#history of rome is kinda dry but it's interesting

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Decided to break my recent novel dry spell with In The Roses of Pieria, and it was a great choice. Strong character-driven plot, strong characters to drive that plot (I absolutely loved Fiadh), and some really solid world building that managed the very difficult balancing act of keeping the details sparse without making the setting feel either underdeveloped or surreal, which is a real achievement in my opinion. Lots of great references to Sappho and ancient Mediterranean history, which was a happy coincidence for me since I've been reading a bunch of collected history on pre-imperial Rome and its contemporaries recently. The main romances were really compelling - lots of heavy passion and longing and elegant prose that really made those Gothic romance feelings hit hard. I do think the Gothic horror elements could've been more intense though. I liked what was there, but having recently watched Fall of the House of Usher, I couldn't help but find it lacking. The atmosphere of tension and mystery and unease just kinda falls away around the 2/3s mark. Nitpicks aside, I'm excited for the sequel. If you're interested, you might also have a glance through the author's tumblr @villainapologistsanonymous - I've recommended some of her work on this blog before.

#the wlw review #in the roses of pieria #seriously though fiadh is so hot clara has excellent taste #and I won't spoil it but the ending set upbthe next book to dig into what i thought was the most compelling #part of the worldbuilding not yet explored

[fear-before-valor]

AU Ficlet: Jim, who was raised by the Order from the age of five, attends Arcadia Oaks High, for his first day of human high school. Weird things happen in Arcadia, though, and his appearance seems to be one such weird thing to the residents in this small, strange town... 

Aka: How an Order-raised Jim met Toby and Claire

Words: 2939 II Warnings: none II ok to rb --

Jim dropped his backpack at the empty desk next to one Tobias Domzalski’s, one of the only people at school who’d been properly friendly to him so far. It was Jim’s first day of mortal high school, and he’d been vetted mercilessly by every student group but Tobias’s, though he was beginning to suspect that said group consisted of only Tobias.

Of course, Jim had been screening his peers right back, but it was still exhausting. He thought he’d been ready after the Order’s… extensive lessons on humanity, and how to fit in with the mortals like himself, but already, everything he’d done felt like it must have been a social faux pas of some kind.

Act quiet around the quiet kids? Then no one speaks, until the silence grows so long that it’s awkward, and starting up a conversation makes it feel painfully forced. So, okay, maybe find some louder kids and try to blend in with them. Except, they start to grow obnoxious, and at some point, the headache simply stops being worth it.

Jim wasn’t even going to dare try and bond with the overly studious; he wasn’t here to vie for valedictorian, nor was he all that interested in making grades that separated him from the pack. Not to mention, he much preferred whatever lessons the Order could teach him anyway. They were very practical things, going over philosophy, strategy, combat, computations. He was already conversational in Bellroc and Skrael’s original languages, and though he knew Spanish would be equally valuable, the Spanish teacher seemed… intense, in a way that Bellroc and Skrael, who could likewise be rigorous sometimes, were not.

In fact, the only class he was indeed eager to take was history—and, okay, perhaps physical education didn’t sound horrendous, so long as he was careful about holding back in certain areas—because while he could learn plenty of history from his very ancient guardians, to hear of human history from the mouths of humans, like himself… it sounded unique, in a way that he hoped was amenable, at the very least, if not genuinely interesting or entertaining.

As he sat down in the chair beside Tobias, the boy seemed to light up, beaming over at Jim, a reaction that he hadn’t expected from his peer. He’d thought he’d rather botched his first conversation with Tobias in homeroom that morning, as he hadn’t known anything about anything that Tobias had referenced (what on earth was Gun Robot?). But, evidently, he must have done something well—or at least, acceptably— because Tobias was leaning over and excitedly holding out his hand to show Jim something which clattered in his palm as he moved. Politely, Jim glanced over to see what it was, and—oh.

Oh no.

That was definitely the remains of a troll.

Tobias was holding out small, grey pebbles for him to see, on which Jim could just make out hints of tattoos that had been etched into the troll while they were alive.

Holding back his mild panic, he gave a tight smile and a nod, as his classmate diagnosed them incorrectly as gneiss—which, admittedly, Jim thought wasn’t a bad guess, really. It’s not like the other boy had any reason to think that the rocks he was holding were anything but an average metamorphic stone.

Tobias was looking to Jim for a response, though, so he opened his mouth to speak, breathing in—

—magic.

Jim froze once more. The distinct tingle of magic had just washed over his senses, keen and undeniable, unlike anything else he’d felt that day.

It was raw, underdeveloped, not yet bolstered by the right teacher, but it was there, and it spoke in tones of purple, pulsing with potential.

Jim was no wizard himself, much preferring combat to the arcane arts, having not a strong penchant for it or its intricacies and delicate, temperamental nature, but even still, he’d been raised with the three most powerful magic-users in the known world. They’d taught him from youth how to recognize when magic was present, how to glean as many clues as he possibly could about it, or who might have cast it, might be walking in it, based on its style and scent, its intensity, or its intentionality. He wasn’t quite the best at sensing the finer details, nor could he find it when it was masked, but when it was open, unhidden, he could feel it like a mild electric shock that one might get when touching a door handle in dry weather; he could sense it like the faint scent of ozone during a storm, or like a prickle on the hairs on the back of his neck, when lightning was about to strike.

What’s going on? He thought, as he turned his head in the direction of the epicenter of the magic. First, there’s troll remains in the hands of a classmate with the same schedule as him, and then there’s—the girl, there. The girl with the blue streak in her hair.

The witch.

She’d caught him staring, as she set her books down on a desk in the front row, a couple columns over from his. Beside her plopped down two more girls—her friends, Jim noted, as they chattered familiarly, cheerfully.

The girl gave him an awkward smile, then, and Jim realized that he must have been staring for a few moments too long, so he rapidly flicked his eyes back to the surface of his own desk, trying not to think about the flush he could feel splash across the back of his neck, or the tips of his ears.

Tobias did not grant him such grace.

“Ooh,” he grinned, smug as a cat in a sunbeam. “That’s Claire Nuñez. President of the drama club, valedictorian candidate, great actress. She’s tied with Seamus Johnson and Shannon Longhannon for top of the class right now, I heard. She’s wicked smart, and—Jim?” Tobias huffed, “Are you paying attention to me?”

Jim’s eyes darted back to his new friend, from where they’d been briefly studying Claire Nuñez’s back, trying to get a more in-depth read on her arcana. He nodded distractedly. “Yeah, yeah, smart, a president; I heard you.”

Tobias sighed, shaking his head. “Jim.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, indicating that he was listening.

“She’s out of your league.” He deadpanned. “She’s super popular, and you’re, no offense, definitely not.”

Jim shot Tobias a confused look, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

The boy stared openly at Jim. “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? Do you really not— Oh my god.”

Jim blinked. “What?”

Tobias shook his head. “Jim, you’ve kinda… scared a lot of the people in our class today. They don’t know what to think about you. You’re like a giant question mark! No one even knows where you came from—”

“Ohio.” Jim recited his cover story, which Skrael had helped him pick the night previous. They’d chosen a city that started with a c… right. “Columbus, Ohio.”

Tobias shot him a deadpan look. “Okay, fine, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio. Why’d you suddenly move to Arcadia, then? Why not L.A.? Why not Burbank?”

Jim frowned. “Do you interrogate every newcomer like this? My parents got a good job opportunity here.” He held up one hand, “And before you ask—real estate.”

“Oh yeah? How come I haven’t seen them put up ads, then?” Tobias crossed his arms. “I’m just saying, dude; I think you’re cool, but you freak a lot of people out with that brooding, silent thing you do.”

Jim snorted. “I do what?”

“Y’know—”

“No, I don’t know—”

“You act, like, all silent and mysterious when people try to talk to you.” Tobias shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but some people don’t seem as ready to brush it off as me. I’m only telling you so that you can make more friends here.”

“Well, I have you, don’t I?” Jim’s head canted.

Tobias blinked, floundering at that. “Well—y…yeah, I guess so, but—”

“I mean, we are friends, aren’t we?”

It was Tobias’s turn to go a bit pink, shaking his head in bewilderment. “If you want, yeah, but—”

“Then there we go. I have a friend.” Jim smiled.

Tobias tried to protest, “But—” only to find himself cut off as Mr. Strickler strode into the classroom at that moment, placing a leather briefcase on his desk with a decisive thump. Cacophonous voices incrementally petered out, as attentive heads turned to the front of the classroom, where Mr. Strickler had pulled out a stack of syllabi, handing them to the student nearest the door, with the instructions to “take one and pass them,” spoken precisely to the class.

Tobias looked like he wanted to say something when Strickler turned his back to write his name on the chalkboard, but Jim shushed him from the corner of his mouth, opening a fresh, blank notebook as he did so. This was the only class he’d bothered to buy a separate notebook for, and, to be frank, was the only class he’d even intended to take notes in at all.

Tobias looked chagrined, but not angry, as he rolled his eyes and went to fetch a pencil from his own bag. Might as well have something to do with his idle hands for the next hour.

—

As his first day was winding to close, Jim had to admit, having a friend at school did end up making it a little easier.

The rest of his time there had passed largely unremarkably, since a rather thrilling start to the history curriculum. Jim’s hand had shot up just as much as the apparent reigning top of the sophomore class, one Miss Claire Nuñez’s, had— a fact which had, according to Tobias, already begun to percolate across campus.

The lesson had only briefly covered the basics of ancient Rome, going over a bit of easy, more widely known trivia, to see what the class already knew about their oncoming first unit, but, nonetheless, Jim had been eager to jump in, to talk almost directly to Mr. Strickler, going back and forth in the form of a discussion. He’d spoken quietly, quickly, and he’d felt the eyes of his peers glued to his desk, but had ignored the sensation altogether, in favor of listening to what his teacher had to say about aqueducts, instead.

When the hour had finally come to an end, in fact, he’d packed up slowly, most of his classmates abandoning the room as quickly as they could—the lunch period was about to begin—though Tobias was kind enough to wait for him. As such, Tobias was the only other person present to hear Mr. Strickler stop Jim after class, paying a brief compliment to his performance that day, and accompanying his words with a poster for the history club. Jim didn’t think his furtive smile had gone entirely missed by the teacher, but as they’d exited into the now mostly empty hallway, he forgot to worry about it further, as Tobias wasted no time in asking him how the heck his new friend knew so much about history already?

Jim had shrugged it off, saying that it was his favorite subject; and besides, didn’t Tobias— “Seriously, dude, it’s Toby, by the way”— know more about geology than anyone else in their class? The compliment had made Tobias—Toby— preen, and he’d promptly dropped the topic, instead launching into an enthusiastic lecture meant to coach Jim through the cafeteria process. Jim, who had tried to jump in to say that he’d heard this at orientation the week prior, but Toby had shot him an appalled look at that, swiftly informing him that orientation did nothing to help the social side of things. Sure, he knew the motions, but did he know how to do them without standing out in the crowd? Absolutely not—in fact, the thought was almost laughable, according to Toby.

So, Jim had grinned, followed Toby’s lead, and had just barely survived the ever-important lunch line waltz.

The rest of the day had passed mostly the same way, in the end. Toby, having warmed up to Jim, took him through the whole rest of the day, guiding him through the intricacies of Arcadia Oaks High, and by the time the final bell was ringing, Jim almost felt like a normal student. Some of his peers had even started waving to him in the hallways; he’d broken the ice, after all.

Well. He’d thought so, until Toby had said goodbye, peddling away on his bike toward home, leaving Jim alone in the courtyard by the bustling lockers, surrounded by students eager to either go home, as Toby had, or to dive into after-school clubs and sports.

Jim opted to take his time, though, to enjoy the Southern California sun, as he strolled casually across the campus, toward the front of the school grounds.

As he rounded the corner, though, intending to head toward the Arcadia Oaks sign, where he’d stop and shoot off a text to the Order that his first day had gone well, and that he’d be home soon, he felt a tap on his shoulder, instead, and heard a throat being cleared behind him.

He knew who it was before he even turned to face her; her magic had given her away as soon as she’d reached a hand for him.

Despite this, Jim whirled as if she’d caught him by surprise, schooling his features into something startled but friendly, relaxing his shoulders as a polite smile crossed his face, upon seeing her. “Oh, hey. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting—” he rethought his words, shaking his head. “Never mind. …It’s, ‘Claire,’ right?”

She nodded, returning his smile. “Yeah! And you’re ‘Jim Lake’, hm?”

Something about the way she asked that question sent up a warning bell in the back of Jim’s mind, but he tried not to look unsettled; it was probably just nerves.

“Yup; just Jim is fine, though.” He added with a casual laugh.

Claire tilted her head, continuing. “So, you’re quite the history buff, huh?”

Jim’s hands dropped to his pockets, as he glanced at his shoes, then back up to her. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess?” She teased. “You were on fire in class today.” She lifted her chin, to look at him head on. “Do I need to worry about you unseating me, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio?”

Jim snorted, shaking his head. “No, no; it’s not like that. History’s just a hobby.”

“Pretty intense hobby, if you know half as much as you seem like you do.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

Jim grinned. “Intense? Like being the president of drama club, the vice president of debate, and the supposed shoe-in for the lead in the play this fall?” he recited, much to Claire’s surprise, who shot him an impressed look.

“Huh. You sure do pay attention, don’t you?”

He glanced around, making it a leisurely movement, concealing the way he was searching for anyone who could overhear, before his eyes met hers again, as he said, “Only to certain people.”

Claire blinked, cheeks reddening, mistaking his meaning. “Oh, yeah? What kinds of people?”

Jim rolled the dice. “Well, people who seem nice, or kind, who I could make friends with. People who do things I wanna do, too, so I can have an ‘in’. Like clubs, and things.” he clarified.

“And, uh…” his voice grew hushed, “Magic-users in the human world.”

Claire’s face fell. “What was that last one?” Her nose scrunched with the skeptical look that overtook her features.

Jim’s eyes darted to look for an exit, realizing coldly—fearfully— that he had grossly miscalculated.

“Uh…” Stupid. He chided himself. Think of a lie before you go backing yourself into a corner. Skrael would be disappointed in him if he were here.

“Did you just say ‘the human world’ like you… aren’t human?” She stared at him suspiciously.

Jim blinked. “What? No. I’m human. Of course I’m human.” He gave a strained laugh. “What else would I be?”

“…Someone who thinks they aren’t?” Claire’s brow furrowed.

“It was a rhetor- well. I mean, I guess that’s true. But I’m not!” He smiled weakly, and then froze for a split-second, rapidly adding, “Someone who thinks they aren’t human! I know I’m human!”

Claire’s eyes shot to the street, where, to her poorly hidden relief, her dad had just pulled up to the curb, there to pick her up. “…Right. Well, Jim Lake from Cleveland, Ohio, my dad’s here, so I need to go, but this has been… interesting.”

Jim nodded rapidly, shooting her one more smile— a sheepish, apologetic one— as he gave her a shy wave. “…Yeah.”

Claire hoisted her backpack onto one shoulder, giving him a half-hearted wave back. “…Bye, Jim.”

“Bye, Claire.”

As she turned to leave, Jim frowned to himself. He wasn’t sure why, but something felt wrong. He supposed it could have been the awkward manner in which he’d acted, but in a flash, he decided that wanted to see her again, just in case that wasn’t it. He couldn’t be too careful.

So, before he missed his chance, he called after her retreating back, “See you around?”

Claire stopped, hand poised on the handle of the passenger side door, freezing there for a heart-pounding pause.

Then, she shot him a look over her shoulder, one of interest, meeting his eyes deliberately. Jim got the sense that he should heed it carefully.

“Yeah. See you around, Jim.”

#(why yes I did mean to have claire say 'cleveland' the second time) #hopefully the next fic in this is how jim becomes the trollhunter but!! for now I hope y'all like this piece! #i may make an au introduction post as well but brain tired from editing so that'll come soon! #trollhunters au #trollhunters fic #trollhunters fanfic #jim lake jr #the arcane order #toa #toa fic #toa au #ok to rb

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 1, Episode 12, The First David Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

John: Hi, I'm John Rogers, Executive Producer and Writer of this episode.

Dean: I’m Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of this episode.  

John: This is the first half of the season finale. This is The First David Job for season one of Leverage. And it’s uh—how did we shoot this? This is an amazing thing we did with the two part finale.

Dean: This we got to shoot like a movie. So we, we shot these last two episodes as one big shoot. And I gotta tell you, this was more fun than you should be allowed to have in this world. I just absolutely loved making this episode. The, the cast was phenomenal in this— And—[laughs]—even though you had to write this script in basically five days—

John: Five days-ish, yes.

Dean: I think it’s one of the best scripts we had the whole season. I love this two-part season finale.

John: It’s a love—it’s a great hot-open, it’s a great Tim completely-out-of-control-Nate, a character out of control that you don’t usually see. Kevin’s great in this. He’s amazingly unctuous.

Dean: [Laughs]

John: Uh, I do like shrimp! And the toss-away, you feel this big drama and then you kind of throw it away. This location is incredible, this is a, um, part-campus, part-church-property up in Pasadena we basically moved to, uh...

Dean: Right. So we could live there.

John: Three days in. Right? We shot out the office...

Dean: If you look at this shot here, I mean this- just seeing this changed everything. When John and I looked at this we thought... because the party was originally supposed to be inside the gallery, and seeing this, it just, it felt so Dorothy Chandler Pavilion-esque, so museum-esque, we thought let’s move the whole thing outside.

John: Actually it kinda looks like, uh, the Lincoln Center. It’s kinda the same layout in New York.

Dean: Yeah, exactly. With the fountain and everything, sure.

John: Yep. So, yeah, we moved it in and then, uh—that was part of the fun of writing it, but also, I mean, we found the location and it made sense financially and we walked through the museum, the interior where we would be shooting the museum, and the entire crime was structured differently.

Dean: Right! [Laughs]

John: And Dean was like, this is here and this’ll move here, and the entire crime was highly dependent on the gallery being a small, contained space.

Dean: Instead—

John: Instead it’s a four-storey, open column with multiple levels and he said, uh, “All right, let’s film here!” and out he goes.

Dean: You know, occasionally, you’ll start with an image and then kind of back your way into it.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And when we saw this location, it was four storeys tall with these windows in the ceiling, all I could think about was somebody rappelling down that thing. So there was no rappelling needed in the heist—

John: [simultaneously] —in the original con—

Dean: -whatsoever, but you backed your way into it.

John: Yeah, you backed your way into it and that was great. That actually showed up in the Second David, that’s like—but we shot this, like I said, in the, uh…

Dean: That’s right, one big piece.

John: And this is the intervention. It’s interesting that the, uh, I was actually reading something—somebody emailed me on the blog saying, you know, if Sophie really cared, she’d have an intervention for him ‘cause he’s going out of control, well this is it!

Dean: Here you go.

John: This is the intervention. Um, and him—I will be the first to admit that the joke about “I’m a functioning alcoholic, let’s really celebrate the ‘functioning’”, is a joke I do in the room fairly often.

Both: [Laugh]

John: Um, Tim really is landing it here. I mean, it’s really tricky. Nate is a high-functioning alcoholic. He’s, as long as he’s got a drink he’s okay. As soon as he stops he spirals out and the whole point of it is, in theory this should have aired after The Rehab Job, where they realize he’s not able to hold it together anymore.

Dean: That’s right.

John: He’s out of control.

Dean: The other thing about this particular scene that I love is that they tell him he doesn’t need rehab, he needs revenge. So what we’re seeing, really, is from the criminal mind’s point of view—

John: Yes—

Dean: This is how you solve the problem.

John: Yeah. And they’re wrong, by the way.

Dean: [Laughs.]

John: That’s what’s fascinating is, if you look at it, you know, when you have a gang of criminals you’re not not-cognizant of the fact that they’re morally dubious.

Dean: Right.

John: And in particular, uh, we often address the seven deadly sins in the show. And this one, you know, sort of wrath, is what brings down the team. When they allow themselves to surrender to wrath before on all the other jobs it was about justice.

Dean: That’s right.

John: And there’s—we gave Chris the tuxedo.

Dean: Yeah, look at that.

John: Gotta give it to him.

Dean: All you Christian fans, you waited all year for this.

John: Yeah, he was, he kept playing waiters and getting very snickety about it, so we gave him this tux.

Dean: And as you said in the other commentary, when we did Homecoming, you know, he says, “Next time I wear the suit.” Well, this time he got to wear the suit.

John: The two-part finale really is where we closed up a lot of—there’s a lot of parallel shots from the opening couple episodes and the pilot. Uh, this is great—this is half Ledger, half Orange Box.

Dean: How did you come up with this whole bit here?

John: We wanted an item of art, we needed something—as soon as we settled that it should be a statue, uh, rather than a painting because they just move better, they feel better in your hands—we originally were gonna do some Chinese statues, some little jade lions or something like that. But then we said “Well that’s not really iconic, uh, so what’s the most famous statue?” Well The David’s the most famous statue in the world. But you can’t steal The David: it’s huge, and it’s in Rome.

Dean: Right.

John: And, uh, and then doing research we found out about the maquettes. Michelangelo actually made maquettes of David but they had been destroyed.

Dean: Ahh.

John: So we just fudged history just enough…

Dean: Right.

John: To come up with, um…

Dean: What if someone found them and they weren’t destroyed?

John: Yes, exactly. And that they had been collector’s items and stuff for 400 years. So yeah, there’s about 80% of this is real and the 20% is the fudge. Also, it’s interesting having Sophie do what is usually Nate or Hardison’s job, because this is an art theft. You know, this is her purview, this is her world. And this is the building we’re talking about, this is the campus building that we basically took over, built this secure door, built these wall. This is open, by the way. All these walls, we built.

Dean: Right.

John: Yeah.

Dean: This was an open lobby that we turned into an art gallery.

John: This is The Girl With the Pearl Earring. We just filled it with famous fake art. [Both Laugh] What we kind of subliminally know is famous. No, Lauren Crasco really knocked it out of the park on this. This is insane. Not only did she build walls, she made them look real and artsy.

Dean: And this is the actual basement of that same building. Steam we added.

John: We added steam. Just in case someone is going to that college, be aware there’s not loose steam floating around the bottom. Not gonna be accidentally scalded to death. And this was fun, because this is our, this is our high-tech heist. We hadn’t really done one since the pilot.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And, um, so we kinda kicked up the jams, and really used every electronic device I could find, in this. The thumbprint scanner, that’s what he points to, the infrared scanner, and the lasers—the lasers you added, actually.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And the detectors here. But you added the lasers because of the promos.

Dean: Yeah, it was so cool in the promos, how they had shot these things for TNT where Parker is maneuvering through these blue lasers and we thought, “We gotta put that in here somewhere.”

John: “We never do that.”

Dean: Yeah.

John: And that’s them in the van, on the set. Um, how did you do the lasers? That effect, how did you do that?

Dean: The lasers are all in post. It was all in post. I mean, there was some thought about putting a couple of real lasers, and then mixing it but then you have to use the smoke to see it, and it always felt so weird. And y’know, whenever I see these movies and there’s smoke there that’s conveniently there just so you can see the lasers... so we just thought let’s just do it all in post.

John: Yup.

Dean: And then we’re not married to any kind of onset effect.

John: This is, um, a fast open. This is actually stretching the ability to assume the audience will be able to follow the setup of the heist they’re watching actually go down simultaneously.

Dean: And it’s also a callback to the pilot, because in the pilot, you intercut with them sitting around the table talking about the heist as you see them do it, and here we kind of get to do it again. We’re intercutting with the heist and how they decided to do it.

John: Yeah. Again, it’s sort of an intentional echo. But I really felt we were—it’s tough, it’s a lot of new people in play. The last time we did it, it’s really just Nate in the pipe and then introducing the characters.

Dean: Right.

John: The fact that we have five people in play in both timelines is vaguely insane. [Both laugh] And introducing Kevin.

Dean: Who, by the way, was just terrific.

John: Yeah, it’s pretty cool having an actor like him on our TV set and shooting—one of the things about shooting in L.A. is you can get a guy like that, y’know. I sucked him dry on Emergency! stories.

Dean: [Laughs.]

John: Uh, Nate as cranky-asshole here really is kind of amusing, yeah. It’s, Tim really digs in on the aspect of the character. Oh, and Sophie’s name, di Duccio, is actually, she’s from the Vatican, it’s the name of the first sculptor who was supposed to work on the David and screwed it up.

Dean: Oh, you’re kidding!

John: And he shagged the gig, so they hired Michelangelo because basically they had like a half-carved piece of stone.

Dean: Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s fabulous.

John: So yeah, let’s use the first—that’s a little nod to anyone who knows the Michelangelo story.

Dean: The interesting thing for Tim, acting-wise in this, is we talked about this when we went to do the show, I said, “You need to portray Tim—portray Nate, portraying himself, as he was at the beginning before he met the rest of the team.” So it was a triple-layer acting, he had to act as his character, acting as himself.

John: Yeah. [They laugh.] And then break every now and then when he looked at Sophie.

Dean: Correct.

John: Uh, and this is really, yeah, the whole sort of frustration-anger speech here, and grabbing a drink. Not the smartest move you could have done there, Nate. [Dean laughs.] Um, we knew we’d want to bring in the wife…

Dean: Yes.

John: And we knew we’d want to do it for the season finale, we knew we were gonna bring in Mark Shepard. And that’s a lot of where this show came from, is like, what would his wife have done? And we had worked out the backstory that they were this kind of, you know—how else—Nate does nothing but work, therefore she had to be in the field somehow.

Dean: Mmhm.

John: We played around with different—and really, uh, the whole way this started, this show started was, the end of the first act is “Holy crap my wife is here.”. We had nothing else but that moment, but we knew that was a great moment that would utterly derail the team and derail Nate and Sophie, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with, so.

Dean: And we got the fabulous Kari Matchett to play the part.

John: Exactly.

Dean: Who had worked with Tim before on another series so they had had, all this, this real-life chemistry and history.

John: Yeah.

Dean: That helped fuel this relationship.

John: She’s fantastic. I mean, it’s really lovely and believable, and she’s so sort of brokenhearted over how screwed up he is.

Dean: Before we did this series, John and I did the third Librarian movie together and Kari had actually auditioned for it, and while she wasn’t right for the part she was so brilliant, y’know, all year long we kept thinking, how do we get her on this show? [He laughs.] How do we get her on the show? And then finally this worked out just perfectly.

John: This is great because really… Chris has been, Eliot has been hitting on her—the whole thing is Nate has been listening to him hit on this cute blonde the entire evening through the earpieces, and so there’s, there’s basically four conversations going on here simul—uh, y’know the three that they’re having up here and the one underneath. And it’s a, it’s a—God, this is a brutally difficult bit of blocking.

Dean: That was actually the hardest scene to shoot, believe it or not. Just ‘cause we got so confused on the eyelines there.

John: Yeah. Well yeah, when you’ve got five humans there. Now that’s, there you go, then you’ve broken them off in two and three and then you’re fine. Now how do you shoot a five-hander like that? How do you approach it?

Dean: Well, normally I’ll, I’ll like block it out in advance or I’ll have some kind of storyboards. I had just… not thought that one through. And so literally on the day, I was running around with the script supervisor, making drawings saying “Wait, does this work? Does this work? Does this work?” and about 50% of it worked and 50% didn’t, and then we fixed it in post. [Laughs.]

John: Ehh, that’s what editing is for. And then of course the great thing of their each listening to each other’s conversations simultaneously. It’s good use of the earbuds here.

Dean: But again, this is a thing that you do so well as a writer, that I just adore, is we’re in the middle of a con and yet, we’re getting all this character information. Sophie’s jealous about the ex-wife; the ex-wife being there exposing Tim, I mean Nate; Nate does not want to play that part in front of her because he wants to seem…

John: Yeah, he’s humiliated! Yeah, exactly.

Dean: So, we’ve got so many things happening simultaneously…

John: That’s a big comedy take he does, by the way. I love that “Nooooo” and she goes—and she’s going to help him because she’s sweet. And the trick is, and really when we looked at this, um, and there’s a little beat in the second half, uh, we realized that Sophie not liking the ex-wife was right down the middle, and she starts not liking her because of course she feels awkward. But the trick was the audience had to realize, uh, she’s not the enemy. You actually have to come out of the end of this going, “Wow, I wanna see more of her.”

Dean: Right.

John: “Nate really screwed that up.”

Dean: Yeah. Yeah, I think Gina did an amazing job in how she played the jealousy and then the transition to, “I actually really like this woman.”

John: Yeah. Even, even Sophie can’t not like her.

Dean: Right.

John: And she just—it wasn’t her, it was Nate; Nate was a jerk. She’s just gone out of her way to help him probably do something vaguely illegal.

Dean: Right. Yeah.

John: Uh, yes. And this is the, this is the ad-hoc con. This is really, this was a trick because we have made the group so good at this point that really only by making them do something when they weren’t expecting to can we really challenge the hell out of them. Because—and that’s—we hung a lantern on it when she says the speech earlier.

Dean: Mmhm.

John “Oh, I could do this with our prep and our tech and--”

Dean: Right.

John: Well, not now!

Dean: Boy, and, you know, and again--kudos to both Aldis and to Beth. Y’know, they got--they’re locked in a van with nothing to do and yet, every time we cut to them it’s just delicious. They find ways to come up with, with ways to let their characters be unique in the situation.

John: It’s also one of the ways we had learned by this point to cut up these intercut headbutt scenes to make sure they stood alone and that you didn’t need to do the other voices, that you weren’t eating up, uh, shooting time.

Dean: And again this is one of these “Parker gets challenged to do the impossible”, which makes her very happy.

John: Which, by the way, I had not noticed until right now, because we’re kind of doing these commentaries in a row. That’s the exact same look she gives in Bank Shot when he asks if she’ll break into a bank that’s already been broken into.

Dean: That’s her Achilles’ Heel. If you want her to do something, tell her that no one else has ever been able to do it.

John: And that was Aldis, by the way, turning the David. Just sort of reach back and, uh, turning it away from her. And there’s—boom!

Dean: Yeah, I’m saying--

John: I will say—

Dean: This woman looks good in a dress.

John: So Beth comes in, you know ‘cause we’ve got her dressed like Parker all the time, and y’know she’s like…

Dean: Tomboyish…

John: She’s our sweet little sister.

Dean: Right.

John: I mean, really, that’s how you feel about her. And she showed up in that dress, and she comes in and grabs, I won’t say what writer it was, but she came in kind of self-conscious, like tugging the hair and “How does this look?” and literally all he could say was “Guh—guh—green”.”

Dean: [Laughs.]

John: “It’s green.” And then sort of wandered away like he’d received a head trauma. Yeah. Um, no, it’s great, we got everyone glammed up in this one. I think Aldis is the only one—and Aldis is in the suit later.

Dean: Right.

John: So there you go. Everyone gets to dress up. That’s always the fight, by the way, is um… Aaaand there’s the kiss everyone’s been waiting for all season.

Dean: And I love that look.

John: Because this is great, it’s a joke that not everybody gets it until he delivers the line. They don’t know who she said “We should make out” to.

Dean: Right. And so they’re hoping it’s Sophie.

John: [simultaneously] It’s half and half it’s Sophie. Uh, they’re—oh, the guards did a great job. That guy auditioned for us and we wound up cutting like the part—

Dean: Right.

John: The day-player part two times, and it came back. And this gag actually came about because we almost set off the alarms when we were looking at the building. So we were like “Okay, so we know the door alarms work, all right”. And this, if you look at it, this has got five components to beat this heist. And this really was going into the big bag of heists and figuring out all the new tech and all the different ways you can beat it. And then Macgyvering the techniques.

Dean: And again, character being exposited in the midst of a con again. And showing the nature of their relationship. He’s talking about the kiss, she’s talking about the ex-wife.

John: As far as she’s concerned, she’s moved on. Now, she’s also in a little denial, here. I mean, let’s be fair.

Dean: [Laughs]

John: It’s something we’ll address in second season, exactly the ramifications of that scene, um, love that look.

Dean: She’s so proud of her handywork.

John: Yeah, she’s so proud of her horrible, horrible handywork. And there’s the big “awwwww’ moment.

Dean: And they, again, a great Aldis improv again at the end of the scene.

John: Yeah. “Breath smell funky?” [laughs] Yeeeeah… and by the way, the way we’re beating the infrared is actually based on a Mythbusters episode I saw that discovers that as long as you can defuse the thermal imagery you can fake most of these infrareds out.

Dean: Oh, wow.

John: So yeah, this is the, uh--this was originally meant to work differently, we wound up finding out that uh you know you can’t just cook up a way to fool an infrared with gum and aluminum foil and have it work. We spent like half a day figuring out what shape would actually fool the infrareds. And, there you go. Boom.

Dean: And I love this bit.

John: And that’s a stunt team

Dean: Yeah

John: That the same girl from the pilot who went through the window.

Dean: Right.

John: And then her doing the landing. And this is, you know, me brutally abusing my physics degree.

Both: [Laugh]

John: But it’s fun--it’s fun facts, I did another pilot where we did the whole, glasses of fluid thing, and that was like the highlight of the show was, ‘wow I did not know that’.

Dean: And this is a great example for you young filmmakers out there, of why it’s good to have the writer on set. This was a bit that no one really quite understood correctly, including the actors, including me, including the prop guy, and it was just, “Jooooooohn!”.

John: [Laughs]

Dean: Jon came running in, and he set everything up, and then it was like, “Oh, okay, now we get it.”

John: “Now we get it.” Yes, describing this in text in not the easiest thing in the world. Oh, I love that shot! That’s such a heist film shot. The sort of coming up to the David, and him claiming there’s no way she could have come up with this. That is also a subtle thing by the way, where--not super subtle--we don’t show Parker planning a lot.

Dean: Right.

John: And this is when you realize that - she was terrifying when she was a thief alone. I mean, that’s why he chased her. That’s why she has the reputation. And that’s really, a really big empowering moment where you know, the only reason he can pull this stuff off is because he has this team. You know, this family.

Dean: The best of the best.

John: Yeah. So, ohh--

Dean: Greeeeat- She can’t help herself but be jealous.

John: And especially because all she’s doing is being--all Kari’s doing there is being super sensitive and empathetic

Dean: And of course Christian getting frustrated that Sophie’s about to blow the whole thing because she’s letting her personal feelings get in the way. Anything you can do to get Christian frustrated.

John: Good use of the comms there. And the flip, with the earthquakes… this actually is based on a problem that my alarm guy, when I had an alarm installed in my house, he told me happened all the time.

Dean: Really.

John: Is the fact that after an earthquake, they basically just ignore all of the alarms that happen for like 15 minutes after the earthquake. So…

Dean: Because they figure it just set it off?

John: Yeah, it’s either that or drive to every single house in the region, so…

Dean: Now, by the way, to get all those car alarms to go off, we literally had to go set off all the car alarms.

John: Seriously? Because that’s crew parking.

Dean: Yeah we called the crew, we had them all come over with their keys and my assistant and the ADs were sitting there literally hitting the panic button on all the keys for cars at the same time.

John: The neighbors didn’t mind us there.

Dean: Nooo, no, they loved us. [laughs]

John: So it is amazing, I mean, when we first started writing this show we would complicate these things to an incredible degree and a lot of little twists and turns. We realized that really what you want is - one job with three complete acts.

Dean: Right.

John: That you can show a lot of fun process in, and that fills an act! Really, that’s all you’re really there to hang out--as long as you do character stuff during it, you’re okay. As long as you’re not just off doing heisty stuff and ignoring the characters.

Dean: Again, shout out to Lauren Crasco, and just how those things hanging in the background give such legitimacy to this

John: Oh yeah, the museum banners. That’s incredible. When we got there that day and saw those, we were like… you’re high, this is insane. I can’t believe--and by the way, that’s not expensive, that’s like printing on fabric and hanging it up.

Dean: She just is so clever in coming up with ways to give us production scale when we have no budget.

John: And the two guys basically arguing over, you know I wasn’t flirting with your wife really, and--it’s just--

Dean: And I love her line. “We just stole this on our day off.”

John: And that’s what’s, that was kind of interesting was, moving forward I really had the first act for this thing in my head. And then the heist all the way through, but this is the end of the episode. The end of an episode of Leverage is that thing we just did. We have an entirely separate thing we have to do now.

Dean: Right.

John: And luckily we knew we were bringing Sheppard back, so… Mark Sheppard back, so we then turned it into the second con.

Dean: And the interesting thing here is this is the first time we’re seeing Sophie con the team.

John: Yes.

Dean: And the only person in the room who’s noticing it is Tim.

John: Yeah, see, look how enthusiastic they are and watch her turn there and she realizes he’s on to her. And she’s gonna try to bluff him out. No, it’s really nice--cause you realize, he chased her and this was part of the relationship. He sees through her.

Dean: That’s the reason she loves him. He’s the only one who can see through her. He’s the only man in the world she can’t con.

John: Yes, it’s just right now, really inconvenient because she’s really pissed off at him. And, uh, by the way, rightfully so, because you know what? He’s not been the most pleasant guy in the world over the course of the season. You know, the behavior to the wife is inexplicable until he explains what’s going on here. And he is - he’s putting- Her viewpoint is he’s putting his wife ahead of the group.

Dean: Which, by the way, a lovely twist on this is that, you know, we’ve seen the pilot and... The assumption was - that the wife knew everything. And suddenly in this scene it was the first time we realize that our audience is actually ahead of the wife.

John: Yeah.

Dean: That she--we all know something that she never knew about her own son’s death.

John: I, you know, this… it’s hard.  Every relationship is different, but there’s a line coming up here where he says “She pities me.” And that really was one of the things that was born—that gave birth to “the wife doesn’t know”. Because I know in my marriage, the thing that would destroy me is if my wife pitied me rather than hated me.

Dean: Mmhm, interesting.

John: And that was--the idea that he would bury that information rather than lose her--in a futile attempt not to lose her--and then let the guilt of that secret destroy their relationship, is the sort of incredibly bad choice you make when you’re a control freak.

Dean: I have to say, Tim really brought it this day. I mean, his performance in here has a lot of levels going on. One great thing about having an actor the caliber of Tim Hutton, is when you have very difficult scenes like this - on a TV schedule - you know he can bring it.

John: Gina’s making a lovely choice here too, which is, there’s a lot going on in this scene, because she’s decided to try to go after her life’s dream because Nate has pissed her off; Nate has revealed that she shouldn’t be as pissed off as possible, but she’s still going to do it--

Dean: Because she’s still just as much of an addict as he is.

John: As he is, exactly. And she feels, really, that that’s all she’s got. And there’s a lovely, there’s basically the moment here when she says, you know, “You’re still straight, the whole world’s gone crooked,” where she kind of realizes it’s never gonna work.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Yeah, or at least, as they are now. The two of them, their fate is essentially sealed at that point.

Dean: This is a real private airport in Van Nuys; Elite is the real name of the place. And they were so gracious enough to let us shoot there. This is such a difficult kind of location to get for a show, and these guys could not have been more helpful.

John: That was shot by the way at night, we blew out those windows, right.

Dean: That’s right.

John: We just--thank you, Southern California blown out sky, for giving us that light.

Dean: So if you’re in the market for renting jets, call Elite, they did us a solid, we wanna do them one. [laughs].

John: This is--everyone’s very busy here, man. This con just frickin’ moves. And being able to borrow a jet really does make a difference. I have to say, you used to own a jet—

Dean: I owned a jet a while ago until it sucked me dry.

Both: [Laugh]

Dean: But it’s actually where that one but of dialogue that he came up with--when he says all these things he wants to check, I actually threw those lines in because those were all those things I had to do to the jet when I owned it. I had to put in the RBSM, I had to put in the 8211 spacing…

John: Which destroyed your need for a jet.

Dean: Exactly.

John: And, uh, Aldis again, very great. It’s interesting to see what characters you’re gonna throw at him that he can’t do. We have yet to be stumped. We don’t--we give access to Gina, but Aldis is very good--

Dean: Nice little improv from our day player here.

John: Just get--move it, move it!

Dean: He’s a hard-ass.

John: Great day player. And it was interesting shooting here, because this is still a working airport.

Dean: That’s right.

John: So there’d just be jets taking off sometimes when we were trying to do dialogue. And you can’t really interrupt ‘em.

Dean: Again, kudos to our sound people for being able to get the sound at an airport with airplanes taking off. Just outstanding.

John: Look at that, how that one shot picked him up, brought him all the way around till you found Parker. That’s nice, it’s like you planned that.

Dean: Thank you.

John: That by the way is her stewardess outfit from...

Dean: Mile-High.

John: Her flight attendant outfit from Mile-High. With the bow.

Dean: We thought we’d bring that back.

John: I do like the idea, something we toyed with but we never showed, the idea that they’ve got the warehouse full o’ costumes.

Dean: You know, we know they have the hanger full of—the notebook full of badges, but…

John: Uh, and this exchange is actually based on something I was reading about, the sort of dead zone when planes are able to land and refuel as long as you don’t get off they don’t go through customs.

Dean: Right.

John: And I was fascinated by that because that seemed like such a highly abusable thing. And it turns out it’s highly abused.

Dean: Yes, it is.

John: And Dubai, we’re doing the Dubai accent there that’s nice. The idea of a sort of Oxford educated Sheik rather than a traditional horrible, he’s Bandar Bush, there. He’s meant to be kind of the Westernized…

Dean: I’ve always wanted to do a little short film just for the web of what’s going on with those pilots inside during this scene.

John: I know!

Dean: “What’s with him with the head-dress?”

John: Well, that was we were supposed to do the tow around and we realized it wouldn’t work unless we got the pilots back on… uh, we’ll just assumed they’re very puzzled.

Dean: [laughs]

John: And he’s fabricated this headdress from possibly a tablecloth inside the plane.

Dean: Very good, a great location, and the actors really used it well.

John: And the creepy sexual thrill Kevin portrays here when he realizes that it’s real…

Dean: Oh, the applauding is so creepy.

John: Yeah. Uh, he’s actually playing something which might not--you might not spot, he’s actually playing kind of a crush or attraction on Kari.

Dean: That’s right.

John: Because she’d kinda worked with him--and actually, if you notice it, it does add a little something to this show.

Dean: And on some level, he thinks he’s gonna win her over during all this.

John: Yeah. The identical...

Dean: [laughs] I love that moment! It’s so creepy.

John: The identical looks, the identical con… And by the way, it was great, those maquettes were fantastic.

Dean: Yeah

John: Eric Bates, Props, did that.

Dean: Fantastic work. Eric always delivers for us.

John: There was a big argument about how anatomically correct they would be.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Because David is very anatomically correct and, uh, not so much… but then we realized it was a maquette and probably Michelangelo didn’t spend all that time honing up the fine details in that region.

Dean: And who needed the controversy.

John: Exactly.

Dean: This is a great moment between Tim and Christian here, again playing up this whole “He was flirting with the ex-wife” and...

Both: [Laugh]

John: But there’s also a bit when he says “No,” that is, um… you know I always talk about in the writing room because that’s… when you have sort of like Tim Hutton, it’s like, “Oh, I can give him pretty much anything.” He’s signing off on this. He knows he’s irredeemable at this point.

Dean: Mmhm.

John: To a great degree. And he knows he’s never gonna see her again. Um, which is why, y’know, essentially, they become destroyed. That’s not his judgment to make, really, it’s her judgment to make, and he takes that in—onto himself. Uh, this started as separate gag and then we wound up finding out customs didn’t work the way we thought it did. And so we had to sort of work around, and also combined with you wanting to get Parker on top of the truck—

Dean: Yeah. I desperately wanted to do this thing where Parker jumps off of a bridge and lands on the truck.

John: Yeah. Again, backing into an idea. [As Dean laughs throughout] “Hey John, here’s an idea--” “Uuhhh, so, why is she getting in the truck?” “Well that would be your problem wouldn’t it?” “All right…” Typeity typeity typeity, don’t mind me…”

Uh yes, the con actually starts with Parker in the truck in the perfectly shootable, um—we can just shoot inside the truck and ‘we don’t have to drive and make your first AD happy’ version—

Dean: Or--

John: Or, we could actually have stunty jump off a bridge onto a moving truck, uh, on a TV budget.

Dean: Thank God we’ve got Marc Roskin and Charlie Brewer.

John: Yes, exactly. Um…

Dean: Now the song playing in here is actually the song of a friend of mine, it’s—

John: I didn’t know that.

Dean: It’s produced by this guy named Michael Conner, and the artist is Shannon Blythestone, who’d actually been a contestant on American Idol.

John: Cool.

Dean: And she’s terrific and she has some great songs coming out.

John: Great act out there with Clayne, he’s um—y’know, the idea that our guys have screwed up for once, which you’ve never seen them do, we don’t know why they would have screwed up, we don’t know who would’ve tumbled them…

Dean: Talk a little bit about the actor playing the part, and how he came to us.

John: Uh, he’s actually one of Christian’s best friends. And, um, Chris said “You know, if I’m gonna have somebody kick my ass this season, I want it to be Clayne.” because when they were growing up literally they would play-fight in his basement.

Dean: Oh my god.

John: They would choreograph, like, fight scenes, and so it’s like, “Okay, if you’ve ever had the fantasy that you’d eventually make a movie with your best friend, after you’ve choreographed your lightsaber fight, this is what they’re doing basically.

Dean: [Laughs]

John: Yeah, and Clayne’s brutal, interestingly we had originally thought about casting, um, different guy, a bigger guy, and then the idea that it’d be a young, fast punk--

Dean: Right--

John: That really would just -- really fast hands, faster even than Eliot, really became attractive. And that fight laid out beautifully. Um, Alex Carter, I can’t believe we got him for the Busey of this.

Dean: And he’s wonderful.

John: Yeah, he’s fantastic

Dean: We’ve wanted to cast him all year, we just couldn’t find a part. And then, this came along. We were almost afraid to offer it to him-

John: Yeah.

Dean: Because you know we, we hold him in such high regard, but he was so gracious to come on board. There’s my jump!

John: All right, how did you do this?

Dean: So, live cameras. That’s actually the same building, the other side of our set for the museum, and it had this little bridge that was over a garage, and so we were able to intercut that with an actual underpass, and make it feel like it was all one place.

John: And this was a pretty good mix of a stunty wired to the top of the truck, but with a Guy-wire by the way. She’s not, uh--

Dean: Oh yeah, that was dangerous.

John: And then, and then Beth with the green screen--with a great green screen by the way, that was an amazing effect. I gotta say, it really worked.

Dean: And so much of this whole sequence done by Mark Roskin and Charlie Brewer, so again, hats off to those guys.

John: Yeah, this is basically just the ‘everything goes wrong’ fight sequence/stunt sequence. You took this act off.

Dean: [Laughs]

John: You were like ‘you’ve got one master of this’ and you went off and had people talking and actors and stuff. This, I will admit, originally dubious and then holy smokes does it cut together.

Dean: Yeah, and then the interesting thing on this fight scene is, that this is the only fight scene all year where he’s losing almost the entire fight.

John: Yes. Uh, all great--gotta give Aldis one good punch there, he can’t go down like a punk. But I love Alex’s read on this. “That’s enough of that.” Just, you know, he’s not upset or anything-

Dean: Yeah, he’s a pro.

John: How did you do, um, Aldis hitting the ground so hard?

Dean: We did it backwards.

John: Ahhh.

Dean: We actually started with him on the ground and then yanked him up, and then played it backwards.

John: “Gotta keep that left hand up, boy.” Yeah. Just, uh, and the idea that Eliot is just too—basically, too damn tough to fall down is a lovely beat.

Dean: Yeah. A little Jake LaMotta there.

John: It’s like, he’s realized he’s not as fast as this guy.

Dean: Right.

John: And so, and so he’s just gonna wear him out.

Dean: Exactly.

John: And uh, this is my favorite reveal all season because it’s not just a great reveal, it’s a great voice. As soon as you hear the voice--

Dean: You know.

John: You know who it is. [Laughs]

Dean: And Mark, once again, delivers for us.

John: Yes.

Dean: He’s so great.

John: And look at the look on Parker’s face when she turns around. Beth really--we--it’s a pity, because some of the stuff was cut from Two Horse. The sense of dread that Sterling inspires in other criminals...

Dean: Now this moment here, though, I love. ‘Cause Christian starts laughing, and the idea here is Eliot suddenly figured out how to win the fight.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Like, it came to him in his head, “Oh, I know the move.”

John: Yeah, ‘You’re gonna rush me and I’m gonna block that knee because you keep going to that knee, uh, that rib’s broken, yeah and--Boom! Just down. No elegance, no style, no grace, none of the stuff that…

Dean: Just takes him out.

John: And finding the earpod...

Dean: [Chuckles]

John: And that’s the announcement that we’re screwed, for the fifth act. Ahh, no that’s--I gotta tell you, I’m excited doing the commentary, I love that act.

Dean: Yeah. There’s so much going on at the same time.

John: Yep. So many great sequences, and then, uh, then Mark Sheppard just basically taking over the last act of the show.  [laughs]

Dean: Yeah.

John: With yeah, and--just basically showing we’re all tied up, we’re all done, there’s a suitcase full of money-- and they’re in their home. Which, really--

Dean: That’s the spookiest part.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Well, we set that up in Two Horse when Mark--Sterling unexpectedly just shows up, at night, in the offices.

John: I love that crane shot, by the way. There’s not a lot of TV shows banging out the crane shot in a hanger full of planes. [Dean laughs] On a seven-day schedule. Nicely done.

Dean: You don’t see that often on other shows.

John: How long did it take you to shoot both of these?

Dean: Uh, in a normal schedule, in fact, in fact we shaved a day off, so between the two episodes we did all the--the whole thing in thirteen days--

John: Thirteen days, that’s right.

Dean: --instead of the tradition fourteen.

John: That’s right, because we didn’t have to move, because we were basically parked at that campus for the entire time.

Dean: Right. And there is efficiencies to putting these things together. This rooftop is in Pasadena.

John: It’s in Pasadena, that’s right. That’s the beautiful Pasadena mountains behind you. There’s an AT&T logo back there I never noticed before. We should have griefed [¯\_(ツ)_/¯] that. What the hell?

Dean: [laughs] Call ‘em up. They owe us some money.

John: Oh that fan was so loud behind them. But here you go, I love--this is, by the way, there was an argument--were they friends or weren’t they friends? And it wasn’t until this scene that I realized - yes. The way Tim and Mark are playing it, they were best friends.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And now it’s all gone horribly wrong. And that--it really adds so much layer to it. And also you see the glass there that he’s got is an image that we started putting together in this, and it also shows up in Twelve-Step—

Dean: Right.

John: The glass of scotch that they hand back and forth to each other as each one takes dominance in the relationship.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And in the second half of the season finale, they mirror this scene. And it was all Tim and Mark coming up with that physicality, by the way. I had it ‘a bottle’ and the two of them come up with ‘it’s exactly the same glass’.

Dean: [simultaneous with John] --the same glass. From the other episode. It was terrific.

John: And this is where I realized she’s screwed it up.

Dean: Yeah, this is a big moment. This is the first time he’s realized he’s been betrayed by someone he trusts.

John. Yeah. And--and again, you know, I sympathize with her. I mean, she’s…they’re... she’s disappointed, you know. This is the point where, she came into this thinking he was one type of guy, he’s not, he’s a jerk, he’s a drunk, he won’t seek help, he’s getting worse--yeah, I think she’s fairly well motivated at this point to do this flip.

Dean: And for Tim’s character, this is the reason why he never wanted to work with thieves.

John: Yes. You know, but it’s his own--

Dean: --his own making.

John: He’s blinded by revenge. And the two of them are blinded by their addiction--and that’s what brings them down.

Dean: And ultimately back together again.

John: Yes. I mean, Na--it’s only when he gives up revenge to a certain degree can he reunite the team.

Dean: Right.

John: Yeah. And that’s one of the things we’re talking about for second season, is--is he’s realized that when he’s opens that door, bad things happen to him. How far will he open it? But he needs that anger in order to drive the team.

Dean: Yeah.

John: You know, when he needs that sense of justice.

Dean: Everybody in this scene just did such a good job, acting wise. Cause there’s so many things going on, we find out about her having another name, Jenny, and we don’t know if she’s really Jenny, if she’s really Sophie. Everybody has so many different levels to play in here, and again, kudos to these actors, they’re so terrific

John: It really is just three people talking on a roof, and it’s a hugely dramatic moment, it’s nice.

Dean: And as you can see, almost no blocking.

John: Yeah

Dean: So they had no crutches, they couldn’t walk around

John: No bits of business, yeah.

Dean: Basically, they were left with just what’s inside their eyes. And that’s kind of- as a director, it’s not a nice thing to do to the actors, but when they’ve got the chops to pull it off, it’s very intense.

John: Yeah. And he’s taking a sip, and it’s just, you know, she doesn’t want to deal with this at this point, well there’s a lot going on in those looks. They’re great, you know.

Dean: And by the way, just as a side note, again shout out to Gary Camp our steadicam operator. We did more steadicam, percentage wise, in these last two shows than we’ve done all year. This show is more than 50% steadicam all the way through.

John: And sorry I’m just a little bit breath-wordless there, because, you know, in the script you type ‘they look at each other’ and then you’ve got Tim and Gina who basically do a three step conversation in looks, where you can track all the emotional arcs. The storage unit of Sophie Deveraux, this was the garage, this is the back half of the other scene of the other storage room, they broke into, with a fake wall up and a bunch of props from your other movies.

Dean: And fans of Leverage might notice that it was the Judas Chalice that she blew smoke on in the background.

John: I’m surprised there wasn’t a Stargate back there, I’m genuinely disappointed that we weren’t able to cram one back there. And this is the justification, and this is, you know...

Dean: Also this was a very interesting scene for us as far as Gina’s character. Because this is the first time she really shows her own vulnerability, and it comes out of her frustration or anger, but really for the first time we see that the essential problem she has in this relationship, which is that the person she cares about will always look at her as a second class citizen.

John: Yup

Dean: And that’s something she feels like she can never ever overcome, that he feels like he’s better than her.

John: And probably never even aware of it, you know? And here’s the thing, you direct the actors, I stay out of the way on that. I’m too busy coming up with insane things that are over budget to shoot. How did you prep them for this? This is the culmination of the entire season here, essentially, this argument. Really in the second half of this, in the second half of the finale they’ve rectified this, but you know, how’d you go into this?

Dean: Well when we talked about it in the scene, we said this is really the heart of why this relationship hasn’t worked this whole season. And it’s the first time we’re gonna kinda say it out loud.

John: And by the way, how frustrating to have a relationship that you realize can’t work after you’ve put them together? You’re like ‘oooohhhhhh’ you want them to, you really want them to, but writer- you know story wise, this is appropriate.

Dean: You can’t, yeah.

John: And when she says ‘you still see me as a second class citizen’ she’s not wrong, and he’s wrong to do it, and there’s no way around it.

Dean: It’s a great Mexican standoff. Which is why there’s really nothing else she can say except for ‘where do we go from here?’

John: And what does he do? He immediately shuts down and goes about rescuing the other people. Because emotionally, he has no idea what to do from here.

Dean: You know it’s a bit of a callback to The 12 Step when she’s calling him on his alcoholism and he says ‘just give me something to do’.

John: Yeah

Dean: The only way for him to handle this moment is for him to be proactive and do something.

John: Yeah. it’s like we think about this.

Dean: [Laughs]

John: I love the fact, by the way, that wall behind her is fake, and our sound mixer is actually crammed in a five foot square back there, we actually had to- remember we had to put up that wall to hide him because the building interfered with the radio mics.

Dean: That’s right.

John: Yeah, it was brutal. Back to the roof, and again there’s parallel scenes to the pilot in this, to when- what you see back in the opening show. With the absence of Mark Sheppard of course.

Dean: And the big twist here in the script, and maybe talk about how you came up with it, was the idea that Sterling can read them as well as Nate, so the only chance they had was to not think like themselves. Now, how did that come about?

John: It came about because I was thinking about how there’s two guys that play chess, and essentially as long as they knew what pieces they had in play, they could always beat each other. It was gonna be a tie at best. And what Nate realized is- and this was that ‘alright what I have to do to change the way the pieces move.’ And what this is really the payoff to is, when you’ve met them in the pilot, we actually said their jobs in the subtitles, like what all their jobs was. And that was all their jobs. And over the course of the season, they’ve become enough of a family that they can switch off if they need to if each other’s at risk. They couldn’t have done this in the first episode, and the crucial part, to me, of building a season arc, is that the people in episode 12 or 13 cannot be the same people that were in the pilot. At the same time the key to television is they’re the same people every week that you want to watch and see. The change has to be very incremental.

Dean: So really the emotional payoff here is they are, through their deeds, showing how much of a family they’ve become.

John: Yes. even though emotionally they’re not able to say it. And we specifically chose these roles. Sophie’s the last person you expect to see jumping off of a roof, and if you look at the pilot she and Parker rappel together and Parker makes her jump.

Dean: Right.

John: And the same thing here is- this is a callback to the fight sequence in the pilot where Hardison’s doing the hacking and Eliot’s doing the fighting. In this Eliot does the fighting and Hardison throws the first punch. So yeah it’s really- you know it’s fun- that’s why I like to do TV. You feel like you’ve gone on a journey and you feel like you’ve really completed something, you know? More than you can do in two hours.

Dean: It’s just a fun- it’s such a fun reversal. This whole idea is they have to think like someone else on their team to confuse-

John: I love that look by Chris, like ‘Yeah, I could take six guys on a good day. Don’t insult me.’

Dean: Just cause my ribs broken doesn’t mean anything. And then she reveals she’s got the rig.

John: The rig. I love that look, the little shit eating grin there. That wound up in the promos; that’s a really iconic shot for the show. And then him doing exactly the thing that Hardison did in literally the same format, in the van earlier in the show. And usually slow mo is your enemy, but this is nicely done. You know my hatred of slow mo, but this is actually the right place to do it.

Dean: And by the way, a little spooky running full speed on a rooftop, so kudos to our actors.

John: That drop- that drop killed me. We didn’t pop out to the master for that drop. When that- when they- the first time they did that in rehearsal, my heart stopped. Cause there’s a second roof underneath them but when people go off the roof like that in a deadfall? Not good.

Dean: It’s always spooky. I love this little pointing to each other. [Laughs]

John: Yeah, and that was improv’d. That was totally the actors - who, to tell you the truth, were actually kind of proud of the fact that they managed to pull that fight scene off.

Dean: Well that- the nice thing on that fight scene was, we shot that with seven cameras.

John: Really?

Dean: Yeah, so instead of breaking it down and shooting this part then this part. We literally just let them go do it. And we had all the cameras rolling simultaneously.

John: I didn’t know that. So that’s it, you know, a three way fight with that many stunties, that is a tough fight. They did a great job on that.

Dean: They really did.

John: That may just have been a ‘we didn’t fuck up that take’ finger so we just used it as an emotional payoff. Oh and I love-

Dean: And this is a great thing.

John: That painting will stay in the series for as long as we’re on air. I don’t know how we’re gonna use it, but I love that improv.

Dean: I like this shot, too

John: Yes. And you know what I love about Mark’s choices here - he doesn’t get mad, he assess his situation.

Dean: He finds someway to see a win in it.

John: Exactly. Alright you took my bishop, I’ll take your rook. He really has a plan.

Dean: It’s not a total loss.

John: He just doesn’t expect Hardison to flip the board off the table.

Both: [Laugh]

John: Oh that’s Pat Banta doing that dialogue.

Dean: That’s right.

John: He did a bunch of the fighting in the first couple episodes, he was in Indiana Jones - the last movie.

Dean: And is our other stunt supervisor when Charlie’s not around.

John: Exactly. And the big countdown of getting the hell out of there.

Dean: So this was a thing- we had the idea that we wanted to blow up the offices at the end of the season. But how do you go about blowing up offices on a television budget? So what we’ve done here is, we’ve actually taken a real building and put a model of the building on top of it, we blew up the model and composited it in with the actual building.

John: So that’s a tiny 1/8th scale model or something like that.

Dean: Just the top floor.

John: Of the top floor, blown up and then digitally dropped on top of this real building-

Dean: That we’ve seen all season long.

John: That we’ve been looking at all season long in downtown LA.

Dean: And then, of course, digital debris.

John: Boom. Digital debris. Sometimes a chair just falls out of the sky.

Dean: I would’ve liked to have done that for real, but the people of Pasadena were not keen on me throwing-

John: [Laughs] Strangely they don’t allow you to throw flaming couches out of ten story windows.

Dean: I don’t know why.

John: You know what, we paid the permit fee, they’re just being dicks about it.

Dean: And this is my second favorite ending of all the episodes this season.

John: What’s your first favorite?

Dean: The following episode.

John: Yeah. The same roundy-round we’ve done before.

Dean: This time from the inside looking out.

John: The roundy-round of despair.

Dean: The roundy-round of despair, yup.

John: They’ve rescued each other but they’ve realized- and it’s interesting because this is the point I realized that Mark Sheppard is doing nothing but talking for the last three minutes of the show. But when you have this speech? Give it to Mark Sheppard.

Dean: And we do a callback to the overhead shot from the pilot, but this time the team is breaking up because they have to.

John: Yeah, just great- oh and by the way, those flowers were literally just from the trees around, what a lucky bit of business.

Dean: Well it was our DP, Dave Connell, running to those trees and grabbing handfuls of leaves and then throwing them on the ground so we had something interesting to look at

John: That was really great. Man that’s a great episode, I gotta say, incredibly complicated, and I will say that of all the episodes, that’s the one the show looks like in my head.

Dean: Yeah.

John: You know. When we pitched Leverage, that’s the one you know..

Dean: And for me as a director, I feel like this is the one where you and I really teamed up all the way through. I mean, you sat by my side through the entire shooting of this. I mean, in many ways we co-directed this.

John: Oh. no no no.

Dean: And it was a great experience for me and thank you so much.

John: Oh it was my pleasure, now let’s do the second one.

Both: [Laugh]

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 1 #Episode 12 #Season 1 Episode 12 #The First David Job

[vintagegeekculture]

Something I've noticed when I talk to people about Isaac Asimov is that they often get the idea that he was a dry intellectual. This gives me the impression that they only ever read his foundation novels. I think he's a really funny guy who probably enjoyed trashy pulp magazines a great deal. His robot trilogy has a buddy cop quality to it, his union club mysteries feel like a P.G.Wodehouse digression and some of the stories in earth is room enough are just setups for groan worthy puns.

Fun fact: Superman fought a supervillain based on Isaac Asimov, where a muttonchop enthusiast scifi writer transformed into a slime creature powered by lunar gravity, called “Momentus, Master of the Moon.” Superman beat him by using his body’s “super-gravity.” Can’t argue with that.

Seriously though, that is something I’ve noticed. Asimov was a polymath who had so many interests and wrote about so many topics that people tend to think Asimov is just like whatever the first work they encountered he wrote was like, when he was extremely multifaceted a thinker, and instead of figuring him out, you’ve just found one part of the elephant. People who first discovered Asimov through Caves of Steel, a detective story with a human detective and a robot partner set in a colossal city, tend to think of him as someone just like you described, kinda smartassed and with a sense of dry humor. 

The first work I ever read by Asimov were his Empire books like Pebble in the Sky. For that reason, It’d odd to me that people remember Asimov as something other than a history and classics obsessed nut like Harry Turtledove or L. Sprague de Camp, since that seems to be what so much of his fiction is about. Isaac Asimov literally wrote a nonfiction book about the history of Rome. 

Isaac Asimov’s fiction always seemed to me to be about the sweep of history and galactic civilization like in Olaf Stapledon. Asimov once said that “history is the trade secret of science fiction.” He didn’t start the trend of people in the distant galactic future dressing like Greeks and Romans, but his Empire books like “Pebble in the Sky” and the later Foundation series are the best possible examples of the trend. 

[matthewdaddariodaily]

1. If anyone could play you in a movie, who would you pick?

Cate Blanchett would kill it. Can you see if she’s available?

2. What’s the first album you ever bought?

Hahaha, no.

3. Describe your style in three words.

Things that fit.

4. Craziest fan story?

One time I walked in to a store and a guy came over to help. He’s talking to me for a minute and I’m being semi socially-capable. He takes a step back, looks me up and down and says, “Hey, wait a minute…you look like that boy from that show.” I go, “Yeah?” And he says, “Yeah, that kid from (show name redacted) show. Damn. You look just like him.” It was a different show with a guy who shoots arrows. I was like, “Oh, yeah I hear that sometimes.”

5. Last book you read?

[I’ve] been reading Dune. It’s nice when you haven’t read a book in ten years so you forget most of it and it’s like reading it anew. So great.

6. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

When that dweeb stops at the top of the escalator realizing he’s not sure if he’s going in the right direction and it causes a five-person pileup behind him.

7. What’s the most memorable concert you’ve been to?

With things like this the memorable ones seem to be the ones people can’t remember.

8. Last person who texted you?

My manager, Donnalyn. Making sure I answered the BuzzFeed questions. I told her I did.

9. Which emoji do you use the most?

The one with the eyes where it looks like he’s caught but tries to poker face and fails. Also sometimes I write out the description of the face.

10. Who’s your doppelgänger?

Some dude who lives around Union Square keeps getting me in trouble with friends. About 10 different people: “I saw you at Union square and called out but you didn’t answer!” Me: “I’m in Toronto.”

11. Favorite reality show?

That one where they cook a meal under pressure and if they don’t do it in time or it isn’t good enough they have to enter a gladiatorial pit vs some unspeakable ancient horror. Love that show. Also, I like Planet Earth.

12. Celebrity crush?

I’m not good at crushes. What if they don’t like the same food as me? I can’t handle that kind of letdown.

13. What’s one thing you can’t live without?

Fried cheese.

14. Guilty pleasure?

Frying cheddar cheese and parmesan in a cast iron skillet and then eating it until I’m gross.

15. Go-to comfort food?

I put that cheese from above in my belly until I am comfortable.

16. Dream vacation spot?

Big city/warm beach.

17. Hidden talent?

Really, really good at eating sticky oily things out of a smoking hot iron pan.

18. What’s one word you say too often?

I probably curse too often. It’s fun to do with friends, enemies, when you fall down, when you watch sports…all the time really. It’s just kinda great. But if anyone reads this…don’t curse. It’s bad, and if you all start doing it all the time it won’t be as fun when I do it.

19. Favorite place to visit?

The Natural History Museum in New York. They have a gem I want to steal. But I won’t. Winky face.

20. Name something on your bucket list.

This feels like a very personal question, BuzzFeed. I am tempted to make something up. I want to be the president for two years and am impeached successfully after a fake scandal. Then, the following year I’m vindicated, and everyone wants me to be president again but I’m busy with other stuff.

21. If you could invite five people—living or dead—to a dinner party, who would they be?

I was just in Rome. Give me an emperor, a gladiator, a cynic, an actor and some tough Roman lady. Then we drink wine.

22. Biggest fear?

Food poisoning. I hate it. I hate it so much. And you know what’s weird? High end restaurants are most often the guilty ones.

23. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” seems to always prove itself accurate.

24. Background wallpaper on your phone?

A dog eating flowers.

25. Favorite song of 2016?

I like the song from Narcos.

26. What’s the last thing you searched for on Google?

“What is a dry riser.” I could pretend that it was something funny or deep but that would be lying, and everyone knows people don’t lie in interviews to make themselves more appealing or interesting.

27. What do you hope for in 2017?

I wrote out a sincere and sappy answer about society as a whole but realized I just really want them to find Genghis Khan’s tomb this year.

#matthew daddario #buzzfeed #interview #news

[gabrielmazlik-blog]

27 Things We Learned On Set with Gabriel Mazlik:

1. If anyone could play you in a movie, who would you pick? Cate Blanchett would kill it, can you see if she’s available?

2. What’s the first album you ever bought? Hahaha, no.

3. Describe your style in three words. Things that fit.

4. Craziest fan story? One time I walked in to a store and a guy came over to help. He’s talking to me for a minute and I’m being semi socially-capable. He takes a step back, looks me up and down and says, “Hey, wait a minute…you look like that boy from that show.” I go, “Yeah?” And he says, “Yeah, that kid from (show name redacted) show. Damn. You look just like him.” It was a different show with a guy who shoots arrows. I was like, “Oh, yeah I hear that sometimes.”

5. Last book you read? I’ve been reading Dune. It’s nice when you haven’t read a book in ten years so you forget most of it and it’s like reading it anew. So great.

6. What is your biggest pet peeve? When that dweeb stops at the top of the escalator realizing he’s not sure if he’s going in the right direction and it causes a five-person pileup behind him. That dweeb is usually Dom, and the pileup starts when I try and push through him.

7. What’s the most memorable concert you’ve been to? It seems with things like this the most note worthy ones are the ones you can’t remember at all.

8. Last person who texted you? My manager asking if I had answered the Buzzfeed questions, I told her I took them very seriously.

9. Which emoji do you use most? The one with the eyes where it looks like he’s caught but tries to poker face and fails. Also sometimes I write out the description of the face. 

10. Who’s your doppelgänger? Some dude who lives around Union Square keeps getting me in trouble with friends. About 10 different people: “I saw you at Union square and called out but you didn’t answer!” Me: “I’m in Los Angeles.”

11. Favorite reality show? That one where they cook a meal under pressure and if they don’t do it in time or it isn’t good enough they have to enter a gladiatorial pit vs some unspeakable ancient horror. Love that show. Also, I like Planet Earth.

12. Celebrity crush? I’m not good at crushes. What if they don’t like the same food as me? I can’t handle that kind of letdown.

13. What’s one thing you can’t live without? Fried cheese.

14. Guilty pleasure? Frying cheddar cheese and parmesan in a cast iron skillet and then eating it until I’m gross. I had the feeling that fried cheese was not descriptive enough, I had to paint a picture of it.

15. Go-to comfort food? I put that cheese from above in my belly until I am comfortable.

16. Dream vacation spot? Big city/warm beach.

17. Hidden talent? Really, really good at eating sticky oily things out of a smoking hot iron pan.

18. What’s one word you say too often? I probably curse too often. It’s fun to do with friends, enemies, when you fall down, when you watch sports, when you burn your thumb on a really hot pan…all the time really. It’s just kinda great. But if anyone reads this…don’t curse. It’s bad, and if you all start doing it all the time it won’t be as fun when I do it.

19. Favorite place to visit? The Natural History Museum in New York. They have a gem I want to steal. But I won’t. Winky face.

20. Name something on your bucket list. This feels like a very personal question, BuzzFeed. I am tempted to make something up. I want to be the president of the United States for two years and am impeached successfully after a fake scandal. Then, the following year I’m vindicated, and everyone wants me to be president again but I’m busy with other stuff. My bucket lists ignores the fact that I’m not American.

21. If you could invite five people—living or dead—to a dinner party, who would they be? I was just in Rome. Give me an emperor, a gladiator, a cynic, an actor and some tough Bulgarian lady. Then we drink wine.

22. Biggest fear? Food poisioning. I hate it. I hate it so much. It’s like the best joy in life betrays you, and usually high end restaurants are the guilty ones.

23. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” seems to always prove itself accurate.

24. Background wallpaper on your phone? A dog eating flowers.

25. Favorite song right now? Everywhere I go I hear this one song about living forever, that one’s pretty cool. It’s also stuck in my head and definitely not my way of getting out of answering this question. That would be absurd. 

26. What’s the last thing you searched for on Google? “What is a dry riser.” I could pretend that it was something funny or deep but that would be lying, and everyone knows people don’t lie in interviews to make themselves more appealing or interesting.

27. What do you hope for in 2017? I wrote out a sincere and sappy answer about society as a whole but realized I just REALLY want them to find Genghis Khan’s tomb this year.

#(I know this is a long post but I love this interview. And I kept MOST of Matt's answers because he fits Gabriel too perfectly.) #G. #hc;

[aleclightwoodcreations-blog]

27 Things We Learned On Set With Matthew Daddario

Get to know the Shadowhunters star!

posted on Jan. 4, 2017, at 7:08 a.m.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinharris/on-set-with-matthew-daddario?utm_term=.upZGmPoLV#.jb3brpXW0

1. If anyone could play you in a movie, who would you pick?

Cate Blanchett would kill it. Can you see if she’s available?

2. What’s the first album you ever bought?

Hahaha, no.

3. Describe your style in three words.

Things that fit.

4. Craziest fan story?

One time I walked in to a store and a guy came over to help. He’s talking to me for a minute and I’m being semi socially-capable. He takes a step back, looks me up and down and says, “Hey, wait a minute…you look like that boy from that show.” I go, “Yeah?” And he says, “Yeah, that kid from (show name redacted) show. Damn. You look just like him.” It was a different show with a guy who shoots arrows. I was like, “Oh, yeah I hear that sometimes.”

5. Last book you read?

[I’ve] been reading Dune. It’s nice when you haven’t read a book in ten years so you forget most of it and it’s like reading it anew. So great.

6. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

When that dweeb stops at the top of the escalator realizing he’s not sure if he’s going in the right direction and it causes a five-person pileup behind him.

7. What’s the most memorable concert you’ve been to?

With things like this the memorable ones seem to be the ones people can’t remember.

8. Last person who texted you?

My manager, Donnalyn. Making sure I answered the BuzzFeed questions. I told her I did.

9. Which emoji do you use the most?

The one with the eyes where it looks like he’s caught but tries to poker face and fails. Also sometimes I write out the description of the face.

10. Who’s your doppelgänger?

Some dude who lives around Union Square keeps getting me in trouble with friends. About 10 different people: “I saw you at Union square and called out but you didn’t answer!” Me: “I’m in Toronto.”

11. Favorite reality show?

That one where they cook a meal under pressure and if they don’t do it in time or it isn’t good enough they have to enter a gladiatorial pit vs some unspeakable ancient horror. Love that show. Also, I like Planet Earth.

12. Celebrity crush?

I’m not good at crushes. What if they don’t like the same food as me? I can’t handle that kind of letdown.

13. What’s one thing you can’t live without?

Fried cheese.

14. Guilty pleasure?

Frying cheddar cheese and parmesan in a cast iron skillet and then eating it until I’m gross.

15. Go-to comfort food?

I put that cheese from above in my belly until I am comfortable.

16. Dream vacation spot?

Big city/warm beach.

17. Hidden talent?

Really, really good at eating sticky oily things out of a smoking hot iron pan.

18. What’s one word you say too often?

I probably curse too often. It’s fun to do with friends, enemies, when you fall down, when you watch sports…all the time really. It’s just kinda great. But if anyone reads this…don’t curse. It’s bad, and if you all start doing it all the time it won’t be as fun when I do it.

19. Favorite place to visit?

The Natural History Museum in New York. They have a gem I want to steal. But I won’t. Winky face.

20. Name something on your bucket list.

This feels like a very personal question, BuzzFeed. I am tempted to make something up. I want to be the president for two years and am impeached successfully after a fake scandal. Then, the following year I’m vindicated, and everyone wants me to be president again but I’m busy with other stuff.

21. If you could invite five people—living or dead—to a dinner party, who would they be?

I was just in Rome. Give me an emperor, a gladiator, a cynic, an actor and some tough Roman lady. Then we drink wine.

22. Biggest fear?

Food poisoning. I hate it. I hate it so much. And you know what’s weird? High end restaurants are most often the guilty ones.

23. Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” seems to always prove itself accurate.

24. Background wallpaper on your phone?

A dog eating flowers.

25. Favorite song of 2016?

I like the song from Narcos.

26. What’s the last thing you searched for on Google?

“What is a dry riser.” I could pretend that it was something funny or deep but that would be lying, and everyone knows people don’t lie in interviews to make themselves more appealing or interesting.

27. What do you hope for in 2017?

I wrote out a sincere and sappy answer about society as a whole but realized I just really want them to find Genghis Khan’s tomb this year.

Catch Matt in season two of Shadowhunters every Monday at 8 p.m. ET on Freeform!

#Matthew Daddario #shadowhunters #Alec Lightwood

[italiasoloitalia]

Days 20, 21: Pescara del Tronto

Glimpses of the turquoise waters of the Adriatic as take the autostradale towards Pescara del Tronto. Green, lush patchwork countryside to our right. We decide to overnight in Ascoli Piceno though my cousin Anna is in Rome atm so we stay at Torre 100. Straight into Piazza del Popolo to see that beautiful space and have a coffee at Caffe Meletti. Yay! It is the quiet of siesta time but we explore the major buildings and churches around it and Piazza Arringo. Medieval history at every turn. Several buildings showing repair work yo earthquake damage.

After a refresh and feet up we return for aperitivo and the piazza is glowing in the afternoon sun, there is a group of well-dressed family members gathered in the centre, cones of confetti at the ready as they await the bridal couple from the civil ceremony in the comune. Pigeons swoop, children bike, families circle and the scene is a delight. Dinner nearby at Trattoria Nonna Nina begins with Oliva Ascolane, certamente, they’re very good though the olive has not been peeled (a la orange) but split and stuffed - the olive itself is ‘fleshier’: 8 olives for 5€! Not $4 each like in Melbourne that time! A beautiful stroll back through lively streets.

Pear-shaped! It had to happen I guess for things too good - Glenn wakes after a restless night, dizzy and unbalanced on his feet, slightly nauseous. One would forgive forgive us for 😱😨 ... stroke? after friends’ recent events. 🤔 middle ear/vertigo ? Because we were to be iheading to the somewhat isolated village with limited access to medical care, I thought doctor best option but not so...ambulance to hospital 🤢 where within the hour he’s on a drip, followed by a ‘tac’ (head scan), followed by a specialist otorino (ent) who diagnoses middle ear/ vertigo, medication and I’m guiding wobbly-boot to taxi at 2pm. Amazing service and attention from hotel staff, three lovely female ambo’s, nurses and orderlies....all for...zip, niente! 😲

The hotel have kept our room and as we enter, Caterina my cousin rings - we were to be calling her tomorrow and I had not wanted to trouble them with this until tomorrow. I asked what made you call, “ti sentivo vicino” (I felt you near) 😌

We decide to let G rest and tomorrow they will come to drive our car to village as G of course should not drive till that dizziness goes 🙄. I scurry out to fill the script and ... the first rain of our holiday descends - thunder cracking, torrential, hail kinda rain .. yep, pear-shaped

“Don’t complain” I mutter as I trudge along - the first hiccup...(non è grave, solo fastidioso: not grave just annoying said dottore) and hopefully within a few days he’ll be ok and to top it off, we’ll be with famiglia. Next hiccup, farmacia doesn’t have one of the medications, ritorna domani mattina - I anxiously respond “but that will delay his recovery”...no, no the compresse (capsules) will be the help, intanto. All this today in Italian mind you! Exhausted, I pull in out of the torrent into a welcoming bar to get a bite for G and a welcome macchiatone! Forza Leda!

A picnic dinner in and early night after getting in touch with my family in Pescara del Tronto and they insist they will come in tomorrow morning to drive our car back to paese. I’m at la farmacia on the dot of 9am after having called into the same bar for a cappuccino. Must say I felt like a local on the way back, a signora having done her morning chore and back home. Now is the time for me to put on my infermiera 👩‍⚕️hat and administer G’s prescribed puntara (injection). 😱🤷‍♀️. Gs not convinced I can manage so I go downstairs to prega help from the lovely signora first aid and she is happy to help I’ll simpatico 🙄 signore by showing me how. I plunge that needle with a good jab 🤨 and we head downstairs to see Vinicio on doorstep 😍🤗. We’re off and V and I jabber on the way while poor G keeps his eyes straight ahead. We slow as we pass the paesi along the via Salaria, all affected by the earthquake. PdelT from the road below is as awful as we’d seen and heard via the internet and we move on to the area on the flat near il Fiume Tronto where the ‘provisorio’ casetti (‘provisional little houses’) have been built, together with little shops, bar and community areas, to those who chose to stay in the area instead of relocating, until decisions re future permanent situations are made.

My mother’s family are there with open arms, tears and an heartwarming welcome. Their suffering over the past two years is palpable but they are making the best of their straightened circumstances by beautifying their homes, frequent gatherings, celebrations and planning for the future. The table is set and we await the arrival of family by sharing news, photos and calling Mum. More tears, passing the phone around to all though not mentioning anything to her about G - she’s been praying constantly for our safe journey and we wouldn’t want to shake that faith! g is not himself but putting a brave face on it and when lunch is served he’s given the head of the table and much fun, hand-waving translations and feasting begins. It’s 4pm before coffee is served after prosciutto and melon, lasagne, arrosto di manzo con verdure, piselli con prosciutto, insalata, pomodori e citriole, frutta and zuppa inglese 🤭. G thankfully is not nauseous and able to satisfy the “mangia, mangia” on repeat though is head is still spinning and is wobbly on his feet. Poor thing. I leave him to rest still why I’m taken up to see the village up close. It’s devastating and we are able to walk the upper road where my father’s childhood home stood. It’s mostly rubble save for the cantina which is amazingly in place. A little park near my aunt’s home is now the site of a memorial and there are t-shirts with images of the victims strung along the fence. Very moving as my cousin Pierino goes along telling me who they were and little anecdotes about how and why. Most were not from the village but visiting for summer. At my Zia Fenisia’s home I recognised the edges of the marble stairwell that I so well remember and remnants of the little green tiles that dotted the terrazzo at the front of the house. 😰. It is pleasing to see the beloved Fontana (drinking fountain and one time clothes-washing site), whose renowned water stems from the fantastic Monte Vettore which looms above and behind, has survived but unlikely to remain.

Up to the cimitero to visit the crypts of all the family members on both sides of our family that have passed away over the years and it makes for an emotional day of both joy and sadness. Our family names of Rendina and Filotei are abundant and gives my sense of belonging even more piquancy.

We return and preparations are in progress for dinner 🤭😳 and G is doing ok having had some funny and interesting exchanges in Italglish. So much ribbing, dry and witty remarks tells the story of people who know each other so well, spend a lot of time together yet are caring and respectful. A ‘light’ cena of frittata con buffala, leftovers from lunch, more prosciutto and cheeses, frutta and a ‘marscapone’ (tiramisu but with a very light and loose creamy mascarpone). Uffa! A great day but I need to get Mr Wobby-boot to bed so my kind cousins drive us to nearby Agriturismo Grisciano and will collect us again in morning.

We sleep like logs and wake several times towards morning when everything is dark...dormi says G, it’s still night, dormi says I the next time...finally G gets up to open the shutters to a brilliant sun and it’s 9.30am 🙄😬😆. A cappuccino before we are collected and back to family where the women have been to church and I go to meet them and check out the new church of Santa Croce di PdelT where the original bell has been returned and erected. Inside, only the ancient crucifix and a wooden statue of Our Lady have been saved from the old church which sadly had housed ancient relics. Two new bells are planned in addition to the original and it is lovely to see and know that this important part of their lives is resurrected (😏) and continues to sustain them.

The women are off to the bar for an aperitivo and I am taken in arm ... G tags along but then scampers after the men, making the women laugh with his horrified face and ‘chattering’ gesticulations. Cries of “quando e simpatico!” have him 💁🏼‍♂️🤦‍♀️

Crodino’s (a non-alcoholic Campari-ish fizzy) all ‘round, a platter of olive-oiled bread, prosciutto and lonza and I am joining in the banter like a local. Such fun. That would have done me for lunch but we apparently lunch is at the new ristorante on site! On our way, meetings with many who again introduced themselves as amiche and parenti of my mother, sending her regards and telling anecdotes of their relationship. Sweet.

Lunch is funny - talk about fussy about their food! The trouble is of course that they eat so well at home, that going out never, or rarely, meets their expectations. The antipasti of meats and local cheeses was served (trendily) on wooden platters but as whole salamis and cheeses with knives to slice for yourself. My cousin quipped “when it comes time to pay the bill, I’ll take it outside and leave it there for them to get for themselves”! 🤣. The fantastic spaghetti all’amatriciana had pecorino cheese in the sauce(🤦‍♀️🙇‍♂️); the tagliatelle ai funghi had too many other kinds (and too much of them) and not enough porcini (🤦‍♀️🙇‍♂️); Leda wanted agnello, there wasn’t enough, said Pierino, the potatoes are burnt said Vinicio...let me say, it was all delicious (we’d be very happy for it to be our local!) and it added to our fun!

It’s decided ‘una scarpata’ (a jaunt) to Castelluccio to show us the beginning of the famed ‘la fioratura’ (flowering) of the lentil plains of Monte Vettore, about 15 kms away. I had been with my family when we came when I was 15 and Dad had so wanted us to see it and relive the times he used to climb up from PdelT to tend to fields with his zaino (backpack) of bread and tinned beef (Simmenthal). It is a spectacular drive up and so beautiful in the afternoon light. Castelluccio too was virtually destroyed in the earthquake and the proprietors of the many shops and restaurants have set up food trucks as an interim measure until a restaurant plaza is finished. It is busy with visitors and we are invited for a coffee at the one remaining Agriturismo la Valle Delle Aquile owned by friends of Linda (Vinicio’s daughter) and her boyfriend GianLuca. A fabulous view which is supposed to be even better at sunrise. Next time? The flowers are just beginning to open and the poppies this year are late but it is something I’d love to see at its peak (early to mid July usually). Still, stunning.

The table is laid...again...🤦‍♀️ but the freshest local buffala mozzarella and sweet tomatoes, stracchino and other local cheeses, salads, carciofi, salami, prosciutto etc is hard to resist amidst the cries of “magari un pocchino” (even just a little). Dolci, more, then we’re taken over to the con.tain.errr where they have community gatherings with a kitchen, tables, tv and even karaoke (😫) and all manner of boxes are taken out for us to choose some PdelT mementoes for the family. Lovely.

We are driven back to Grisciano for the night and,all being well, G will drive us back in the morning to farewell before we move on to Orvieto. Yes, many tears, warm embraces, loving wishes to all in the family later and we leave. Such a wonderful few days, even though emotionally draining, my heart is full.

It was fortuitous (or from mum’s prayers🤔) that G’s vertigo thing happened when it did as we were able to work around it in a safe harbour. It’s improving (slightly) daily and it’s more likely, Dr G thinks, stemming from neck exercises and movements he did rather than any middle ear issue.

Orvieto, here we, slowly, come.

[helyercreative]

My Tinder Date and I Went To Rome, and All He Got Me Was This Lousy Reject Text

Part 2 of my first tinder holiday, and I suppose, the final instalment, if you can’t guess from the title. 

I actually had an extremely lovely time in Rome, and with my Tinder date, who me and my friends affectionately call ‘Doctor Rome’. But it came as no surprise to get a reject text from him upon returning home. 

He arrived at Cardiff Central train station on Monday afternoon, after I’d spent the day showing my new housemate Sam around Cardiff. It was nice to see him, and we got some errands done in town before dropping his bag off at my house, and heading straight out to the pub. Doctor Rome studied in Cardiff, and used to live near where I currently live, so he had fond memories of one of my favourite local pubs. After a few drinks we headed home and I cooked dinner for us and my housemates, which was nice as he had a few things in common with them and it wasn’t awkward or anything - also, bonus points to me because everyone enjoyed my food and I didn’t poison anyone. 

The next day we got a few last things we needed before my housemate drove us to Cardiff airport ready to fly out. Conversation flowed fine over a few pre-flight drinks, and we boarded the plane promptly. We’d checked in at different times so our seats were separate, and just as I’d got into a conversation with a lovely older gentlemen named Joe who I was sat next to, Doctor Rome announced he’d managed to get the man next to him to swap seats with me. Not gunna lie, the flight felt pretty romantic, sat hand in hand sleeping on each others shoulders as we flew into the sunset, total bliss. 

Arriving in Rome, Doctor Rome was in charge of directions and event planning (because if I was in charge nothing would’ve got done), we got a train from the airport to Termini station and walked the 15 minutes to our airbnb in Monti. After waiting for about 20 minutes for someone to show up, our host (along with her daughter, and pet dog, Lola) turned up. She was lovely and had a lot of awesome recommendations, which we followed all the food ones and weren’t  disappointed. Our apartment was really lovely, in a very historic old building in a tiny little street on a hill. That evening we went for a little walk around, because it was about 8pm by the time we’d settled in and we were both pretty tired. We found a cute little eatery that looked like it was popular and had some delicious food (Although Doctor Rome’s was a little questionable to look at), and then tried to hunt for a Gelato bar that had been recommended by his cousin. We unfortunately didn’t find it, but we found another one and I was not disappointed at all.

We settled down for the night with some Italian wine before I fell asleep on the sofa. 

Day 2 was reserved for Vatican City, as it was my only full day in Rome and it was the largest time consuming thing our tourist agenda had for us. We caught a metro and walked to the Vatican (Recommend to buy tickets online first to skip any queues, however we were there early enough that there were no queues regardless). I know nothing about history or culture of Italy, and I don’t have a strong desire to learn, but none the less it was still amazing to see everything this place had to offer. Lots of sculptures, and art works all incased within incredible architecture. You could look out the window and see St Peter’s Cathedral and beautiful views of Rome.

We visited the Sistine Chapel, which I was super excited for. I studied art throughout school/college/university, so obviously had seen Michaelanglo’s painting a few times, but I actually had no idea about the rest of the Sistine Chapel art work, and I was completely in awe. I looked up so much that I got neck ache, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I didn’t take any photos there because you weren’t supposed to, and I wanted to keep the image for my mind rather than immortalising it just for the sake of having a photo.

After Sistine Chapel we went to St Peter’s Cathedral, which again was beautiful. Our airbnb host had told us ‘you must go to the top of the basilica’, which we didn’t know was an option, but for €6 (or €7 to take the elevator) you can go to the top of the dome and walk around the outside. The walk was horrible, I am not a huge fan of unsteady climbing or enclosed spaces, and it was both of those combined for 551 steps up to the top.

Once we reached the top, we had a 360 degree view of Rome, but most remarkably was St Peter’s Square, which looked amazing, even in the pissing down rain.

Whilst near Vatican City I wanted to visit a Nespresso boutique I’d found was nearby (You can take the girl out of Nespresso, but can never take the Nespresso out of the girl). It was pissing down with rain, but we walked, and walked, trying to find it. We stopped at an espresso bar on the way through to dry off, and also in an amazing department store (like Urban outfitters crossed with Ikea), and eventually came across the Nespresso Shop-In-Shop within another department store. Not the grand boutique I was hoping for, but another one crossed off the list. Afterwards we had planned to stay out and visit Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, but the rain had gotten to both of us quite badly so we headed back to our apartment via the metro. After grabbing some pizza from the local pizzeria next door, we decided we’d dry off and go back out to visit Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps in the evening. It was still raining but we were still in high spirits. I wasn’t expecting much, and the Spanish Steps really weren’t anything special, especially being extremely conscious of how slippery they are to climb when it was raining so much, but they did give a great view of St Peter’s from the top.

We walked a little further towards where the Trevi Fountain was, having no idea how close we were it suddenly appeared. It was probably about 8pm and there were only a handful of people by it, but I fell in love with it, I found it really beautiful to look at. 

I didn’t want to leave the fountain, and honestly for me this felt like the most romantic part of the trip. Eventually we walked home and had an early night.

The third day was to be my last, Doctor Rome was staying for a further 2 days after I was leaving, so we decided to pack in all the things I wanted to see into the 3 days I would be there. Our airbnb was only a 10 minute walk from the colosseum so we woke early and walked over to it. Surprised by how close it really was (just a short walk through a dodgy park behind us) and it was another breathtaking sight. Tickets were cheap and we got a guided tour too. The tour took probably nearly an hour and was relatively informative, but again, I didn’t have all that much interest in it, but for only €5 I would say it’s a definite thing to buy.

Photo Credz to Doctor Rome.

After the colosseum we walked around for a little bit, and grabbed some food in another recommended restaurant. I had a dish that my housemates often make at home, so it was interesting to taste the real thing. Then walking back to the apartment we managed to find the gelato place we’d looked for on the first night. It was a vegan and gluten free gelato place, and the flavours were intense and amazing, but the consistency was a lot more liquidy than usual gelato so we had to eat them speedily. 

After walking back to the apartment we had a little bit of time to chill before we had to leave for the station. Everything was fine, but I kinda twigged that this holiday was the end of this Tinder Romance. We walked to the train station and we said goodbye and I left him to the rest of his adventure. Whilst I managed to fall asleep on the train, and arrive at the airport to find my flight was delayed by an hour and a half. Which wouldn’t have been too bad but I had a connection flight in Brussels with only a 1 hour 20 minute gap. Luckily the second flight was also delayed (it snowed in Brussels and they had to de-ice all the planes), I managed to make it back to the UK, however had missed my bargain £1 megabus by about 10 minutes so had to fork out £25 for a national express, plus £10 on a taxi home at 4am, ready to wake up for work at 10am. 

I didn’t hear from Doctor Rome (apart from telling him i arrived home and he said to have a nice day) at all, even after he would’ve arrived home. I asked him if he didn’t want to talk to me or see me, and told him it was ok but would be nice for him to tell me rather than ghost me, and that’s when I got the lousy reject text.

Better to have Tinder Romanced in Rome and Lost, than to not have Tinder Romanced In Rome at all, right?

#personal #holiday #tinder #tinder romance #blog #my first tinder holiday #rome #italy