” Vlahos jokes. He also says the time away from Chevalier came as something as a relief after plumbing the emotional depths of that relationship in season 2. “We gave everything to that relationship, and I was fearful that me and Evan couldn’t do that again in season 3.”
Chevalier, meanwhile, will be trying (and failing) to land a wealthy widow, while also struggling to make sense of his identity without Philippe. “He’s a manipulator, and he’s always played Philippe like a fiddle.… When he’s a fish out of water trying to do tricks on a woman where none of his tricks will work, we get to see him flounder in a whole new way,” Williams teases. “He’s a very broken person, and he’s just looking for a place where he belongs. Over the course of season 3, we see him find his feet and truly find what his true identity is, which will give him a platform to really love Philippe the way that he deserves.”
So does that mean he will eventually be reunited with Philippe? Both Vlahos and Williams promise that fans will find closure. “It was cool to know we were going to be wrapping it up with a bow,” hints Williams, adding, “We know we’re playing real guys, and we know they stayed together in their lives for over 70 years. We know it’s true love.”
That closure also gave Vlahos and Williams a chance to delve even deeper into their characters, bridging historical fact and their own performances. “In season 3, we go deeper into the layers than we ever have before,” Williams says. “The character that is created is equal parts the historical person and the thing that’s come from inside me.” It’s for this reason that Vlahos says he didn’t do too much digging into the historical legend of the Man in the Iron Mask: “We’re not making a documentary; we’re making a drama, and there are moments where we are free and liberated and there is flexibility within that.”
While wrapping Versailles was bittersweet for Vlahos and Williams — bidding adieu to the family the cast and crew built together — they took home more than memories. Vlahos reveals that he kept Philippe’s shoes, which famously cost his character 50,000 French livres. “The memory of those shoes was the first script I ever read,” he says. “They now hold a pride of place as a doorstop in my house.” Williams also kept a wardrobe item, one of Chevalier’s beautiful coats, though he wishes he could have kept his wig: “As soon as I put that wig on, the character just jumped out, and it happened more and more strongly over the course of the three years.”
Another thing they won’t let go of is the impact their onscreen relationship has had on viewers around the world, foregrounding an LGBTQ couple as a central love story in a historical drama. Both actors say they regularly receive messages from fans about how their relationship helped them find love or make strides in accepting their own identity. Vlahos’ character, for example, helped a young trans man in England come to terms with his femininity, and he even met Vlahos and thanked him in person.
Vlahos notes that the writers never explicitly used the word “gay,” choosing instead to normalize their characters’ relationship as a matter-of-fact couple at the court. Williams adds that he thinks the MonChevy pairing has spoken to people because the distance of time and space can be helpful. “It was this beautiful aesthetic in this sort of fantasy realm, even though it was historically accurate,” he says. “[We had] the opportunity to exist just as two men in love, so we really got to start from a heart place, and we didn’t have to worry about stereotype and expectation. That gave us the freedom to tell the story the way we did and give it the weight we feel we did.”
It’s a weight that has made an impact, one reflected in a nearly daily outpouring of love and inspiring stories. “People have found MonChevy as their way into the show — and maybe they didn’t expect to and they came with a lot of prejudice and their minds got changed,” Vlahos says. “That transcends ratings and success. That’s bigger than anything we could ever set out to accomplish when we started.”
- See how The Crown’s recast royal family compares to its predecessors
- Aidan Turner is shirtless and dripping wet in exclusive Poldark teaser
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Jay Z’s Roc Nation to produce TV adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s ‘Noughts and Crosses’
Jay-Z’s Roc Nation will produce an anticipated TV production of Malorie Blackman’s acclaimed novel Noughts & Crosses.
The YA book has remained consistently popular since its release in 2001 and tells the story of a world tipped on its head, where white people suffer widespread prejudice at the hands of a black ruling class.
It’s now been confirmed that Roc Nation will join Participant Media in executive producing the series. They’ll also handle the soundtrack for the anticipated adaptation.
Although specific details of the show are yet to emerge, it’s expected to follow the story of young friends Sephy and Callum, who are divided by their color. Sephy is a “Cross,” a prominent member of the black ruling class and the daughter of a powerful politician.
Jay-Z at the GrammysCallum, meanwhile, is a Nought and a member of the oppressed white class.
Describing the forthcoming BBC series, Participant Media’s Jonathan King told Variety: “When we saw ‘Noughts & Crosses,’ we were captivated immediately. Music and popular culture are huge parts of the fabric of the show, and we couldn’t be more excited that Roc Nation is joining the team.”
Roc Nation’s Patrick Reardon said: ““We are thrilled to partner with Mammoth Screen and Participant Media on this series, which explores issues of race and discrimination through such a provocative and unexpected lens”.
A release date is yet to be revealed.
Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Malorie Blackman will become Doctor Who’s first black screenwriter, penning episodes for the 11th season which starts this Sunday.
The post Jay Z’s Roc Nation to produce TV adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s ‘Noughts and Crosses’ appeared first on NME.
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