Emmys: Alex Karpovsky on 'Girls' - 'Every character has shown unsavory, forbidden aspects'

By Lucas Shaw

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Alex Karpovsky had written, directed and edited three movies and starred in several more before he met Lena Dunham at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2009. Dunham was there with her first movie, "Creative Nonfiction," and she recruited Karpovsky to star in her next, "Tiny Furniture."

Dunham soon scored a deal with HBO and brought Karpovsky into the fold for one of the most divisive shows on television, "Girls." Karpovksy plays Ray, the manager of a coffee shop who dated Shoshana (Zosia Mamet) until the last episode of Season 2.

Had you ever done TV before "Girls"?

I hadn't, but I needed very little persuasion. I loved the way "Tiny Furniture" came out and was so proud of the movie. I have total faith in Lena. Wherever she wanted to take us, I was willing to go without any hesitation.

How would you say the show has evolved over its first two seasons?

In Season 1 we established a lot of characters, but in Season 2 and now midway through Season 3 we're trying to explore the underpinnings and backstories. That's a lot of fun to do, going to zany and weird places without disorienting the audience - whether that's a coke bender or a really dark episode on Staten Island.

Has the progression of any character particularly surprised you?

All of them have. I don't mean that as a copout, but whether it's Hannah's OCD or Adam's Alcoholics Anonymous past, every character has surprises. There's Ray's dark energy and unresolved interpersonal issues. Every character has shown unsavory, forbidden aspects.

You once said in an interview that you tend to play characters who are "neurotic, guilt-ridden and full of anxiety." Does that apply to Ray?

He's definitely anxiety-ridden, because he's in his 30s and working at a coffee shop, and that's not what he wants to do with his life. Neurotic would seem to apply more to other characters like Hannah and Shoshana. Guilt-ridden certainly, not for taking Shoshana's virginity but for being his own worst enemy.

Why do you play those types of characters?

I have a lot of those properties myself and play those characters in my own films. It's pretty clear I play largely autobiographical versions or caricatures of myself. When you do something some people feel works, you just keep doing it for a long time.

How similar are other people on "Girls" to the people who play them?

I don't know, just because I don't know these people very well. I never knew anyone on the show except Lena before we started working on it. Lena is very different from Hannah. Hannah is still trying to figure things out, struggling and unsure of herself. Lena is almost the polar opposite.

Would you say that people who struggle to get out of their own way is one of the primary themes of the show?

One of the primary themes is the obstacles people in their early 20s are negotiating with, fumbling around in modern-day New York City. It centers on four girls, and the boys are satellites hovering around the four central planets that are at the front door of womanhood.

View the original article here

Emmys: Monica Potter's 'Parenthood' cancer battle began with her own real-life scare

By Jethro Nededog

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Monica Potter's journey through the experiences of a mom with cancer on NBC's "Parenthood" actually began with her own medical scare. "When I went in last year for a mammogram, my first one, they said they found something," Potter told TheWrap.

On the heels of the discovery, the 41-year-old mother of three went home and emailed executive producer Jason Katims, pitching a cancer storyline in the show's fourth season for her character Christina. "He emailed me back and said, ‘I have the chills, because we just broke that in the writers room,'" she remembered. "We were able to go on the journey together." (For his part, Katims also had a personal connection to the subject - his wife is a breast cancer survivor who is more than two years cancer-free.)

Luckily, Potter's scare ended up with the diagnosis of a benign cyst and a clean bill of health. But instead of delving into research on the subject of cancer, Potter said she went into the season with very little preparation for a storyline that took her character through diagnosis, chemotherapy and then remission. "I didn't want to know anything about what goes on with breast cancer and the treatments for it, because I wanted to experience it with the character along the way."

That's actually very strange for the Cleveland-born actress, who considers herself very "Type A" when it comes to preparation and who has gotten ribbing from colleagues for her methods. "I'll take a script, I'll rip it apart, I'll highlight, I'll staple each scene.

Sometimes, we shoot two at the same time, so I'll put them in categories," she said. "This year, I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to sit there and pull the scripts apart, and I wasn't going to have to know everything."

Not only did viewers react favorably to Christina's battle with cancer, but critics did, too. Potter recently won a Critics Choice Television Award for the portrayal and is getting a lot of Emmy buzz as well.

"I'm so excited and I'm so thrilled," she said. "And it's cool, because my boys are older, and they've seen me work at this since I was in my early 20s." Her career began, she said, when Danny, who was born in 1990 and is the oldest of her three children, was about 3.

"We'd travel all over and live in hotels, and I'd work and try to get paid. And the Critics Choice was the first award I'd ever been nominated for. To me, that's the best part of it all, to see the kids and their excitement. It shows hard work and dedication and loving what you do can be celebrated. And it's kind of awesome."

View the original article here

Emmys: 'House of Cards' star Corey Stoll - 'I know what it's like to be out of control'

By Tim Molloy

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Corey Stoll said one of the turning points in his life came when he was a "morbidly obese" teenager, trying to choose roles for an acting showcase at his high school.

"Someone said, ‘How about the Elephant Man? How about the Hunchback of Notre Dame?'" Stoll told TheWrap. "I mean, these are amazing roles, but are these the only roles I'm good for?"

Shedding weight allowed Stoll, now an athletic-looking 37-year-old, to play the dashing Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" and to land the lead in FX's upcoming series "The Strain." But he said that his issues with food still affect his career?including his role as Peter Russo, "House of Cards'" alcoholic congressman.

You took up boxing to play Hemingway. What did you do to play Russo, a philandering alcoholic?

Well, I did not become an alcoholic. In fact, I was actually pretty clean when I was shooting it because I knew I had to do some nude scenes. So I was living a very healthy, active lifestyle. I did a lot of reading about recovery, and I found that very helpful. David Carr's autobiography "The Night of the Gun" was really interesting, and Augusten Burrough's "Dry." And speaking with Beau, who's in recovery.

Did you visit AA meetings to see what they're like?

I wanted to, and then it felt a little ... I didn't want to just observe people while they poured their hearts out. I don't know what it's like to be addicted to substances, but I know what it's like to be out of control. I know what it's like to overeat. That's something I've struggled with. I figured it was going to be more potent for me to deal with that lack of control on my terms than to try to inhabit somebody else's addiction.

When did you struggle with overeating?

I was a fat kid in junior high school and high school, and around the end of high school I really buckled down and decided I wanted to be a different person by the time I got to college. And I still swing every year a good bunch of weight. I can kind of relate to that boom-and-bust cycle. That was kind of my way in, instead of trying to do some weird thing where I got really drunk and recorded myself or something like that.

Did being overweight as a kid turn you into a fitness fanatic? I become a fitness fanatic for a few months every year. My vision of Peter Russo is when he was in recovery he was really good at it. Until he was off the wagon.

Russo faces more temptation than most people do: A call girl throws herself at him, trying to get him to drink. What I really love about the way Beau wrote that is the obvious choice would have been to have him at his lowest ebb, to have something really awful happen to him to drive him to drink. Instead, everything's really going great, and it's a celebratory drink. That's what's so pernicious about addiction. It's not just depression that can trigger it.

Going through what you did, is it hard to be on camera?

The more I'm a character, the easier it is. I can't stand looking at photos of myself on a red carpet or something like that. And those times when I'm feeling thinner or I'm in better shape, it's definitely easier to watch.

Is that why you underwent such a physical transformation in "Midnight in Paris," and had the mustache when you were on "Law & Order: Los Angeles"?

There was sort of ... inertia involved in that. I'd grown a mustache because I was playing Vershinin in this production of "Three Sisters," and I had this big Stalin-esque mustache. Then I went straight from that to "A View From the Bridge," where I played an immigrant from Italy in the 1950s, and that's when Woody Allen saw me and cast me, and the mustache seemed to work for that.

And then I went to "Law & Order," and it seemed perfect for a cop. Halfway through they asked me to shave it. And I'm so glad I did, because it can define you. Especially when you don't have hair on your head, your eyes definitely go straight to it. When you don't have hair, it's fun to have something that can change your look.

If you look a certain way, people say you'll be a character actor.

I will always be a character actor of some sort because of my look. And I happen to be very lucky to have been born at a time when you can be more than a biker or a prisoner with a shaved head.

But you're going to be the lead in The Strain. You have a romantic subplot in House of Cards. You're getting leading man-type roles.

I'll never not feel like a character actor. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think feeling like you have to transform for a role is the only way I know how to do it. Often the roles I feel like are the closest to me are the most challenging. I try to find some hook that's really different from me, whether it's an accent or a hairpiece or some kind of prosthetic.

Does "The Strain" feel like a mustache role?

No, I don't think so. We're in the early phases of figuring out the look of the whole show.

View the original article here

Emmys: Alex Karpovsky on 'Girls' - 'Every character has shown unsavory, forbidden aspects'

By Lucas Shaw

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Alex Karpovsky had written, directed and edited three movies and starred in several more before he met Lena Dunham at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2009. Dunham was there with her first movie, "Creative Nonfiction," and she recruited Karpovsky to star in her next, "Tiny Furniture."

Dunham soon scored a deal with HBO and brought Karpovsky into the fold for one of the most divisive shows on television, "Girls." Karpovksy plays Ray, the manager of a coffee shop who dated Shoshana (Zosia Mamet) until the last episode of Season 2.

Had you ever done TV before "Girls"?

I hadn't, but I needed very little persuasion. I loved the way "Tiny Furniture" came out and was so proud of the movie. I have total faith in Lena. Wherever she wanted to take us, I was willing to go without any hesitation.

How would you say the show has evolved over its first two seasons?

In Season 1 we established a lot of characters, but in Season 2 and now midway through Season 3 we're trying to explore the underpinnings and backstories. That's a lot of fun to do, going to zany and weird places without disorienting the audience - whether that's a coke bender or a really dark episode on Staten Island.

Has the progression of any character particularly surprised you?

All of them have. I don't mean that as a copout, but whether it's Hannah's OCD or Adam's Alcoholics Anonymous past, every character has surprises. There's Ray's dark energy and unresolved interpersonal issues. Every character has shown unsavory, forbidden aspects.

You once said in an interview that you tend to play characters who are "neurotic, guilt-ridden and full of anxiety." Does that apply to Ray?

He's definitely anxiety-ridden, because he's in his 30s and working at a coffee shop, and that's not what he wants to do with his life. Neurotic would seem to apply more to other characters like Hannah and Shoshana. Guilt-ridden certainly, not for taking Shoshana's virginity but for being his own worst enemy.

Why do you play those types of characters?

I have a lot of those properties myself and play those characters in my own films. It's pretty clear I play largely autobiographical versions or caricatures of myself. When you do something some people feel works, you just keep doing it for a long time.

How similar are other people on "Girls" to the people who play them?

I don't know, just because I don't know these people very well. I never knew anyone on the show except Lena before we started working on it. Lena is very different from Hannah. Hannah is still trying to figure things out, struggling and unsure of herself. Lena is almost the polar opposite.

Would you say that people who struggle to get out of their own way is one of the primary themes of the show?

One of the primary themes is the obstacles people in their early 20s are negotiating with, fumbling around in modern-day New York City. It centers on four girls, and the boys are satellites hovering around the four central planets that are at the front door of womanhood.

View the original article here

Emmys: Monica Potter's 'Parenthood' cancer battle began with her own real-life scare

By Jethro Nededog

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Monica Potter's journey through the experiences of a mom with cancer on NBC's "Parenthood" actually began with her own medical scare. "When I went in last year for a mammogram, my first one, they said they found something," Potter told TheWrap.

On the heels of the discovery, the 41-year-old mother of three went home and emailed executive producer Jason Katims, pitching a cancer storyline in the show's fourth season for her character Christina. "He emailed me back and said, ‘I have the chills, because we just broke that in the writers room,'" she remembered. "We were able to go on the journey together." (For his part, Katims also had a personal connection to the subject - his wife is a breast cancer survivor who is more than two years cancer-free.)

Luckily, Potter's scare ended up with the diagnosis of a benign cyst and a clean bill of health. But instead of delving into research on the subject of cancer, Potter said she went into the season with very little preparation for a storyline that took her character through diagnosis, chemotherapy and then remission. "I didn't want to know anything about what goes on with breast cancer and the treatments for it, because I wanted to experience it with the character along the way."

That's actually very strange for the Cleveland-born actress, who considers herself very "Type A" when it comes to preparation and who has gotten ribbing from colleagues for her methods. "I'll take a script, I'll rip it apart, I'll highlight, I'll staple each scene.

Sometimes, we shoot two at the same time, so I'll put them in categories," she said. "This year, I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to sit there and pull the scripts apart, and I wasn't going to have to know everything."

Not only did viewers react favorably to Christina's battle with cancer, but critics did, too. Potter recently won a Critics Choice Television Award for the portrayal and is getting a lot of Emmy buzz as well.

"I'm so excited and I'm so thrilled," she said. "And it's cool, because my boys are older, and they've seen me work at this since I was in my early 20s." Her career began, she said, when Danny, who was born in 1990 and is the oldest of her three children, was about 3.

"We'd travel all over and live in hotels, and I'd work and try to get paid. And the Critics Choice was the first award I'd ever been nominated for. To me, that's the best part of it all, to see the kids and their excitement. It shows hard work and dedication and loving what you do can be celebrated. And it's kind of awesome."

View the original article here

Emmys: 'House of Cards' star Corey Stoll - 'I know what it's like to be out of control'

View the original article here