See more about Melissa’s photoshoot in our previous article about her magazine cover
Published on Feb 4, 2014
A Short movie with Melissa Rauch shoot on set of BELLO mag entertainment cover feature shoot, …
Director Aleksandar Tomovic
Producer Leslie Alejandro
Director of Photography, Editing Tony Papa
Styling Kimmy Erin
Grooming Stephanie Hobgood
Scheduled for Jun 13, 2014 1:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Share your questions and comments with actress Mayim Bialik (“The Big Bang Theory”) at our #googlehangout #HangoutsOnAir or at Gold Derby’s home page http://www.goldderby.com . Bialik is the Emmy-nominated star as Amy Farrah Fowler, the scientist and sometimes and girlfriend of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). Go ahead and ask your questions now if you can’t join us live. #MayimBialik #TheBigBangTheory #CBS #GoldDerby #Emmys
Scheduled June 16, 2014 at Noon Pacific Daylight Time
Share your questions and comments with actor Jim Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory” and “The Normal Heart”) at our #googlehangout #HangoutsOnAir or at Gold Derby’s home page http://www.goldderby.com . Parsons is the three-time Emmy winner as nerdy Dr. Sheldon Cooper on the CBS comedy series. He is also a co-star as Tommy Boatwright in the HBO movie. Go ahead and ask your questions now if you can’t join us live. #JimParsons #TheBigBangTheory #CBS #TheNormalHeart #HBO #GoldDerby #Emmys
| Thursday June 5, 2014 @ 4:23pm PDT
Emmy balloting starts on Monday and continues through June 20 and you would have to be living under a rock – 
or somewhere other than Los Angeles or New York – not to be aware that we are in the midst of perhaps the most massive , widespread Emmy campaigning ever. Is it me or has this Emmy season even seemed to eclipse the Oscars in terms of the campaign for the golden statuette, even though there is no evidence that winning an Emmy has anywhere near the financial or prestige value of an Oscar.
There are billboards , bus posters, social media,Q&As, online and print ads galore and it doesn’t stop there. Friday night FX is throwing a New Orleans-style feast and concert from Stevie Nicks to accompany an episode screening and Q&A of their Miniseries hopeful American Horror Story: Coven. It’s just one of many such events Television Academy members have been invited to this season. And this kind 
of thing just seems to be proliferating year after year. Perhaps it helps that the Television Academy itself plays ball in this game. The Academy’s official Emmy Magazine which goes to all 16,000 plus eligible voters is chock full of ads both inside and outside. Just to get to the actual magazine itself you have to rip off a Good Wife snipe, get past a glossy four-sided fake cover for Big Bang Theory and other Warner Bros shows and dispense with an elaborate insert and DVD promoting CBS reality shows. Once you hit the “real” cover which features Fox’s Sleepy Hollow it actually opens immediately into a massive HBO Emmy campaign ad for True Detective followed by nine more pages of ads before even hitting the table of contents (oh and did we mention Sleepy Hollow itself had a big screening event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery Monday?).
Of course the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences does none of that, but doesn’t prevent campaigning to its members during Oscar season. But , while being even-handed and playing no favorites , the Television Academy does realize some income from all those ads and even hired a new head of ad sales this year, Hollywood trade veteran Rose Einstein (it should be noted Deadline is also chock full of Emmy ads). The studios and production companies all seem to have Emmy fever. Just witness the usual pile of elaborately packaged shows that arrive at every member’s doorstep. It wasn’t always this way. Although the campaigns waged for Oscars have always seemed to be intense and elaborate, using the same methods to win an Emmy nomination is relatively new by comparison. To learn the evolution of it all I turned to a man who has been called “the wizard behind the Emmy curtain” and the guy who pulls “the campaign levers”. Richard Licata has been NBC Entertainment’s Executive Vice President , Communications since 2011 but previously worked at Showtime, Fox Broadcasting, HBO and Rogers And Cowan Public Relations. At each of those places he developed a knack, and a love for , the art of Emmy campaigning and as it has increased year to year he’s usually there with some new innovation to move it
forward. It started for him when he was at HBO in 1991 and launched a nascent Emmy campaign for the tv movie, The Josephine Baker Story resulting in numerous nominations and a Lead Actress statuette for star Lynn Whitfield. Licata doesn’t believe that surprise win was by accident. That year he even convinced a local video store chain to stock cassettes of the movie and took out trade ads directing Academy voters to the stores where they could check them out for free. It was an instant success. ”In 1991 The Josephine Baker Story triggered my interest in doing what the movie people had done for decades. Why couldn’t television also put their so-called ‘best of the year’ in the center ring so that people would either revisit it or acknowledge it with Emmys. That’s when it started, “ he said. “I think people realized you could speak to the TV Academy voters in a lot of various ways and get them to focus on the programming. It is really kind of a wonderful golden age of television now where there is so much good dramatic and comedic television that it’s worth trying to persuade voters to look at them. I have never seen so many billboards for Emmy consideration in my whole career as there are this year, ” he said adding it really wasn’t done at time he decided to do a couple of Dexter Emmy consideration billboards in 2011 while still at Showtime. Showtime also pioneered the OnLine screening room for full episodes. After they did that the TV Academy followed with its own site offering the same service for members.
Among other innovations Licata tried was going early. Showtime had a series called Huff in 2005 which drew very low ratings when it debuted in November. In January , eight months before Emmy night, he packaged the entire series and sent it to the Academy membership. It became the first full season DVD sent out and went on to earn a shocking seven Emmy nominations (and won two). Coincidence? Probably not. As Licata says why wait until May when there’s a glut of these things and no one has the time to watch them all? When he was at Rogers And Cowan he opened a division dedicated to Emmy campaigns. Among the first clients was FX and The Shield. They send out a DVD box with a light that lit up when you opened it. Star Michael Chiklis was the surprise winner that year for Lead Actor in a Drama Series. For the 2002 Sci Fi Mini-Series Taken he sent an elaborate globe containing the DVDs. It won the Best Miniseries Emmy. ”It was an ecological disaster but it did the trick,” Licata laughs.
At NBC he says they were already doing innovative work when he arrived three years ago but since have been adding new wrinkles including branding buses, digital billboards, and social media including Facebook and Google/Gmail ads. They also put episodes for consideration on American Airline flights between New York and LA and even clips in New York taxi cabs. NBC/Universal’s 21 page spread in the new Emmy magazine begins with a sealed envelope containing a message to voters pushing the new NNBU Screen It app for iPads to watch full episodes and instructions on where to find your password. Licata also says that he can tell the TV Academy membership is getting younger just by response to their screening room site. “The usage is extraordinary. Sometimes we look at the numbers and wonder if they made a mistake. Times have changed dramatically and people watch things online and their handheld devices and it has really helped in spreading the (Emmy) word,” he said.
Licata also feels it is important to be even handed in dealing with Emmy campaigns. That’s why he has two simultaneous 
campaigns going for The Tonight Show. There’s one for the old one “With Jay Leno”. And one for the new one “Starring Jimmy Fallon”. He hopes they both pan out. “It’s even -steven. It’s equal time. We are being aggressive with Jay to pay tribute to his 20 years on this network, and his last year was terrific. It’s kind of like an embarrassment of riches so we hope both of them come in,” he said. Leno may be an exception for sentimental reasons , but programs currently on the air almost always take precedence. In other words don’t look for NBC or any other player in the Emmy game to spend a lot of money on cancelled shows.
But again , is an Emmy really worth all this time, money and effort?
“My battle cry has always been that it’s great to win the gold, but I have always treated this as a really terrific branding 
opportunity for a network. You get your product out there, not only the show but you showcase your talent and show them you care about them. I think Emmys are important in a very crowded television landscape. Does it bring in more viewers? I am not certain that it has the impact an Oscar has on a gross, but I definitely think it is one of the tools that helps build a show,” he said. So don’t expect campaigning for Emmys to stop anytime soon.
normancook 2 hours ago #tbt my adorable mom at my age. We make all the same faces 😜❤️ @peteyleo
themelissarauch 6 hours ago #Throwbackthursday An important 1987 film that changed my life and the lives of many
11:00 AM PDT 6/5/2014 by Ray Richmond
Murphy talks to THR about the tumult and joy of successfully adapting Larry Kramer’s AIDS play after many others before him had tried and failed.
This story first appeared in the June 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
It isn’t as if Ryan Murphy has a shortage of work, as he juggles running Fox’s comedy contender Glee, wrapping a six-season run next year, and FX’s miniseries entrant American Horror Story, set to enter its fourth season in the fall. Yet he was passionately driven to do what others — including Barbra Streisand — couldn’t before him: successfully adapt Larry Kramer’s autobiographical, Tony-winning AIDS play The Normal Heart for the screen. The HBO film premiered May 25 to rave reviews, with original-film Emmy buzz for its A-list cast, which includes Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer and Julia Roberts.
A lot of time has passed since The Normal Heart became a stage sensation in 1985. Yet it wasn’t until you bought the rights from Kramer in 2009 that it was adapted. Why?
This was one of those things in my life where I felt like a warrior with the material, and I did it because I simply said: “This message needs to be heard. This movie needs to be made.” And I do think it’s something young people need to see, that it can change hearts and minds. That’s honestly why I did it. For 30 years this movie had tried to get made, and the list of people who at one point said they were going to make it is astounding. The fact that I was the one who was finally in the right place at the right time, well, I feel very privileged. The reason Larry Kramer gave me the rights to this is, he said, “You have to promise me you will get it made.” And I said, “I will.”
How closely did you work with Kramer, who has been in poor health lately?
Very. I worked with Larry on the script for three years, but it was always Larry’s script. I think it has been a remarkable experience for me to be almost like the father of it who birthed and pushed it forward. But every day while we were shooting it, I was terrified I was going to drop the ball in some way, and I am so thankful that Larry Kramer got to see it while he’s alive. He has watched it now three times, and every time he watches it, he writes to me or we talk. That was all I wanted. Everything else is just gravy.
How did the project land at HBO?
They were the only people who would step up and really put their money where their mouth is. A lot of doors slammed in my face, which has always been the arc of the project. I knew that going in. People were like, “Isn’t it too soon to tell the story of AIDS? No one wants to see a movie about AIDS.” On and on.
Did you find that people now think of the AIDS crisis as a period piece rather than an active pandemic?
Oh, no question. But it remains the exact same story today; the victims of the disease have just changed. Back in the ’80s, it was largely gay men getting infected, but now it has become a disease of people of color and women. More than 6,000 people a day are newly infected with HIV. So it’s hardly over. In many ways, it’s only beginning.
How did making Heart change your life?
I think it’s the most important thing I’ve ever been involved with. The experience of making this has made me not only a better artist but a better person.
Where do things stand on a sequel?
It’s in the works. Larry is currently working on writing the next chapter that takes place in the mid- to late-’80s. All of the actors whose characters survive, as well as HBO, are committed to keeping Larry’s legacy front and center for as long as we can. And I’ll direct. Larry’s plan is for a trilogy. We hope it happens.
An armful of Emmys are sure to greet the film in a few months.
That would be amazing icing on the cake. But truthfully, I have no expectations about that at all. What would be wonderful is if people see the work of our technicians, our actors and everyone associated with this film and found them worthy. I’ve never been involved with something where everyone cried every single day. Everybody was so careful and loving with the material and went beyond normal human hours to make sure it was presented authentically and beautifully.
Were you surprised by HBO’s decision to enter True Detective as a drama rather than a miniseries? Did it make you question the way you entered American Horror Story?
Nothing happens unless it’s done with 100 percent of the support of the person who created the show, so I wouldn’t say it’s HBO’s decision. I remember when American Horror Story first went into the miniseries category, it was ultimately my decision. It was something I felt strongly about, and [FX chief] John Landgraf supported me. A miniseries is what we are. Every year it’s a different story with a beginning, middle and end. If you look at things that have traditionally won that award, like Prime Suspect, that’s what they are, too. So I feel very confident in our choice.
We are going to include the Hollywood Reporter Best Drama Actor Roundtable because it has Mark Ruffalo who starred in The Normal Heart as part of the Panel. We here at BazingaCast have been reporting and following The Normal Heart coverage and feel that while not relevant to The Big Bang Theory, that it is relevant to The Normal Heart and the coverage we have been providing. We hope you enjoy!
9:00 AM PDT 6/5/2014 by Stacey Wilson, Matthew Belloni
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/drama-actor-roundtable-jon-hamm-709412
This story first appeared in the June 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
The arrival of Josh Charles at Mack Sennett Studio in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood on the morning of March 30 was like seeing a ghost. Only seven days earlier, the Good Wife star (and long-time pal of panelist Jon Hamm) was brutally killed off his hit CBS series, lending a palpable memorial vibe to the start of an otherwise buoyant gathering of six dramatic actors: The Newsroom‘s Jeff Daniels, 59; Ray Donovan‘s Liev Schreiber, 46; Masters of Sex‘s Michael Sheen, 45; The Normal Heart‘s Mark Ruffalo, 46; Mad Men’s Hamm, 43; and Charles, 42.
Join in as these veteran performers of film, theater and television debate the merits and failings of Twitter, why the talent agency system is failing up-and-comers and why a fear of typecasting — and never working again — often can be an actor’s most effective tool.
Josh, explain your decision to leave The Good Wife.
JOSH CHARLES I had a weird contract, and it was up at the end of the fourth season. When I was asked to renew, I thought hard about it. A broadcast network schedule is 22 episodes a year. That’s a long time to be playing the same character. I was eager to move on. I wanted to leave the show in a good place, and I felt really proud of the work. It’s hard to articulate exactly what …
JEFF DANIELS You were bored out of your mind. (Laughs.)
CHARLES I actually wasn’t bored out of my mind! There were moments of feeling burned out.
JON HAMM Julianna [Margulies] had a similar thing on ER, right? She left when that thing was going crazy.
CHARLES Yeah, I think so. She was the first person who called me about it. We had a long heart-to-heart. She was really understanding and instrumental in getting me to stay longer than I planned. We gave the character a proper goodbye. I think we all feel like it’s one of our best years. I’m happy because I got to be a part of that.
How much input did you have in your character’s exit?
CHARLES Last year, [co-creator] Robert King — he was directing the finale and this was soon after I’d made the decision — told me, “I think it’s going to be a very finite kind of ending.” I said that sounds great. There were two options, you know? A lingering exit or pulling the cord. I trusted them implicitly as storytellers, and [killing my character] was dramatic and shocking, so that was it.
How do the rest of you feel about the TV trend of killing off major characters?
HAMM It depends upon the execution, no pun intended. If you watch TV, you have these expectations of how things are going to go. One big expectation is that the main characters are going to be there as long as the show is. We had a similar thing on our show when Jared Harris‘ character [Lane Pryce] hung himself. It was surprising because it was final. It wasn’t like, “Oh, it was a dream and he’s going to come back!” Death is something that we all deal with in real life, so it can be effective when it’s surprising.
Jon, there’s a lot of speculation about the fate of your Mad Men character, Don Draper, when the show ends next year.
HAMM Well, I die. I think we can say that. (Laughter.) Matt [Weiner] will be cool with that. No, I trust Matt to tell the story, and to second-guess it at this point is a fool’s errand. We’ve done 90 some-odd episodes, so it’s on him to land the plane. I’m along for the ride.
Josh’s exit from The Good Wife blew up on Twitter. With the exception of Jon, you’re all active on social media. How has this impacted your work, for better or worse?
MARK RUFFALO It’s made more and more jobs start pouring in. (Laughs.)
Studios love politically active actors, of which you are one, Mark.
RUFFALO Yeah, they really dig that. Controversy around actors is a good thing! No, I think I feel like I’m boring the hell out of my followers.
CHARLES Not at all. I like it!
RUFFALO It’s a rare moment in human history. I think for a long time actors were afraid to be too political, but social media allows us to talk directly to mass groups of people. It takes the power out of the hands of, say, Fox News. It becomes more of a well-weighted game for all the individuals. I’ve found it to be incredibly liberating. (Laughs.) And the more I do it, the [more] activated I see people getting … or waiting to kill me for it.
DANIELS I don’t engage with fans at all on Twitter. I don’t look at comments. I see at it as a poor man’s fan club. For me it’s, “Here’s a little information,” and then I shut the door. I’ll post stuff that I think might entertain people, but [they’re] not going to get information about me.
HAMM I’ve been in Twitter feuds with people, and I’m like, “I don’t have an account!”
MICHAEL SHEEN I got into it early on, and it brought out all of my worst traits. If someone said something that pissed me off, I’d go after them. Then you realize it’s turning up in newspapers. (To Ruffalo) I have so much admiration for anyone who does what you’re doing. I’m just not a strong or stable enough person.
CHARLES I remember talking to someone from Twitter when I first got involved and they presented it as “be a curator for your own life” — and the occasional dick joke.
HAMM Occasional? (Laughs.)
Privacy is something you’ve all had to sacrifice for your work. What else?
LIEV SCHREIBER Time and daylight! The great thing about doing theater is that you have your days free. The thing about television is you have nothing free. That’s a big sacrifice, especially when you have small children. But, yes, the privacy thing … that all went out the window when Naomi [Watts] and I got together. But I’ve adjusted. In the beginning I really hated it, then I stopped fighting and it got easier. It’s nice to be appreciated, but I was worried I would be useless as an actor once I got too famous. That was my big anxiety, especially since I considered myself primarily a character actor. I cherished my anonymity because it allowed me range. But the really terrifying thing about doing television is that you become so associated with one character that it then becomes difficult for other people to believe you as anything else.
HAMM Liev hit the nail on the head. When you’re in people’s living rooms every week for however many years as one person, it’s a worry that that’s all they’re ever going to see. That fear certainly informed all my decisions made outside of Mad Men. The first year of the show, every script I got was about a guy in a hat and coat, smoking a cigarette in the ’60s. To be able to pivot off that and to host Saturday Night Live or do Bridesmaids was helpful. But very few of us are in the position of being able to look over the field of projects and go, “I want to do that and that and that.” They’re usually like, “Sorry, Tom Cruise is doing that, Brad Pitt‘s doing that and Bradley Cooper‘s doing that. How about these that no one wants to do?”
CHARLES Jon, knowing you as long as I have, you’re so funny … seeing you [do comedy] has been great.
DANIELS People go, “Wait a minute, he’s funny!”
HAMM Part of it is getting lucky, part of it is being in the right place at the right time. And part of it is making a conscious decision to, as Liev said, to do other stuff. It’s why we got into this business. To do the same thing over and over isn’t for anybody at this table.
Do you find resistance among your reps to keep you open for different types of opportunities?
HAMM Oh sure, they just want money. “Why would you turn down all this money? Work, work, work.” And I’m like, “Well, I want to see my family. I want to not live in Nova Scotia for six months.”
CHARLES Not that there’s anything wrong with Nova Scotia.
HAMM Great, wonderful Nova Scotia. It’s the best Scotia!
Mark, what scared you about doing The Normal Heart?
RUFFALO First of all, it was The Normal Heart. Anyone in my generation saw it done 100 times in scene study class. It’s a really tough part. To make it into a film becomes a polemic. It’s agitation propaganda theater; it has to be really political to drive it. When you try to take that to film, it can become grating. And then it’s Larry Kramer, who’s a larger-than-life, hallowed personality in gay culture. Also I said to [director] Ryan Murphy, “Hey, isn’t it the time for a gay actor to be playing a gay character?” And he said, “The whole idea of this movie is getting past those kind of labels.” There was a lot of responsibility that went along with accepting the role.
DANIELS Did you f– it up? (Laughter.)
RUFFALO As best as I could! It was tough, man. There aren’t a lot of people who wouldn’t have f–ed it up.
DANIELS But that’s the talent. You dive in thinking, “I might f– this up. I might fail miserably here.”
RUFFALO “But I’m going to go for it.”
CHARLES Isn’t that always the best experience? Being on the edge of “I don’t know what the hell is happening”?
RUFFALO You have to put your fanny on the line.
DANIELS The amount and speed of the dialogue on Newsroom [scared me]. Making it sound like thoughts falling out of my head versus my just being able to memorize it. That’s the big battle with Aaron [Sorkin]. You aren’t walking around the corner [saying lines like] “Look out!”
THR ROUNDTABLE: Drama Actresses Claire Danes, Julianna Margulies on Explicit Sex Scenes, Crazy Fans
CHARLES You don’t have four weeks to learn it, either.
SCHREIBER My favorite thing is words. Give me a lot and I’m happy. And now I’m on a show where I have eight lines an episode. (Laughs.) Doing TV is about getting a lot of practice, but it’s also unfortunately about caring less and less and less. Listen and get on with it!
SHEEN I’m like Liev. I’d always felt more confident with a lot of words, coming from theater. I’d always had a big confidence issue, too. The reason I took a character-actor route was partly I look like this, but also I took refuge in words. Now playing a character who does not say as much; being interesting without having much to do has been a challenge. But the biggest transition was, the canvas we’re using is suddenly not two hours, but 12 hours. Our story is based on real events, so at least there is some sort of an arc — but it’s massive. It’s a man’s life. In season one, I knew I was going to hit a midway point of the season [crucial to the plot], and I based everything I did on that moment. But I ran the risk of people going: “I really don’t like this guy. There’s nothing charming about him.” But by episode five, what happened had more power because of the cumulative power of the storytelling.
But if Josh’s exit from The Good Wife is any indication, audiences are willing to invest years in characters’ lives and are heartbroken when they leave.
SHEEN Yes. The shows we’re all doing have a level of sophistication of writing that is so extraordinary. We can’t rely on the same little tricks.
HAMM And people consume TV differently now. I didn’t watch The Wire when it was on the air, but I watched five seasons while I was shooting a movie. I stayed up till three in the morning and [could] watch nine Wires and just be like, “I can’t stop watching this show!”
DANIELS (To Hamm) Did you know upcoming arcs on Mad Men?
HAMM I never did.
DANIELS (To Charles) Did you?
CHARLES In a broad sense, but not the details.
DANIELS I don’t know anything either on Newsroom. I’ve embraced it. Live it like a life.
HAMM We might get hit by a bus when we walk out of here!
RUFFALO Is doing a show more satisfying than film because you have time to dive into a character?
SHEEN It’s one of the most exciting things. On the other hand, you only get about two takes.
SCHREIBER But you’re also more familiar [on a TV show]. And familiarity means you don’t just get one shot. You have another episode if you screw that one up!
What do you wish directors better understood about actors?
DANIELS I’ve had great people on Newsroom, but from day one, I said: “Five words or less. If you can’t tell me what to do between takes or in front of a scene in five words or less, stay in the chair.” And it worked. “Oh, don’t f– with Jeff!”
HAMM Part of it is getting them to believe and understand that actors are part of the creative process. “I want you to say the words this way,” and I’m like, “Well, I can, but I can also do it the way that I’ve worked on for 90 some-odd episodes. I can bring something to this that maybe you haven’t thought of.”
SCHREIBER I’m going to say something relatively controversial. In the golden age of the writer, being a director in television is a really tough gig. They have to come onto a set that’s already functioning without them and where everybody outranks them. Film was the last autonomy, and now you’re taking these guys, who are real artists in cinema, and putting them in a situation where they’re being asked to jam with some people for eight to 10 days and then walk away from their product. It’s almost like a commercial.
Do showrunners have too much power in the scenario?
SCHREIBER We have a very talented showrunner [Ann Biderman] who’s really good at everything. But with the quality of the writing and production, we need great directors, too, and to empower them to take risks.
CHARLES I love a director who creates a safe area where I feel like I can just take a risk. Take one may suck, but they’re not going to micromanage.
What’s the last piece of acting that made you jealous?
HAMM I just watched a show out of the U.K. called Black Mirror. Have you seen it?
SHEEN Anything that’s about f–ing pigs on TV, I’m there. (Laughs.)
HAMM And I was real jealous of that pig! No, it’s an anthology show, like The Twilight Zone. Each episode is stand-alone, so you can watch in any order. That was the last thing that turned my head, where I was like, “Whoa.” Very smart and disturbing. And Michael mentioned the pig f–ing.
SCHREIBER I don’t see much that isn’t rated G these days. I have to commend [actor] Jemaine Clement‘s performance as the evil cockatoo in Rio 2. (Laughs.) There’s a line my sons and I repeat now every day: “I am going to be pooping on your party promptly.” Mr. Clement’s delivery of that line is the Babe Ruth of acting for me right now.
RUFFALO Joaquin Phoenix in Her was envy-making for me.
DANIELS 12 Years a Slave made me proud to be an actor.
What credit would you delete from your IMDb page?
DANIELS [1999’s] My Favorite Martian.
SCHREIBER Only one?
RUFFALO 1986 to 1995.
CHARLES There’s a few.
SHEEN I would cut out Gladiator. It’s on my IMDb page that I’m in it, and I’m not.
HAMM It’s impossible to correct an IMDb page! You can write in and say, “I’m actually this person. This isn’t true.” They’re like, “Sorry, someone said it was.”
What frustrates you most about how the business has changed since you started acting?
RUFFALO The consolidation of [talent] agencies has been harmful. What is it, two agencies now? Three? When I was coming up, there were little agencies; you could find your way in. I love my agents now [at UTA], but sometimes I look at the agency and I’m like, “Who are they working [for]?” They’re cozy with the studios! That isn’t great for getting new talent. Thank God we have television for that. But when I talk to young actors, I tell them, “Get a camera and make your own stuff. That’s the best thing that you can do.”
HAMM I think we’ve all had a negotiation where you take a step back and you’re like, “Wait a minute, who are you representing? You’re playing both sides of the fence.” They want the studio because they have 40 other clients in negotiations. I want you to fight for me. You’re like, “There might not be a later for me.” That’s the fear.
You still have that fear, Jon, even after all the success?
HAMM All these guys were famous when they started their current projects. I was not. I was a fifth lead on a Lifetime show then thrust into this situation, which was terrifying. I had no leverage or guarantee that anything was going to work out; that anyone would even see Mad Men or we’d even shoot a second episode.
CHARLES I’m having all these memories of you telling me this after we played tennis once. “I think it could do pretty well. The buzz from AMC … I think they feel good about it.” It was like, “That’s awesome man, great!”
SHEEN I moved to Los Angeles 12 years ago and everyone said, “Don’t do TV. If you do TV, you’re not going to do films.” But I was at the airport the other day and on the covers of most of the magazines were TV actors or actresses — not movie stars. I thought, “Things have really changed.”
SCHREIBER My biggest frustration is the culture of celebrity. It’s bad for acting and storytelling when “actors” are bigger [personalities] than their characters.
CHARLES But, I follow Mark on Twitter, and I have no problem separating his tweets from watching him be a character. It doesn’t bother me. Following him on Twitter doesn’t make me feel like I know him so much more that I can’t watch him lose himself in a character.
RUFFALO It depends on the way social media is used, too. “I took two craps today and am having a ham sandwich.”
HAMM Two a day now? Good for you.
RUFFALO Oh man, it’s like clockwork.
SCHREIBER But you’re actually trying to use Twitter effectively. That’s different from tweeting pictures of yourself at a shop with a pair of jeans. Then I can’t help, when I watch you act, to think, “You know, he looks really good in those. For a guy, he has an amazing butt.”
RUFFALO Was I good in those jeans?
SCHREIBER You did look good.
What’s the funniest or strangest feedback you’ve gotten or read about yourself?
HAMM It’s the weird passive-aggressive insults. I get this all the time: “I just love the way you do nothing [onscreen].” I’m like, “Well, I’m glad you like it but I’m not doing nothing. Thanks, Aunt Betty.”
SCHREIBER I was excited to meet Ang Lee — I’m a big fan — and I’m in his office downtown in New York. We’re having this long, existential conversation about art and such. At the end, he looks at me across the table and goes, “Wow, you have really nice legs.” (Laughs.) I thought it would be different with Ang!
Here is the full Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Conversations Panel from Variety Studio that includes Melissa Rauch:
The world needs more game shows, so we at The Wil Wheaton Project created a new game show that is sweeping the nation, called “HOW WILL THEY BITE IT?”
Felicia Day joins me for our first episode, which we hope you will find as amusing as we do.
The Wil Wheaton Project airs every Tuesday at 10pm on Syfy.
Don’t forget to check out the Wil Wheaton Project on Tuesdays at 10 PM EDT on Syfy. For our international readers, you can live stream on syfy.com when it airs.
Congratulations and Happy 10th Anniversary to John Ross Bowie (Barry Kripke) and his lovely bride. Here is a photo that John Ross posted of his wedding yarmelke done in his family tartan colors from his Scottish heritage:
The Bazinga Cast 