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thotyssey · 5 years

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On Point With: Doris Dear

A darling of the city’s cabaret stages, Doris Dear is the creation of Staten Island-born actor Ray DeForest and is based on his fascinating mom Taffy. While rarely mixing it up with New York’s nightlife drag stars, Doris has a huge and diverse following all her own. She returns to the Triad Theater this week with a brand new Christmas show... join Thotyssey as we get down with Ms. Dear!

Thotyssey: Hello Ray / Doris, thanks for talking to us tonight! How is the holiday month treating you so far?

Doris Dear: It’s been a crazy, busy, joyous month so far, and there is still lot’s to come! Oh ...hi by the way!

Hello! Here's an important question... what do you think about the sudden demonizing of "Baby It's Cold Outside?"

Well, my usual take on life as a whole is that if a group is being offended by something then we should respect that. The language we use is constantly changing. Keeping up with things is never easy.

That said, this one I think may take things out of context. If you look at almost any song written 74 years ago, you could look at it as being offensive. Viewing life in the past through a modern lens is difficult. Yet, an overwhelming majority requested not to pull it. So what do we do now? It’s a tightrope to walk, and never an a easy one.

I do think that context is a lost sense these days! So okay, let's put you in some context! Like your character Doris, you're a Staten Island native, right?

Yes, born and raised on the Island of Staten!

How was that for you? I think of SI as being so culturally unique and distant from the other boroughs. Even the accent is so different!

LOL. Yes it is. Staten Islanders are a breed altogether, different than the rest of the boroughs. I do think each borough has it’s own particular identity.

I just turned 60! Growing up on the Island in the late 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was really wonderful -- when the Island was still underdeveloped, and there were small neighborhoods and lots of open land to explore. I spent my childhood wandering the woods, catching salamanders and watching turtles and native birds, playing hide-and-seek and “superheros” with the neighborhood kids. Luckily, I had a mother and father that really liked the city. My mom was a fashion model in the late 40’s and early 50’s before she met my dad. She loved taking me and my sister into the city and showing us that world.

Now... that accent! LOL it is thick! We have the strange ‘a” sound that is very particular to the Islanders. When I was in college, my acting teacher drilled me hard to develop a more “Mid-West reporter” sound! The classic SI accent is heard when we say “The Staten Island Advance.” Instead of adVANCE, like most people, we say ADvance!

Yes that's it precisely! So, it was at college when you started theater, or earlier?

Well, I did a high school musical at St Josephs Hill Academy when I was a senior. They needed a tall guy to be opposite a girl that was a lead in their show ... so I was the right height! And in college, I got cast in a show freshman year because I was a swimmer and they needed a good, tall, muscular body to wear pink hot pants as a guard in Jesus Christ Superstar. So it seems my body got me cast in the beginning! After that show, I decided to give it a try and started studying theater.

Tell us about the creation of Doris, and where she first appeared.

Well, really she came about 5 years ago when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was such a light in my life, and many other peoples’ lives. I had always told stories about my parents Taffy and Duke (yes, real names). They were the life of the party. So, to deal with the loss, I decided to do what I know best, and that was to take her story to the stage. I wrote a theatrical cabaret show, and when I tried rehearsing it as Ray, I realized it didn’t really feel right. So I decided to create Doris Dear, who would be Taffy’s daughter, who she is teaching everything she knows to be America’s Perfect Housewife. By doing it as a drag character, it opened up the story telling in a way I could never do as Ray.

I had not done a ton of drag, but really for me it is just another character I do as a professional actor. I thought I would do one show at The Triad Theater and sell maybe 20 tickets. Well, it sold out... and the theater asked me back, and we sold out 4 shows over 2 months. After talking with my director and musical director, and with the backing of Sydney Myer at Don’t Tell Mama, we developed the show for 6 months. Then we took it on the road and now it has become a staple in the cabaret world... The Doris Dear Specials!

So, Doris is talking about your / her mother, but Doris herself is also actually based on your mother.

Completely! And all the stories I tell are true. They are all based on my mom. I use magazines and other pop culture items to illustrate those stories and songs, like magazines, recipe books and actual items my mom made... like handbags!

Did your mom have that swooping hair, and those glasses, too?

HA! Yes. She totally had the hair and glasses later in life; she always took them off for pictures. The look is all Taffy!

Do you find that audiences of all ages respond to Doris in the same way... or that she might be too "old-fashioned" for younger audiences to understand?

Well, it’s been interesting watching my audience grow and change. At first, it wasn’t exactly a younger audience. It was mostly straight married couples over 40. The husbands really loved Doris; I represent their mothers! Then slowly, the younger people started discovering this slice of life that Doris lives in. I talk a lot about old NYC. The restaurants, the theaters, the shows etc. They love hearing and seeing that. They also love hearing about the “old rules” that women lived by. Now it is truly a mix of all ages. I have some dedicated 15 year-olds that make their parents bring them to every show! I don’t curse or talk “blue.” I try to have an overall positive energy and message.

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Would you ever perform in the bars? I can't really picture Doris as Gaga and, like, Shequida as Beyonce doing "Telephone.” Actually wait, that would be amazing!

LOL... can you imagine!? Look, I grew up as a gay man in the NYC bar culture. I came out when I was 16! That would be 1974! I loved bar culture: a place to feel safe, meet people, and more. I grew up when drag queens, leather guys and preppy men all gathered together. I used to produce large club events as well. Being a part of gay culture has always been important to me.

Now I feel waaaay too old to do bar performing. Honestly... I’m in bed before those shows are even starting! I try to get out now and then to see all the queens out there, and there are some wonderful queens performing every week. I don’t know how they do it! I am also a terrible lip sync artist. I’m awful. And I haven’t done a slip in years! LOL

I bet it's like riding a bike! So, do you actually consider yourself a drag queen, or like you said earlier -- you are an actor, and Doris is just one character you do who happens to be in drag?

When I first started doing shows, I never said “drag queen" -- only because when people hear it was a “drag show,” they had a certain expectation of what it would be. Those people would come and not enjoy it. I called it a “theatrical cabaret” hosted by a Housewife. I gave up on that, though. I sat with the amazing Charles Busch, and we discussed this very thing. I came to the realization that saying I am a drag queen is actually an honor. We are an elite bunch of men that are proud. I have always said it takes a real man to do drag!

Well said, queen! So Doris' best-known shows are usually the ones for Mothers Day and Christmas, and the latter is coming up this week: The Doris Dear Christmas Special at the Triad Theater, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7pm! Tell us what we can expect this time around!

Well, it’s a whole new show this year. I absolutely love the Christmas shows. It is a time of year that people really want to feel happy, and we give them that in the show. The premise is that people are coming into my rumpus room and sharing a cocktail and story and song with Doris Dear. I have the most amazing singers who come in and visit. I actually had a cast and band rehearsal today, and I was knocked over by the sound. Simply amazing. Everyone in the show are award-winning singers and musicians. I am really honored that they choose to be a part of the show. You will hear stories of growing up with Taffy and Duke and how we celebrated Christmas. Nothing fills my heart more than honoring them each time I walk on stage!

That sounds absolutely perfect! Anything else we should mention?

I am honestly just so happy at this point in my life I still get to do what I love. I work a lot with other actors through my union SAG/AFTRA. I Serve on the LGBT National Committee and the Sexual Harassment Presidents Working Group to create safe spaces for our members. I try to encourage people to live an authentic life! Finally, what's the number one thing on your list for Santa this year... and what tops Doris' list?

Well, Ray hopes that Santa brings him yet another successful year of shows. And Doris has a bottle of Dewars on her list for all those Whiskey Sours she loves!

Thank you Ray / Doris... have a great show and Happy Holidays!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Doris Dear’s upcoming appearances, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, plus her website.

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i-may-have-a-point · 7 years

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Review of 13x19 “What’s Inside?”

When I first watched the episode, my initial reaction was that it was so awful I didn’t need to write a review. But then I thought that maybe the fact that it was so awful was something I needed to write about. There is a lot to be said about the choices the show isn’t making, so this review really focuses on that.

I get the opening scene completely. As I said in my 13x18 review, this episode is about Maggie accepting her mother’s death, so opening with her visiting her mother's grave makes sense. Now I don’t think this story should have been the one driving the episode, but here we are anyway. As much as I expected a scene with Maggie at her mom’s grave, I was distracted during most of it. I had to watch it twice just to tell you what Mer and Amelia were saying to each other. And the thing that distracted me has been distracting me for a while – Mer’s clothes. For the most part, I think the wardrobe department is fantastic, especially with the women. Each woman has a specific style to their clothing outside of the hospital that reflects their personality well. Even in this scene, Amelia’s leather jacket is a great call back to her edgier Private Practice days. It was a great clothing choice. But it makes the poor clothing choice for Mer even more obvious. Mer’s style is slowing becoming, “Well it looks clean, so I guess I’ll wear it.” And that would maybe be understandable if she was sporting the tired mom look, but since her kids have been in the basement since season eleven, it’s strange. And on top of that this is the second episode of the last three where someone has called Mer hot, so they clearly want to send a message about her appearance to the audience. It’s all very strange.

Eliza, Arizona, and Riggs – For a character that was the catalyst for one of the only story lines the show chose to focus on this season, Minnick has been curiously absent from our screens. I have to think the show got the hint that the fans were not going to be told who to like and decided to pull back a bit. The audience screaming “No!” at Paleyfest when Arizona and Eliza were mentioned had to have grabbed their attention at least a little. Arizona says to Riggs, “It’s just that people are so full of opinions about Eliza…” and I don’t think that was completely about the characters. It feels like Arizona is justifying to the audience why it’s okay for her to be with Eliza. “I’m recently divorced.” (Recent? Define recent because people have had babies and completed cancer trials since your “recent” divorce. Is this another Grey’s timeline black hole?)

Owen and Amelia – Oh look, Owen’s Army friends are happily married and expecting a baby. Good. We haven’t dangled Owen’s dreams in his face in a couple of minutes. Let’s do that again.

April, Steph, Cross – I am so happy to see April back. April/Sarah really does bring a much needed light to the show. It’s not the same without her. I get that this story was supposed to bring the comedy to balance the seriousness of Maggie’s surgery, but it ended up stealing the show. These three do comedy so well. Too bad we won’t see it more often.

Mer and Alex – I just can’t. I need Alex to do something other than prop up Meredith. Even if they want to ignore Jolex, give him anything else to do but that. Please. And this Mer and Riggs will they/won’t they go on a date is not suspenseful. You had sex with him in your car in the parking lot at work, Mer. I think you can eat a meal with him. The audience isn’t feeling a build-up. If anything, we are losing interest and hoping Riggs runs in the other direction.

Bailey and Webber – I almost forgot they were in the episode. When Shonda said this season would focus on the originals I expected great storylines for Bailey and Webber. Instead we got the equivalent of them fighting over Bailey choosing a new friend to do her school project with. They deserved better, but that could be said for most of the characters, so I will just be happy with the fact that it seems the Minnick/Webber storyline may be over.

Cross, Steph, Deluca – Jo Adler (Cross) is such an untapped talent. I get serious early George vibes from him and I love it. So we probably won’t see him again until next season.“I have Obamacare. I have a year left, and I…” You know an episode is bad when I say out loud, “I want to see more of Cross.”

Owen, Jackson, Amelia, Mer – I love that Jackson is always eating. I would stress eat if I worked there, too. As frustrating as it is that we have no Japril scenes, we do get an April mention from Jackson, which I think is significant. This happened in 13x05 as well when she had her first day back to work. They had no scenes together, but he asked about her. So, at least she's on his mind? Sigh. And Jackson telling Mer it’s not normal she operated through a miscarriage was a great moment. Funny. Especially since Owen is the one she operated on, and he is sitting right there.

Mer, Amelia, Maggie – I like Maggie. I do. I mean, I generally like everyone, so I don’t know if that means much. But I’m not invested enough in her character to want to watch three episodes in row basically focusing on her. The show really, really wants me to be, but it hasn’t happened yet. Audience connection to characters has to be organic. It can’t be forced, and it’s just not there with Maggie for me.

Maggie operates – And she is absolutely fine. Sigh. I mean I definitely didn’t want anything bad to happen to the baby or mother, but this story was anti-climactic and so many other stories are just sitting, waiting to be told. If those stories are getting bumped for this one, at least make it amazing.

April, Steph, Deluca, and Cross – Sarah and Jerrika really have a great dynamic onscreen together. I mean Stephanie being Jackson’s rebound sort of cancelled any chance of friendship, but their scenes always catch my attention. I love anytime April is shown as a capable and in control surgeon, so her annoyance at Steph and Deluca was great. Again, these scenes were the best of the show for me.

Mer, Amelia, Maggie - The dance it out scene was inappropriate to me. Shonda puts scenes in like this or a few of them eating lunch together and then tweets, "Oh, it's just like old Grey's!" like that will make us forget this season has been a mess. And dancing it out was a thing reserved for cheating boyfriends or bad days at work, not dead mothers. Dead mothers deserve a scene where they act like adults who are capable of dealing with their emotions and have a conversation. But, of course, we don't get conversations.

Maggie and Jackson - So, I don't see why people are freaking out. I just don't. I've tried. I've watched and rewatched and squinted at my screen. I see nothing. I mean, yes, they have had more scenes together, but absolutely nothing in those scenes has hinted they would be romantic. If anything, Jackson literally called her family. I think what this really is about is the fact that we have had no resolution from Montana so it is easier to see this as a possible reason than to just admit that the continuity and writing have been way off this season. I really think that since JTS was filmed in November, the show wasn't sure where it was going in the line up (they have moved two centrics recently) and they just didn't film anything that would be out of order for Japril. And let's be real. The show knows what they have with Japril. Just look at the publicity and money that was spent on JTS. The other centrics have not gotten that kind of treatment. Jesse and Sarah filmed on location for days with another crew. That location had to be rented. They had to pay the Grey's crew and the other crew at the same time. And the press? I read at least ten articles about JTS from entertainment sites. Jesse and Sarah were sent to the TCAs to promote it. They did the SAG-AFTRA screening, which is a big deal for the Screen Actors Guild to do something like that. Jesse was sent to New York to promote the episode on like five shows. I can't think of any other time the show has spent the time and money on a single episode like they did for this one. They aren't going to throw that away. And those pics Debbie Allen posted hinting that their last scene of the season is a good one? That was intentional. They know that Japril is the biggest couple on the show right now. If they were to trade that to test a relationship between step-siblings, the audience would run. Sure there are about five people who would be fine with it (and I am deeply concerned for them...) but overall I think a large portion of their audience would be done. And that is not to say the show hinges on Japril. I'm not saying that. I just think that would be the tipping point where Grey's has obviously stopped caring about telling good stories and is only trying to be shocking. As an audience we can only take so much of being ignored.

Speaking of being ignored, my heart goes out to hardcore Jolex shippers. Their story, or lack of, has been one of the main reasons this season has been such a let down. 12x24 set the stage for a great Jolex story, and then nothing. And I get that Camilla is pregnant, and obviously her health and the baby's health are more important, but they could say something. Don't just ignore the fans. They set up this season to be a look into domestic violence and Jo's past, and then we get nothing. If it's about her pregnancy, just say "Camilla is focusing on her private life right now, so we are pushing the DV story to next season." Or something! It could be done without putting her business out there but still respecting the fans.

I am an optimist, so I still have hope that the last four episodes will bring back the Grey's we love. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. This was a long one.

#grey's anatomy #13x19 #japril #jolex

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kuwaiti-kid · 4 years

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Unmasking the Armorer: Emily Swallow Talks About The Mandalorian, Fans, and Set Life

Emily Swallow has appeared on both stage and screen, lending her talents to roles on The Mentalist, SEAL Team, Castlevania, and most notably as “Amara” on Supernatural and as “The Armorer” on The Mandalorian.

Maggie Lovitt (ML): When I told a couple of friends that I was going to interview you, they got super excited because you’re from the DMV like we are. Are you proud to be from this area?

Emily Swallow (ES): I am! When [my husband and I] were driving down to Florida we drove by the sign for Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which is where I was born, and I pointed it out to my husband. I love Virginia. I loved going back there for school. I mostly grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. We moved down here when I was seven. I went back up there for the University of Virginia.

ML: How did you get into acting? You initially went to college for something entirely different, right?

ES: UVA was where I made the decision to pursue acting as a career. I did theater in middle school and high school, and I also did community theater. When I was at UVA I was a Middle Eastern Studies major and I thought I was going to go into the foreign service. I was also very heavily involved in the drama department and I’m so grateful that the drama department there is so open to non-majors, because it meant I could do both things. Then I had a really wonderful acting teacher who encouraged me to think about pursuing acting. He helped me work on auditions for grad schools and I auditioned for several. I got into NYU and I knew it was a good one, so I figured I should take advantage of that opportunity. I’m so glad that I did.

ML: How did you get your SAG card?

ES: You know, I was asked this question in another interview recently and I’m not entirely certain what my first SAG job was. I was trying to look back on my member page to see when I became a member, but it didn’t tell me. I think it was a movie that I did called The Lucky Ones a few years after I was out of NYU. I mostly did theater and then I did a little bit of TV. I feel like the television work that I did at first was back when SAG and AFTRA were two different unions. I think some of the work I did was AFTRA work.

ML: Did you grow up as a fan of Star Wars?

ES: I was a fan, but I don’t think I had any idea of the depth and the breadth of that universe. I definitely remember the movies being part of my childhood. I remember Ewoks dolls and I absolutely played Princess Leia in reenactments with my friends. I had seen the other movies since then, but the whole world of the Mandalorians was pretty new to me because I hadn’t seen The Clone Wars or any of the animated series. Now [that] I have gotten to watch them, I think they’re just so fun. Star Wars was something that was such a big part of my childhood, but now being reintroduced to it and getting to learn so much more about it has been cool.

Photo credit Diana Ragland

ML: Supernatural and Star Wars which both have massive fan bases. What has that experience been like?

ES: It’s such a gift. One of the things I miss when I’m doing film work is the connection to the audience. It’s part of theater that’s just so immediate. It’s so wonderful to get to feel that connection that so often you miss out on with TV. Doing these conventions and getting to meet these fans and find out what kind of impact the shows have had on them, what moment stood out, and what they like or don’t like about your character has been really cool.

I feel that the Supernatural fan base is just beyond anything I had ever experienced before and now, getting to meet the Star Wars fan base, it is another level beyond that. Star Wars has forty years of fans and you get entire families that watch it together. I love that. I will say that there is this incredible feeling of joy that I’ve experienced from all of the Star Wars fans. They’re just giddy with happiness to get to cosplay characters and get to meet the different actors. Both communities really watch out for each other. I love the community that they have built.

ML: A fan created a custom-made Armorer helmet for you, didn’t they?

ES: Yes! I didn’t get to keep mine because they’re holding onto that for future use. A fan who does his own stuff for cosplay and makes things for other people showed up at this convention and handed me the helmet. I was like “Wow, this is incredible!” and then he told me it was for me. I just lost it. I couldn’t believe it. I was just so excited. I brought it down to Florida with me to show my nephews. This is the only thing I’ve ever done that they’re actually interested in.

ML: It seems like a great time to have an Armorer mask.

ES: The Armorer was just setting the trend before it was even necessary.

ML: Both Pedro Pascal and Gina Carano have mentioned that they were sort of handpicked for their roles. What was the process for you? Did you have to audition?

ES: I did audition. This was one of the characters that they didn’t have a specific actor in mind for. Actually, when they were first looking for people they were auditioning British women in their fifties and sixties. I am not either of those things.

It was incredibly lowkey. I knew that it was something to do with Star Wars, but I knew so little about it. I didn’t know if it was a big deal or not. The audition itself was just me in the room with the casting associate and a video camera. I just had the scenes that they had given me and very little information because it was so secretive.

ML: Did they tell you that she was masked?

ES: They did. Which influenced my audition a little bit. But since I wasn’t actually wearing a mask in the audition, it didn’t really change the way I did it too much. I think I paid more attention to how I moved my body and communicated more that way.

ML: Is that where the British accent came from?

ES: It was the casting associate that suggested that I do it with a little bit of British accent, because they had been seeing Brits for it. We just did it a few times and that was that. Then I got the call from my agent. I was still so unsure about what the show was. I didn’t know how many episodes I was going to be in. It was very shrouded in mystery.

ML: Were you provided with any information about the Armorer’s backstory?

ES: I wasn’t given anything specific about where she came from or what her origins were. It was mostly about how she functioned within this clan of Mandalorians. The function that she served as their spiritual leader, the one who keeps the history, and obviously the one who makes their armor.

Jon Favreau mostly talked about images and the feeling of a lot of old [Akira] Kurosawa films. How the Mandalorians were like a samurai order of warriors. [He discussed] the formality and the regal feeling that some of those characters have. It felt like the Armorer needed to move very simply. He described her as a very zen-like person. She’s someone who has a lot of authority but doesn’t need to put it on display, which I really liked about her.

ML: Did you come up with a backstory to work with?

ES: This is not confirmed by anyone else in the production, but in my mind I felt that she knew Din Djarin when he was younger. So she knew a little bit about his origin and the path that he had been on. How he’s become this lone ranger. How he’s really lost touch with where he comes from. I feel like when he comes back to see her in that first episode, it’s like he’s coming back to his roots and starting to step into who he really is.

ML: Do you think we might eventually get the Armorer’s backstory?

ES: It’s entirely possible. But there’s so many parts of the story to tell.

ML: With so many of the roles on The Mandalorian requiring actors to wear full armor, what was that like? Did you all bump into each other a lot?

ES: Oh my gosh, yes! It was ridiculous for those of us that were in the Mandalorian helmets. You don’t have a lot of peripheral vision. We realized very quickly that any extraneous movement was distracting because when you can’t look at someone’s face to see what they’re expressing, you find yourself looking that much more closely at their mannerisms. So anything extraneous took away from the story we were trying to tell. Just walking across a room, you can’t look down to see where you’re walking. That had to be stepping forward on faith that you weren’t going to fall on your face. But then in between takes, when we were trying to get situated and get into place, we were bonking heads and tripping over things. I would drop all of my tools for my welding and my forging.

I keep saying that I hope they’re going to release a blooper reel because I think it would be pretty entertaining.

ML: Watching the Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian program, it really showcased what a fun and creative set environment the series has.

ES: I think that Jon [Favreau] and Dave [Filoni] really set the tone. Everything was very well communicated; the feel of the story and the overall arc of the story. Jon really encouraged the directors to lean into their own styles. There was such a feeling of trust. I feel that it relaxed and inspired everyone to work really hard to do their best.

Everyone working on the show has so much love for the Star Wars world. All of us felt like this was our childhood dream come true. I was amazed every day at the level of artistry in my forging tools, all the little details in the sets and costumes. In my experience, it was a really joyful place to be. My work was limited to my forging studio and I’m sure it was a lot more physically exhausting to do some of the stuff in the desert settings. But everyone just gave it their all. Everyone was willing to pour their hearts into it and that just absolutely came across.

ML: You have done voice acting on Castlevania, did that help you prepare for the Armorer when all of the dialogue is done with a mask on?

ES: I think so. I think that it did come in handy. The voice is one of the first ways that I am able to connect with a character. My background before acting was in music, which might have had something to do with it too. My preparation for a voice acting character isn’t dissimilar from my preparation for other roles. I’m still trying to connect to the characters. Having that physicality, even if you’re only going to hear my voice still informs my voice. But it’s really fun to be in a voice-over booth, you have so much freedom to move how you want. You can do anything you want to do to connect to the character.

ML: Did you have to do any of the combat for the scene where the Armorer takes on the Stormtroopers?

ES: I did a very little bit of it. I wanted to do it so badly, but the level of skill that the woman who did do combat was not a level that I could achieve in the time we had to film it. But I did train in a martial art style called Kali, which is what a lot of the fight was based in. I did some of the ends and outs and some of the transitions. The coolest parts of it were someone who is much more skilled than I am. I have to give credit where credit is due. That also was a moment that, even though I knew what happened in the scene, when I watched [the episode] it was just so incredible to see.

ML: What were your favorite scenes to shoot?

ES: I loved shooting the scenes prior to that one, where I get to reveal that The Child is in the line of the Jedi warriors. There was something so cool about getting to say “Jedi” and introducing that to the story, since it hadn’t been mentioned before that. It gave me the shivers. I like that scene for all of the action in it. Din finds out that he’s in charge of this child-being. I love getting to give him the jetpack. So many cool things happen in that scene.

ML: That puppet. What was it like seeing the Child in action?

ES: I didn’t realize just what an impact the Child was going to have. I didn’t get to read all of the scripts. I had the scripts for the episodes I was in and I also got to read six or seven. I didn’t have the entire story. I didn’t realize what a huge role he had. I was getting to experience a lot of the story at the same time as everyone else was watching it for the first time. I knew so little when we were shooting the series. It was really fun to get to be an audience member.

ML: If you could choose your own sigil, like the Mudhorn sigil the Armorer crafted for the Mandalorian, what would you choose?

ES: Oh man! I think it would probably be my dog Norma. She would look pretty good. She’s half French Bulldog, half Boston Terrier. She’s got these incredible ears. I think her silhouette would look pretty good as a Beskar seal.

Photo credit Disney/Lucasfilm

ML: How heavy was the armor?

ES: The armor wasn’t so bad. It was leather and a kind of canvas material. The leather was pretty supple, so it moved fairly easily. I wouldn’t say that I would love to wear it every day of my life, but it was very easy to move around in. The one thing that was challenging was the gloves that they made me. They looked great, but they were too big for me. It was very challenging to handle my welding tools. What turned into these beautiful forging sequences, were anything but that when we were filming them. I had trouble picking things up and I kept dropping things. I couldn’t tell if I was holding things right. That’s one of the times where you’re glad that you’re doing it on screen. They can just edit it to look great. You can’t do that in theater in front of the audience.

ML: As a second teamer myself, I would love to know if the stand-ins ever had to wear pieces of the armor during camera rehearsal or just stunt doubles.

ES: We didn’t really have a lot of rehearsals outside of shooting. Most of the time we were dressed and ready to go. Especially for Pedro [Pascal] there were a number of stunt doubles and body doubles that were dressed up in the full Mandalorian armor. Most of us were just hanging out in our armor all the time, which was a great bonding experience.

ML: Now, I thought I’d ask some fun questions. What is the earliest call time you’ve ever had?

ES: I don’t think I’ve ever been called before 4 AM. I was on the CBS show SEAL Team for a lot of this last season and most of my scenes were first up. Most of my mornings there started at 5:18.

ML: What was your longest day on set?

ES: I’ve had some sixteen and seventeen-hour days. I had some really long days on the set of Supernatural. Not the season eleven finale, but the episode before that. I was involved with fighting these angels and demons. My character got really beat up so I had a lot of prosthetics and make-up put on for blood, scarring, and burns. I had to get there early to get all of that put on, then there were long days of shooting, and it took awhile to get out of it [after wrap].

ML: I love Vancouver. It's one of my favorite cities.

ES: It’s a great city. I had never been there before I started working there. It’s my favorite place to go to work. I just love that it’s so easy to get out into the mountains or to the beach. It’s just beautiful up there.

ML: I always joke that I got into acting because I love set catering. Which set had the best catering?

ES: Oh no! I think Supernatural. That might be because it’s the most recent in my memory, but the guys who cater for them have been there for years. First of all, they’re so kind. They’ll make you whatever you want. I’m somebody who likes to have a big creative salad and they always had great salad fixings.

ML: What is your greatest weakness at crafty?

ES: Doritos! It’s so simple.

ML: I bet the wardrobe loves that.

ES: You can’t really hide when you’ve been eating Doritos.

ML: There’s a great debate on sets about which is the best sparkling water. La Croix, Bubbly, or another brand?

ES: I’m a fan of La Croix’s pamplemousse. It’s the grapefruit flavor, but it’s so much more fun to say “pamplemousse”.

ML: What is something you always need to have with you in your trailer?

ES: I always live in fear of having nothing to do on set, which is sort of ridiculous because there’s always something to keep you occupied. But I like to bring a book with me.

I always bring my journal because if I have to wait a long time after hair and make-up, it helps me keep focused on the character and the work I’m doing that day. I love having good music in my trailer. One of the things I dislike about film is how much time you spend in your trailer. It’s a tiny space without much to do. I like to have some music in there.

We wrap up the interview by discussing the uncertainties of this new world we’re living in. Her husband, Chad Kimball, is part of the cast of Come From Away on Broadway, where there’s a question about when they’ll return.

“We can worry and fret, or we can assume that things will work out for the best. We might not know what the future looks like, but sometimes when things fall apart they might come back better than they were before.”

The post Unmasking the Armorer: Emily Swallow Talks About The Mandalorian, Fans, and Set Life appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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How 'Sharknado' Casts Its C-Listers and Nearly Landed Trump as President

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/03/how-sharknado-casts-its-c-listers-and-nearly-landed-trump-as-president/

How 'Sharknado' Casts Its C-Listers and Nearly Landed Trump as President

Months before he declared himself a candidate, Trump was set to play commander-in-chief in the schlocky Syfy film franchise that has lured everyone from Ann Coulter to Charo for cameos while regular Tara Reid makes a quarter of one male co-star’s pay.

In January 2015, two years before he was sworn in as president, Donald Trump was set to step into the same role in a very different capacity: He had signed on to play the president in 2015’s Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!

Producers’ first choice to play the leader of the free world in the Washington, D.C.-set disaster film was Sarah Palin, but negotiations with the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee had fallen through. That’s when Ian Ziering, the gung-ho star of the schlocky Syfy franchise, had the inspiration to capitalize on the special relationship he’d developed with Trump while taping Celebrity Apprentice (Ziering made it as far as the penultimate task). His reality TV boss would make a good commander in chief, he reasoned. An offer went out. Almost immediately, it elicited a response.

“The Donald said yes,” recalls David Latt, the 51-year-old co-founder of The Asylum, the off-brand assembly line behind the Sharknado series. “He was thrilled to be asked.”

Alas, Trump never did get to fend off a swarm of hammerheads in the Lincoln Bedroom. (More on why later.) But his story is far from unusual — just one of thousands of familiar faces who have been approached to star in a Sharknado, in what has grown over the course of five films into Hollywood’s D-list answer to a federal jobs-growth program.

“It’s the long-lost love child of The Love Boat and Hollywood Squares,” offers Scotty Mullen, the bubbly casting director responsible for wrangling more than 80 celebrity appearances in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, which airs on Syfy on Aug. 6, with a splashy live viewing party in Las Vegas that night. (In true low-budget form, Mullen does double-duty as the newest installment’s screenwriter.)

It sounds like the recipe for a fatal drinking game, but fret not: You’re not expected to spot them all. Some of these faces are famous only overseas, while others haven’t been seen in decades. But you probably will recognize a few, including Charo as the Queen of England, Fabio as the Pope, Clay Aiken doing a spoof on Q from the James Bond films and Olivia Newton-John in her first screen role in 17 years, playing a scientist who gives star Tara Reid a Grease-style makeover.

If this terrain is familiar to anyone, it’s Charo, a fixture on such stunt-casted 1980s escapist fare as The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. The 66-year-old star was already a Sharknado fan when she was approached to play Her Royal Highness. “I think the Sharknado movies are hysterical,” she says, pronouncing it “shark-NAH-doe.” “Nowadays especially, we need shows that put a smile on your face. Coochie coochie!”

Coochie coochie ka-ching, that is: Sharknado has become an invaluable, if unlikely, crown jewel for Syfy, watched by tens of millions around the world (the globe-hopping new film capitalizes on that international popularity), registering billions of Twitter impressions and popping up in everything from Jeopardy! questions to The New York Times crossword puzzle.

But it began as just another title in a string of B-movies commissioned by Syfy — no-budget thrillers with names like Bats: Human Harvest and Mongolian Death Worm. Its path to the screen was fairly straightforward: An executive at Syfy heard the word “sharknado” and said, “I love it. Let’s make it.”

Asylum, which has cornered the market in this strain of cinematic dreck, was brought on to produce. They paid screenwriter Thunder Levin (his real name — “It was the ’60s,” he says) $6,000 to turn the word “sharknado” into an actual story — which he did, concocting a tale of a freak cyclone that scoops deadly sharks out of the Pacific and flings them at unsuspecting Angelenos.

With Sharknado script in hand, producers approached more than 100 actors to play male lead Fin Shepard, including Kevin Dillon, Dave Foley, Seth Green, John Stamos and Fred Durst. All of them passed — even the Limp Bizkit frontman, after being told he could also direct. The closest anyone got to signing on before Ziering was Back to the Future‘s Crispin Glover.

“I ended up in this 30-minute conversation with him during a location scouting in San Pedro,” recalls madcap director Anthony C. Ferrante, whose genuine enthusiasm for the franchise — he coined the word “sharknado” and has helmed all of the films — calls to mind a slightly more self-aware Ed Wood. “He wanted to play Fin like he had brain damage or something. And in my head I’m like, ‘OK — my job here is to make sure he says yes to the movie.’ ” Glover said no anyway.

But then something exciting happened: A legitimately talented and famous actor — John Heard — signed on as the movie’s comic-relief barfly, George. (Heard died July 21 while undergoing back surgery; there was barely a mention of Sharknado in tributes.) Reid was next to board, playing Fin’s ex-wife, April. This was after Teri Hatcher, Rebecca Romijn, Tiffani Thiessen and several others had already passed. Still, Reid was considered a big get for the project, whose title was proving to be a potent actor-repellent. “Tara had a profile,” says Gerald Webb, an actor and casting director who worked on the first three films (and appeared in the second). “Syfy liked her.”

With production commencing and still no Fin, a frantic Asylum went back to Ziering, who had already passed several times, and raised the offer to $100,000, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. Also a key conciliation: The title was changed to Dark Skies. (Syfy later changed it back to Sharknado, much to the cast’s dismay.) At the urging of his wife, who had just given birth and wanted Ziering to qualify for SAG medical insurance, he finally said yes.

And then a funny thing happened on the way to the DVD bin: Something about the movie’s ludicrous title and its cast’s commitment to the equally ludicrous premise (the film climaxes with Ziering’s ex-surf champ diving into a great white with a chainsaw) made Sharknado an instant cultural phenomenon when it premiered on July 11, 2013.

While ratings were modest — 1.37 million tuned in — the film lit Twitter on fire, with everyone from Patton Oswalt to Mia Farrow (“Omg omg OMG #sharknado”) singing its so-bad-it’s-good praises.

As a result, Sharknado 2: The Second One was a very different animal. “Everybody wanted to be involved,” recalls Webb. “Every C-list and D-list actor on the planet.” With the unlikely franchise’s new cachet, Asylum decided to take a kitchen-sink approach to casting, with Latt instructing Webb “to literally ask every celebrity we could think of. We came up with a list of a thousand people, including many A-listers.” Most passed. James Franco was a nonstarter. (There was hope he might be up for a cameo after his arc as a serial killer on General Hospital.) William Shatner’s agent replied with a single word: “Sharkna-no.”

But there were a few notable turns in the New York-set sequel, including Judd Hirsch and Airplane‘s Robert Hays playing into type as a taxi driver and jet pilot, respectively; rapper Biz Markie as a pizza chef; and Richard Kind as a Mets legend who bats a shark into the scoreboard. In many cases, their lines were written when they showed up on set.

Sharknado crews are nonunion (they staged a strike on the third installment and were replaced), but the films are SAG-AFTRA-compliant. “Everyone makes the same amount — a flat rate — and nobody was making close to their quote,” says Webb of the cameos. Asked if the pay — for anywhere from two to four hours of set time — would cover the cost of a Ford truck, Webb responds, “Absolutely not. Well, maybe a really beat-up one that would be at the junkyard a week later.”

Bigger roles, which require several days of shooting, pay more. Chris Kattan, whose career has seen some hard knocks since Saturday Night Live, was reluctant to take a cameo in Sharknado 5 — but was open to playing the meatier role of the U.K. prime minister, a part he approached “dead seriously. They were into me doing it that way.” He has gotten good feedback from his co-stars. “Ian said, ‘You’re going to be really, really happy with it,’ ” says Kattan. “So it’s not like Mariah Carey in Glitter — where nobody said anything.”

Mullen, 37, was a struggling screenwriter working as a publicist when his spec script Double-D Island (“It’s like The Hunger Games but topless”) got him noticed by Asylum, which first put him to work writing jokes for Kelly Ripa on Sharknado 2. “They said, ‘We forgot to write something for her,’ ” he recalls of the fateful phone call. “I said, ‘How soon do you need something?’ They said, ‘Well, we’re lighting her now.’ “

But it’s Ann Coulter whom Mullen credits with his big break. Asylum wanted the conservative firebrand to play the vice president in Sharknado 3, but was having no luck through her agent. Mullen suggested the company go through her publicist — “Sharknado‘s more of a publicity opportunity than a thespian exercise” — and Coulter “jumped at the chance. So then they asked me if I was interested in doing more of this.” Asylum agreed to pay Mullen a per-cameo bonus.

He sees his role as very different from that of most casting directors — people whose calls, typically, are eagerly answered by agents and managers. Instead, Mullen says, “you’re always selling them on the publicity value. An agent won’t care because they just want the money, and there is none. But if you pitch it to the publicist, they see all the value to be gotten out of it. You’re here to ride the hell out of that crazy publicity train.”

If it’s really true that there’s “no such thing as bad publicity,” Sharknado is determined to test those boundaries. Some of the most reviled figures in pop culture have popped up as chum. In Sharknado 2 alone, there was Andy Dick (who “was having a tough day that day,” says Webb — Ziering had to hold up cue cards with Dick’s lines on them), Perez Hilton (swallowed whole on a subway platform) and Jared Fogle (“You should really be eating fresh, too,” says Subway’s then pitchman, currently serving 15 years in a federal prison for child porn possession and having sex with minors). Among the few stars Asylum has rejected: porn legend Ron Jeremy, who once stopped by the offices to pitch himself.

Sharknado 3 features a cameo by Anthony Weiner, the disgraced ex-congressman who in May pleaded guilty to sexting with a 15-year-old girl. “I guess I am on that C- to D-level cusp of celebrity that they were looking for,” Weiner told THR in 2015. “But I wouldn’t have conceived of doing it if I were going to play myself.” In fact, a sexting-scandal spoof was exactly what the producers wanted; when Weiner refused, he was enlisted to play a dull NASA administrator instead. Most of his performance was edited out.

For Sharknado 5, everything is bigger, starting with the budget ($3 million, double the cost of the original) and star salaries — Ziering now makes $500,000 per picture. Asylum manages to limit costs when it comes to Reid’s paycheck — she makes about a quarter of what her male co-star earns on each installment. She protested the disparity during the filming of Sharknado 3. Syfy later asked fans whether or not to kill off her character — but the network flatly denies that the two incidents are related. (Fans voted to let her live.) “I think Sharknado cares more about their ‘extra of the day’ than they do about their own cast,” Reid says, clearly weary of the franchise. “You work at something for five years and you don’t get treated as well as someone who shows up for a single day?”

She may be on to something, as the piled-on cameos haven’t added up to higher ratings for the franchise, which peaked at 3.87 million viewers for 2014’s Sharknado 2 before dropping to 2.77 million viewers for 2016’s Sharknado 4. The newest installment — which introduces the concept of wormholes to the, uh, Sharknado mythology — shot on location in London, Tokyo, Rome, Sydney, New York, Los Angeles and Sofia, Bulgaria. Some cameo players were flown to those far-flung places (Greg Louganis jetted off to Sofia to play an art thief), while others (Fabio, Poison’s Bret Michaels — also a Celebrity Apprentice alum) shot a few close-ups at home in L.A., with their stunt doubles in rocker wigs doing the heavy lifting overseas.

Lee Mountjoy, a London-based casting director, was brought on to fill out the ranks and went about enlisting local talent Katie Price (the “Kim Kardashian of the U.K.”) and diving champion Tom Daley — Mountjoy randomly “bumped into him in a train station in London. I said, ‘Do you know Sharknado?’ And he said, ‘Oh, my God, definitely!’ “

Similarly, the Asylum guys ran into George R.R. Martin at a Comic-Con event in 2014, whereupon the Game of Thrones author confessed to being a Sharknado superfan. “I own a theater in New Mexico, and they wouldn’t let me play it,” bemoaned Martin. The producers pulled some strings, and Martin was able to screen the original movie at his theater. (He later showed up in Sharknado 3.)

“We look for cameos from all areas of pop culture to appeal to every fan watching the movie,” says Josh Van Houdt, Syfy’s vp original co-productions. “Whether we’re casting a professional athlete, reality star, actor, musician or politician, our goal is to include a wide variety of stars for viewers to either get excited about or, on the flip side, witness getting eaten by a shark in a spectacular fashion.”

And so it might have been for our 45th president. “We got pretty far,” says Webb of the Trump negotiations. “It was serious talks.” A contract was drawn up and sent to Trump attorney Michael D. Cohen — the same attorney currently under FBI investigation in connection with the Russia inquiry.

But enthusiasm turned into weeks of silence from the Trump camp. Eventually, a reason for the stalling emerged. “Donald’s thinking about making a legitimate run for the presidency, so we’ll get back to you,” Latt recalls Cohen saying. “This might not be the best time.” With the production clock ticking, Asylum pulled the trigger on a backup plan, offering the role to Mark Cuban — a modest casting coup that Syfy trumpeted with a press release.

“Then we immediately heard from Trump’s lawyer,” recalls Latt. “He basically said, ‘How dare you? Donald wanted to do this. We’re going to sue you! We’re going to shut the entire show down!’ ” Contacted by THR, Cohen acknowledges a dinner with Ziering to discuss casting Trump but says he has no recollection of the angry correspondence.

Webb, now at his own production company, is philosophical about the dustup. “I took it personally, but I get it now,” he says. “That was my moment of doing business with Donald Trump. And that’s Sharknado.”

This story first appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

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