“The Wire” marathon is about to start on HBO Signature with remastered episodes. Remastered or not, this is one of the best dramas in television history, so catch it on HBO, on DVD, or any other way you can watch it.

Here’s the promo art for Season 5 featuring Kima and McNulty:

Starting on October 17th, HBO is broadcasting a new mini-series called “Sonic Highways” featuring Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters as they travel around the country recording a new track in various cities. They’ll visit New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Nashville, Austin, Seattle, and Washington D.C. and feature artists like Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Dolly Parton, Buddy Guy, ZZ Top and Joan Jett as they dive into the music scenes of each city. Have just been in Nashville this sounds like a real treat for music buffs. I’m not a huge Foo Fighters fan but I suspect I will be by the end of this series. The trailer above even teases an interview with Grohl talking to President Obama. Put it on your calendar!

LOL @RollingStone thinks John Hancock signed the Constitution pic.twitter.com/ZcMTH9pnCD

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) April 9, 2014

During this summer’s TCA press tour, I was fortunate enough to sit down with Frears and discuss his work on “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” including how he came to join the project and what he knew about Ali’s Supreme Court struggles prior to signing on, but he was also kind of enough to chat about a number of his other films. Although the conversation occasionally drifted in unanticipated directions, the sidebar excursions proved just as enjoyable and entertaining as anything that I’d gone in actually planning to bring up.

Bullz-Eye: What was your familiarity with the Muhammad Ali story going into this project?

Stephen Frears: Well, it was both a lot and nothing. In other words… I remember Ali fighting (Sonny) Liston, so that’s how old I am. [Laughs.] I don’t remember the Olympics. But then I remember the trouble in America, of course. And then he sort of disappeared, and I couldn’t tell you what happened until he fought in Zaire and he became a sort of comedian. He became very, very funny. So this bit was like a sort of black hole.

BE: How did you come aboard as director?

SF: I ran into Shawn (Slovo) at a party. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “I’m writing something very, very interesting.” [Shrugs, then laughs.] So I snooped around and found that it was very interesting. Simple as that.

BE: Had you known her prior to that?

SF: I knew her to gossip to her, to say “hello” and talk to her at that party. [Laughs.] But now I know her much better.

BE: Was the script more or less filmed as written, or did you have to do some tweaking to make it work?

SF: I think there was a certain amount. I like to have the writer on set, because in a sense you’re writing all the time, but that’s just to make scenes clearer, things you learn as you go along. It must at some point have sorted itself out enough for us to say, “Right, let’s make this.” I can’t recall, there might’ve been a couple of drafts that we went through before we made it. And then we were writing the whole time on set, just to make things clearer.

BE: It’s interesting that the film focuses on a key moment in Ali’s career, yet it does so without ever portraying Ali. His presence is simply via archival footage. Was that always the plan?

SF: Yes, that was always planned, and the truth is that it was a great relief. The idea of casting Ali didn’t bear thinking about, so I was really pleased by that. But the interesting thing about archival footage is that people never quite say what you want them to say. [Laughs.] They don’t say what you’d like. But eventually we started finding a way how to deal with it. So it was very, very interesting.

BE: Ali was certainly prone to making statements to the media, so presumably you had a fair amount of footage to choose from.

SF: Yes, but he didn’t quite tell the story of his life in a way that would’ve been convenient. But it was really interesting. In my lifetime, I suppose, he’s been the greatest sportsman, and then he turned out to be articulate and funny and conscientious and scrupulous and thoughtful…I guess, in a lazy sort of way, not what you expect. So he was always very, very interesting.

BE: When it came time to cast the film… You ended up with such a dream time that it’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone you tried for but didn’t get.

SF: I can think of one. But I’m not going to tell you who it was. [Laughs.] But, no, the cast was wonderful.

BE: In regards to the structure, the clerks seem to represent the eyes of the viewer, at least to some extent.

SF: Well, I never thought of it quite like that, but of course they were new to the Supreme Court, so you could explain things about the Supreme Court through them. And, anyway, the clerk is the real hero! You know, the clerk who actually turns the Justice ‘round. And the clerks were modern and knew of the people on the street, knew what the demonstrations were about, knew about the injustice. By being younger, they were more sympathetic to the injustice.

BE: Was there ever any issue on your end as far as trying to determine the pacing of the film, given that so much of it takes place in offices and features a lot of conversation?

SF: Well, you knew that a lot of it was involving people talking, didn’t you? [Laughs.] You couldn’t put an action sequence in it, really. It sort of wasn’t appropriate, you know?

BE: Christopher Plummer turns in a particularly strong performance…

SF: Oh, he’s wonderful.

BE: …not that it’s rough to get him to deliver a strong performance, I don’t suppose.

SF: Yeah, he’s fantastic. Fantastic. He was just off his Oscar (for “Beginners”), so he was in great form. And Frank (Langella) is wonderful. Frank’s a wonderful actor. And, you know, when people of that quality turn up, it makes your job a lot easier.

BE: Was it your first time working with most of the cast?

SF: I hadn’t worked with any of them. Not a one of them. But they were bright guys. You’d go into the room, thinking, “Well, I’d better be on my toes today!” [Laughs.]

BE: This isn’t your first time working in television, but you haven’t necessarily done it a lot in recent years. You did, however, helm a pilot in 2008, for Stephen Dorff’s “Skip Tracer.” What do you recall about that experience?

SF: Well, I had to work very, very fast. [Laughs.] But I didn’t mind that. I think working fast is a good thing. And then it sort of disappeared into a black hole!

BE: Any thoughts on why it didn’t get picked up? Obviously there’s no real rhyme or reason to it…

SF: No. I guess people just didn’t respond to it. [Pauses.] Television writing’s become very, very good, hasn’t it?

BE: Absolutely.

SF: It’s interesting that’s happened.

BE: There’s definitely been a tonal shift, I think, as far as the darker television’s allowed to get, the more writers are prone to go in that direction, because they feel like they have more creative freedom. On cable, certainly.

SF: Yes, well, you can see that the studio system’s gotten itself into a sort of jam, so television has picked up the slack. And good for them. I mean, HBO deserves a medal, I think. And I’m sure they get medals! (Laughs.]

BE: Do you have a preference when it comes to working on TV versus film? Or is there any intrinsic difference nowadays?

SF: I scarcely notice the difference. I mean, the pressure’s higher in film ‘cause the cost is higher. And I’ve spent my life trying to sort of protect films from the impact of having to slice the budget. You know, the inflation hasn’t helped.

BE: What are your thoughts on the streaming movement?

SF: Explain about streaming. I’m quite old, you see. [Laughs.] Do you mean on TV?

BE: In terms of video on demand, that sort of thing.

SF: Well, you know, cinema’s always sort of responded to those changes, hasn’t it? In its own peculiar way. Now, I’m old fashioned, I like to see films in cinemas. But, you know, you can’t condemn kids for seeing films that way, for living in that world. It’s just the way the world is.

BE: You touched on this a moment ago, but when it comes to choosing your projects, do you really just tend to do whatever interests you?

SF: Yes, but, of course, you have to get the people with the finances to agree that this is interesting. [Laughs.] But so far… It always seems to me that the first person who has to be interested is me. If I’m not interested, I don’t quite see why an audience would be interested. I always look for something new, something fresh, I think because I have a low threshold for boredom, so when I found this script… No one had made a film about the Supreme Court, and this particular bit, this story about Ali’s life, was so unknown. It was filled with the things that I like.

BE: What aspects of this particular film…or of the script, specifically…surprised you the most? I know you said there was a fair amount you hadn’t known about it.

SF: Well, as I say, I didn’t know this bit of the Ali story, and I’ve never particularly thought about the Supreme Court. I mean, I can see now that the Supreme Court is… I mean, I remember the Clarence Thomas hearings and being quite sort of shocked by them. And now you read quite a lot about the Supreme Court, because it’s sort of controversial. It’s sort of come clean about its centrality to government. But I’m English. We’ve only had a Supreme Court in quite recent history. [Laughs.] And it doesn’t deal with Constitutional matters because, of course, there is no Constitution!

BE: Are you a fan of legal dramas as a rule?

SF: Well, I remember a long time ago that they used to make films like this reminded me of. Otto Preminger made a film, and I remember a film of (John) Frankenheimer’s. And things like “The Best Man” were very, very interesting. I guess they’ve always made films about the President. The truth is, you live in a very, very interesting country. That’s all. You know, to an Englishman, your country is very, very interesting.

BE: It’s certainly diverse enough.

SF: It’s certainly diverse, yes. And – I can see now – getting very, very divided. And getting into its own sort of messes.

BE: Do you think there’s lessons to be learned from this film? That Americans can learn, I mean?

SF: Good God, I wouldn’t presume to say.

BE: That’s a dangerous question, I suppose.

SF: Very dangerous, yes! But I would say that this is the first film I’ve ever made that’s sort of about America. Beyond that, all I can tell you is that it’s a very, very interesting country. [Laughs.] It’s just very, very interesting how the society works.

BE: In regards to projects you’ve pursued, has there ever been anything that you’ve wanted to do that you weren’t able to bring to fruition?

SF: There was a film about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson and equal voting rights that was very, very interesting called “Selma,” that dealt with that and dealt with Johnson, who I’ve always thought of as a great president who made one terrible mistake. And, actually, I’ve just been reading Volume Four of Robert Caro’s biography. He was a fantastic figure, Johnson. I mean, really tragic. Huge, tragic figure. Very, very interesting. So I wish we’d done that. It was a very, very good script.

BE: Pitch it to HBO. It seems like it’d be right up their alley.

SF: [Very long pause, followed by a shrug.]

BE: So the ship’s sailed, then? It’s too late?

SF: Well, it’s that I don’t know. It’s such a complicated world.

BE: I’m just saying, it sounds like something that could yet be viable to American audiences. We’ve got an interesting country, you know.

SF: [Laughs.] Yes. Yes, you do. So I kind of wish they still made films about American society like they used to.

BE: Is it a dangerous question to ask you what you think of the film industry nowadays?

SF: Well, there are sort of two film industries. It’s complicated. Because I can see that the kind of films that I make are different from the kind of films that studios make. And I wish that studios still made films about America, because that’s what… I mean, everything I knew about America, I learned from the cinema. I guess everything young people know about America they get from television or the internet now.

BE: Is there a particular film that leaps to mind that taught you about America, that you think of as a touchstone?

SF: Well, you think of those great films made in the ‘70s. “The Deer Hunter.” Francis Coppola’s films. “The Godfather,” things like that. And then earlier than that, of course, you learned from Andy Hardy films, or westerns, or whatever. So I wish they still made films about America, yes.

BE: To flip it around, are there any films that you think of as definitively British?

SF: What, do you mean now?

BE: Or from the past.

SF: I always thought “The Third Man” was a wonderful film. There were films that were a good record of English life. (David) Lean’s Dickens films were fantastic. And then I…I grew up when Britain was sort of opened up, in the mid-‘50s, and the effect of the war had sort of receded, and there were changes in British society. I mean, I remember when “(My Beautiful) Laundrette” opened here. You could see, when it came here, that it hadn’t crossed people’s minds that Britain was like that. To us…well, that’s what it’s like. Trouble and conflict.  So I suppose it’s… Well, this week, they’ve all been going on about the royal baby, but there’s also a recession going on, so…it’s a very, very curious mix of past and modern. But I suppose the same is true of America. It’s just that your past is shorter. [Laughs.]

BE: It’s funny that you mention “Laundrette.” I remember if fondly, because that was right around the time – give or take a year or so – that I started being introduced to non-mainstream films, if you will.  Although if I’m to be honest, the first such film that really opened me up to that sort of thing was “Sid and Nancy.”

SF: Yes, well, we sort of changed everything around that time, didn’t we? Films like that changed everything.

BE: Were you conscious of that change and trying to help keep it going? Or were you just doing what you were doing?

SF: [Dismissively.] No, you’d just read something that was very, very fresh and very interesting, that describes the world that you see as you walk down the street and don’t fully understand. Someone would write a script explaining what you didn’t understand. And that was very, very interesting.

BE: Were the British filmmakers of that era of like minds?

SF: No, no. As I say, I don’t think anyone thought we were changing the landscape of film. It sort of happened almost in spite of ourselves. [Laughs.] But you knew that you were dealing with something that was very, very modern, very British, and hadn’t been seen before. So in a sense, I suppose if you were lucky to find a subject that was… In television, the great subject was sort of post-war Britain. The British were sort of shut off and dealt with very narrow sections of society. But suddenly, after the war, this new account of Britain opened up. And I made a lot of films about that. [Laughs.]

BE: Were there any actors that you worked with in those days, folks who were up and coming, that you were glad you had your eye on?

SF: What, do you mean Dan Day Lewis? [Laughs.]

BE: Well, I didn’t actually have anyone in mind when I asked that, but he certainly would be the poster boy for that concept.

SF: Yes! Well, I saw four actors…there was a list of four for “My Beautiful Laundrette”: Dan, Ken Branagh, Gary Oldman, and Tim Roth.

BE: Not a bad foursome.

SF: Not at all. [Laughs.] They all sort of sussed out. But that’s what I mean about people at the time having a smell for something that was modern. “My Beautiful Laundrette” launched (producer) Tim Bevan, and a whole sort of generation appeared out of it.

BE: When you’re working with someone who’s just starting out, do you find it’s easy to help mold them into being a better actor in front of the camera?

SF: Well, of course, British actors have this very strong sense of the theater, but all those actors I’ve just talked about were also…well, someone like Dan was completely aware of the cinema and talked much more about the cinema than the theater. So they learned what they’d seen the American actors… You know, after Brando, De Niro, Al Pacino… They’d learned about all of that by watching them and admiring them. So we were all tremendously influenced by American cinema.

BE: I wanted to ask you about some of the other things you’ve worked on over the years.

SF: Yes!

BE: Is there a particular film that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

SF: Oh, lots of them! Listen, I could list hundreds. But, you know, there’s nothing you can do. You can see the ones the audiences likes.

BE: Is there any one in particular that leaps straight to mind, though?

SF: [Long pause.] No. Well, I mean, a lot of them. [Laughs.] Too many to list!

BE: How was the experience of working on “The Hit”?

SF: Good lord…

BE: Sorry to make you stretch your memory.

SF: Well, I was quite new. I’d done a lot of work in television, and it was the first film. And I remember the crew being very, very experienced, skillful, and very, very helpful. But, again, it was a very intelligent script. And the actors were so good. So I really just remember driving through Spain and it being a wonderful time.

BE: You had a pretty decent lead actor for that one, too.

SF: In John? John Hurt? Or do you mean…? I mean, they were all great. Terence (Stamp), too!

BE: Terence was who I was thinking of, actually, but there’s certainly nothing to complain about in John.

SF: Yes! Actors are such extraordinary people. If you get… Well, I’ve generally worked with very, very good actors, so I haven’t had many bad experiences. I take my hat off to them.

BE: The Queen was arguably one of your highest-profile pictures in some time.

SF: Oh, yes!

BE: Royalty is always an easy sell to the masses, I suppose, but were you surprised that it became as successful as it did?

SF: Yes, of course I was! The thought that it might be successful never crossed my mind. I lived in a state of innocence. It never crossed my mind. Also, no one had ever made a film about the Queen before. So it was new territory for the world, so it wasn’t copying anything. I could see that, after that film, a lot of films seemed to come out about the Royal Family, but at the time, we were doing something very, very fresh.

BE:I’m a huge fan of both “The Van” and “The Snapper.“

SF: Ah, “The Snapper”…

BE: How was the process of adapting Roddy Doyle’s books to film? Was it particularly challenging?

SF: On “The Snapper,” Roddy was teaching still, and we gave him a page. He used to come in between classes. We were just ‘round the corner, so he’d come in between classes. Again, when you have material that good, it’s just a joy. But it was all new to me. I had no idea. I somehow didn’t know about the Irish! [Laughs.] Because I’m an English imperialist. So I had to learn about them. They were just wonderful people. And so funny. So spirited. Open to their feelings.

BE: I interviewed Colm Meaney at one of these press tours a couple of years ago – he was great to chat with as well – and he seemed to have really enjoyed working on those films.

SF: Well, he’s wonderful as well.

BE: I really admire you’ve been able to mix it up as far as the types of films you’ve directed: you’ve got these smaller films like “The Snapper” and “The Van,” and then you’ve got something like “The Grifters,” which is decidedly not a gentle picture.

SF: [Laughs.] Yes! I’ve just been very, very lucky, I think. I basically just make films that interest me. And I don’t want to make the same film twice, you know? But I’ve never found a franchise, so… [Laughs.] I guess I’m lot poorer because of that, but…what astonishes me is that, at my age, I can still find things that interest me. And that’s tremendous.

BE: Were you a fan of Jim Thompson’s work before doing “The Grifters”?

SF: Well, I hadn’t read many of his books, but the ones I’d read I thought were really interesting. And then Scorsese approached me about this book, and then Donald Westlake, who wrote the script, he knew a lot about the genre. He had great admiration for Thompson. So he was a very, very good teacher.

BE: How was John Cusack on the film? He was mostly known for teen films at that point.

SF: He used to say that to me. [Laughs.] He used to say, “I’m glad you haven’t seen my earlier films!” But he was terrific! And then he grew up, of course, and by the time I made “High Fidelity,” he was able to support a whole film.

BE: Speaking of “High Fidelity,” even though it’s in the deleted scenes on the DVD, I was always disappointed that we never got to see Harold Ramis playing John’s father in the actual film.

SF: I can’t remember why he got cut. He’s such a lovely man.

BE: It’s one of my favorite books of all time, so I know what a Herculean task you had before you as far as adapting it, but I thought you did a fine job of it. Was there any problem, though, as far as figuring out what bits to cut from the book?

SF: Well, I remember being in a bookshop in Dublin before I made “The Snapper,” and there was an omnibus edition of Roddy Doyle’s three novels, and I remember thinking, “My God, people really love this book. I could easily get into trouble.” [Laughs.] And it was the same with “High Fidelity.” The great thing was that it was not set in London. It was set in Chicago. And I sneered when I heard that, and then I read the script – or I read a draft that John and his two friends had written – and thought, “Oh, I see: this isn’t actually about London,” although Nick (Hornby) had said it was about London, “this is about something else, and London is irrelevant to it.” And everybody assumed it was idiotic to set it in Chicago, but, of course, it turned out not to be.

BE: I’m not going to say that I didn’t have my hesitations at first as well.

SF: No, no, no. We all did. As I said, I had them, too, and everybody had them. And I remember Nick strongly saying, “But it’s about London!” and then realizing, “Well, that’s just a stupid thing to say. It’s about something much more interesting.” What the boys had done… I remember reading the script and thinking, “We’ll deal with the London thing,” and then reading the book again and realizing that, in the way they’d constructed the film, they’d got to the really interesting parts of the book. In a way, it’s an interior monologue, and I think… I was certainly involved in the decision to have the direct address. I don’t know, you just have to approach the material with the same respect that the readers had for it.

BE: Have you ever been pitched the opportunity to make a film adaptation of a book but you took a pass because you didn’t feel you had the appropriate appreciation for the original source material?

SF: People have come to me and suggested writing a film based on books, and I’ve thought, “I’ll believe it when you turn up with a script as good as this book.” [Laughs.] “I’ll believe it when you find a way to get across what is simply wonderful about this book.” You know, that was the sort of miracle of “Dangerous Liaisons”: that Christopher (Hampton) wrote a play and then wrote a script that captured the whole thing. That was his brilliance.

BE: What would you say has been your most challenging adaptation? I’d presume “High Fidelity” must be among them.

SF: Well, no, because if you get the script right, you’d done the work, really. Because someone’s gone ahead of you and solved the problems…or you have an opportunity find out what the problem is that you then have to solve.

BE: Is there any one you look back on and think, “Well, I don’t guess we quite got that one right”?

SF: Every one. [Laughs.] Well, if you’re asking, “Are there hours of self-criticism?” then, yes, there are. But you think, “Oh, God, I never got that,” and then you go, “Oh, I see, that was what that was.”

BE: The stock phrase is that films are never truly finished, they’re just abandoned.

SF: No, no, no. If you don’t sort it out in the script, you never sort it out. You have to deal with it in the writing. Once you’ve got that right… If you’ve got the script right, you’re okay. And if you haven’t, then you never sort it out.

BE: And then you’re fucked.

SF: More or less, yes. [Laughs.] More or less.

Bullz-Eye: So directing Larry David has got to be at least somewhat of a challenge.

Greg Mottola: Um…

BE: I’m not saying good or bad, just…challenging.

GM: It’s… Well, I mean, the process was so specific. I don’t even know if my job title should be called “director” on this movie. [Laughs.] “Associate collaborator” is probably closer to it. But that’s the way it should be. I’m not sure if, in the press notes, they talk so much about how we made it, but essentially it’s the same way Larry does “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” with some key differences. But Larry writes a script-ment, they call it, so this was about 35 pages of paragraphs of what happens in this scene, with an occasional line of dialogue or joke that Larry or his co-writers thought, “Oh, we should definitely get that in.” So they write that in, but, really, no other dialogue.

And we get to the set, we walk through the scene, and we’ll just sort of block it very generally. Like, “You’re gonna enter from that door, you’re gonna be sitting here, you’re gonna come over here, talk about this, you’re gonna leave.” Y’know, just sort of walk through all the little bits of blocking, but never rehearse it at all. So the first time anyone is acting, the cameras are rolling. And it’s usually two cameras, sometimes three if we can squeeze another one in there. And Larry by and large never does the same thing twice. [Laughs.] So as a director, you’re constantly strategizing, “Okay, we did that one time, I’d like to try and get something like that line, maybe in a tighter size, so…let’s switch lenses right now while we’re in the zone, and we’ll swap back and do wide shots again.” So you’re constantly just sort of improvising the directing style as everyone’s improvising the lines.

So directing Larry is just sort of endless conferences between takes about, “We’d like this from that, we didn’t like that,” just sort of honing in on what worked, sometimes stopping entirely and saying, “This doesn’t work at all, let’s start from scratch and just approach it completely differently and do a different version of the scene.” And that happened a few times. We’d have two completely different versions of the same scene…and usually the one that ends up in the movie is the second one. You know, the one thing about Larry is that he’s an absolute pleasure to work with. Despite his sort of screen persona and his point of view about human nature, which—between “Seinfeld” and “Curb”—is pretty clear… [Laughs.] He’s a really happy guy! He’s a guy who walks around whistling and practicing his golf swing. He’s, like, in a good mood 99% of the time. So it’s great to work with him.

BE: I…can’t really wrap my head around that.

GM: [Laughs.] It is hard to believe.

BE: Was it difficult to try and get away from the obvious perception that it feels like an extended “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode? Because it’s not identical by any stretch, but there are definitely moments where you go, “Oh, this is very ‘Curb’-like…”

GM: You know, the thing that kept me awake at night was the worry that it would be too much like “Curb” or that it’d be not enough like “Curb.” [Laughs.] I was constantly in terror. Like, how far do you deviate from something that works so well, so brilliantly? But also, how do you do it when it’s gonna be 100 minutes long and Larry’s not playing himself and make it feel somehow more like a movie than a TV show? And, y’know, in small ways of just, like, choosing where we were gonna be putting the camera, what the focal length is, how we were gonna shoot things, how often to be in close-up… You sort of go in with an idea of how it’s gonna look different, and inevitably it starts to get closer to the show because… [Hesitates.] I decided, “I’m not gonna fight what works.” But I always looked for an opportunity to make it feel a little bit different.

The thing is, part of it is dictated by the fact that the process is you shooting kind of a performance movie. Since everyone is improvising, you’re trying to capture the performance in the moment and trying to have the character in the right place. So I kept saying to myself, “I’m shooting a concert movie that just happens to be a story.” [Laughs.] And not to overthink it too much, because if I started to impose tricky camera moves and steady-cam shots on it, I’d probably find that the camera was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You have to kind of sort of be patient and sit there. And it leads to a fairly basic camera style, but at the same time, that’s…y’know, a lot of comedy lives somewhere in that wide to medium close-up, and that’s the nature of the beast. And I kept thinking, “What would I be doing if this were 70 years ago and I was hired to direct a W.C. Fields film?” [Laughs.] How would I shoot that?

BE: You know, I’d never thought about Larry David as a modern-day W.C. Fields, but there could be some merit to that.

GM: There’s at least a misanthropy overlap on the Venn diagram. [Laughs.]

BE: So when it came down to casting “Clear History,” was it a case of Larry just calling up people he wanted to work with?

GM: It was a mix. We did read a bunch of people. People who maybe wouldn’t normally read were willing to come in and read for Larry. And part of it is that it’s a chemistry thing. We want to make sure people have chemistry with Larry or with each other. And a lot of them were offer-only kind of folks that we just were confident about. Like, we knew Jon Hamm could do it, that Jon Hamm would be perfect. And Jon Hamm, if you’ve seen him on “SNL” or any other comedy things, he’s super funny. Because of the structure of the story, Larry has to avoid his character, so if anything, I wish there was a way to have more of him in the movie. But it didn’t work for the story. But, y’know, there was lots of discussion of “okay, we’ve got this person, who do we think would work with that?” as we were piecing it together.

Some people in the movie read. I almost don’t want to say who, because it feels a little bit like I’m ranking them. But some people who were in the movie did come in and read. The people who were less obvious. Somebody like Danny McBride, yes, he can do improv comedy. He doesn’t need to prove to us that he can improvise. Some people who hadn’t really done improvisation were, I think, happy to come in and try it, because they needed to prove to themselves that they’d be comfortable doing it. And it was great, because most of them came in saying, “I’m not sure I’m gonna want to do this, but let’s try it.” And by the end of the session, we’re having so much fun that they thought, “Oh, well, no matter how bad I look, this was way too much fun, so I’ve got to try.” [Laughs.]

BE: Larry’s good luck charm is in the film: Philip Baker Hall.

GM: Yes! Well, you know, the movie is so much like a Paul Thomas Anderson film… [Starts laughing.] No, it’s not! But, no, I love Philip Baker Hall. I’ve loved him for a long time. He’s, like, one of my favorite actors on the planet. And he’s been so hilarious on “Curb.” And he was on “Seinfeld.” Yeah, he is a good luck charm.

BE: I did a Random Roles interview with him for the Onion AV Club, and it’s one of my favorite interviews of all time.

GM: Oh, he’s amazing. He’s an incredibly sharp, funny guy. And he’s a great guy. You know, he just came in and started improvising things as if he’d been doing that job for the last 50 years. And he’s one of the people who makes Larry more than any other person on earth, because he’s so dry, and he never breaks himself, and the more serious he becomes, the more Larry ruins the take. [Laughs.] So it’s a very nice dynamic.

As a quick sidebar, I don’t usually incorporate moments from TCA panels into interviews, but in this case, I can’t resist, since I managed to ask Larry during the “Clear History” session about the great PBH and what it is about him that makes him break where others don’t:

“This guy, nobody, nobody ever makes me laugh as hard as Philip Baker Hall, starting with ‘Seinfeld’ when he played the librarian, and then I think he did three ‘Curb’s. Well, maybe two, I don’t know. But in both those episodes, he just…he just kills me. It takes so long for me do a scene with him. He never breaks, and he just has this straight-laced way about him that breaks me up. I love him.”

BE: I’m curious: you’re a director, but how did you come to play a director (“Celebrity”), then an assistant director (“Hollywood Ending”), for Woody Allen?

GM: I got a call because, when Woody Allen was shooting “Celebrity,” the opening of the movie was going to have a director directing Melanie Griffith, and it was going to be Sidney Lumet, who Woody was friendly with. And Sidney was actually my teacher at film school. He was the greatest guy on earth. But Sidney had a film that the schedule changed and moved up, and he wasn’t available. And they were scrambling, they were close to shooting, and a mutual friend of mine, Doug McGrath, an old friend, he’d written “Bullets over Broadway” with Woody, and Woody’s casting people said, “Well, maybe let’s get some New York indie director.” And Woody had liked my little first film, “Daytrippers,” and Doug said, “Oh, Greg acts, you should have him come in and read.” And that was an entire lie. I don’t act. I’ve only acted in, like, film school films…and I was terrible! . [Laughs.]

But I had to come in and try. So I actually auditioned for his casting people and then for him, and I got the part. And Woody told me, he thought “Daytrippers”…he said [Does Woody Allen impression.] “You know, your film’s terrific!” You could’ve killed me right there. But I was, like, “Oh, great, now I have nothing to look forward to!” [Laughs.] No, it was amazing. And then Woody’s people called me a couple of years later and said, “Do you want to play an assistant director?” I was demoted in “Hollywood Ending.” If he ever calls me again, I know it’s gonna be to play a gopher. Maybe a P.A.

But the other incidental thing… At the time, I became friendly with Woody’s assistant who he had on the movie, and she ended up becoming my wife. So I met my wife on “Hollywood Ending.” And the super cool part is, Woody loves my wife, and we get to go out to dinner or lunch with them every couple of months, which is amazing.

BE: I can’t believe he’s actually considering going back to stand-up. That’s, like, the best news ever.

GM: I think…I mean, he has told my wife that he’s considered it before, but it sounds like… If he’s talking about it in the press, he must really be thinking about it. Because he doesn’t bring that stuff up if he’s not starting to really… I guess Louis C.K. must’ve really had that influence.

BE: I was just about to say that that’s basically what Louis C.K. said about the buddy comedy with him and Woody: “I didn’t want to say anything and jinx it, but if he’s talking about it, then I guess it’s okay!”

GM: [Laughs.] Yeah, I saw that.

BE: Lastly, since I know you’re on a tight schedule, how was the experience of making a sci-fi comedy like “Paul”?

GM: Um, the experience of making a comedy with a CG main character was…challenging. Because we weren’t really given a schedule that allowed for a CG main character. [Laughs.] I mean, we had to work pretty fast. We were shooting on, like, sort of a normal studio comedy schedule, and then we’d have to stop endlessly for gray ball passes and stills. All these effects guys that come in, they might as well be wearing HazMat suits. They come in, they’ve got, like, surveyors equipment, and they do all this shit that takes forever, and you’re going, “I’m losing light, I’m losing light, what the fuck are you doing?” And then it’s, like, “Okay, and now we’ve got five minutes to shoot the scene.” So we had to work really fast, and it just made it a little hard.

But we also had so much fun making it. I mean, “Paul” was a great experience. But I’m not so sure how quickly I’d go back to doing CG, because it also takes forever to finish it. And, y’know, I was limited, because of the budget we had. Like, I’d literally have to go through and they would make me say in the edit how many times we’d see the alien in the scene, and if it’d be a wide shot or a close-up or an over, and they’d want to just fill in numbers to budget. So I had to decide. I was just limited to what I could do, often. I had to shoot a little more like TV, because I had to keep the alien in close-ups or know where he goes in a wide shot, because every time he appeared it’d be thousands of dollars in animation and all that stuff. It makes you go a little insane after awhile.

I just saw Simon Pegg last night, actually, who was coming through town on his “World’s End” tour, which I can’t wait to see, and…that was a fantastic experience. I loved Working Title, and Universal was great. I honestly don’t know why they let us make that movie. [Laughs.] I think the world has changed enough since we made that movie that it’d be really hard for somebody to say “yes” to it now. But…I hope to use CG again someday. Maybe it’ll surprise me.

One of the best actors from the best television drama of all time has passed away. Robert F. Chew played Proposition Joe on “The Wire,” and in the scene above he gets a threatening visit from Omar.

Check out this excellent obituary from the Baltimore Sun.

Robert F. Chew, a 52-year-old Baltimore actor and teacher who portrayed one of television’s most unforgettable characters as Proposition Joe on HBO’s “The Wire,” died Thursday of apparent heart failure in his sleep at his home in Northeast Baltimore, according to Clarice Chews, his sister.

Mr. Chew, who appeared in “Homicide” and “the Corner,” as well as “The Wire,” also taught and mentored child and young adult actors at Baltimore’s Arena Players, a troupe he stayed with as his television career blossomed through his work with David Simon. Through the Areana Players Youth Theatre, he brought new talent to the attention of casting directors and coached the team of young actors who played students in the Baltimore City School system in Season 4 of “The Wire.”

“Robert was not only an exceptional actor, he was an essential part of the film and theater community in Baltimore,” David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’ said in an email Friday. “He could have gone to New York or Los Angeles and commanded a lot more work, but he loved the city as his home and chose to remain here working. He understood so much about his craft that it was no surprise at all that we would go to him to coach our young actors in season four. He was the conduit through which they internalized their remarkable performances.”

Chew was an absolute master with dialogue and facial expressions, and it’s fascinating to learn in this article that many of the kids who starred in Season 4 of “The Wire” were his students. If you haven’t seen this show, get the DVD or download it now. You won’t regret it.

Oh, wait, I know why you don’t remember it: because it only ran for 13 episodes in the summer of 2009 before ABC axed it.

Thankfully, however, the fine folks at Shout Factory have come through for “Goode Family” fans in the same way they’ve come through for fans of so many other too-quickly-canceled series over the years, offering up a complete-series set which features all of the episodes, including audio commentary from executive producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky on several of them, as well as deleted scenes and premises for unproduced episodes. Even better, the aforementioned Mr. Altschuler was kind enough to spend a few minutes on the phone with Bullz-Eye to discuss the series, not to mention some of the other projects he’s worked on over the course of his career.

John Altschuler: So, Will, what can I do you for?

Bullz-Eye: Well, sir, I do this TV column for Bullz-Eye, I’ve more or less got carte blanche to cover what I want, and, dammit, I want to cover the DVD release of The Goode Family: The Complete Series.

JA: [Laughs.] Well, great…I hope!

BE: It is absolutely great. I was a fan for the all-too-few episodes that aired, so it’s been nice not only to revisit the series as a whole but also to listen to the commentaries that you and Dave recorded for the set.

JA: Excellent, excellent. Well, I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, personally, but I hope it wasn’t too bad for you.

BE: No, no, not painful at all.

JA: Well, good!

BE: So to begin at the beginning, as it were, you and Dave actually knew each other well before you first met up with Mike Judge on “King of the Hill.”

JA: That’s right. Dave Krinsky and I go back to…we went to the University of North Carolina together and moved out to L.A…wow, back in ’87! And we just did movies and TV for, y’know, forever, and got hired on “King of the Hill” in its first season, and that’s how we met Mike Judge.

BE: When you guys went out there, did you have a vision for what you wanted to write? Did you have a specific hankering to work in animation?

JA: We never considered it in our lives. We actually wanted to do features, and…back then it was such a different world. An agency would not represent you if you wanted to do TV and movies. And we wanted to do both, but since nobody would rep that, we were doing features. And then just on a fluke, this woman named Carolyn Strauss at HBO…she was great. Well, obviously, I liked her because she read our movie script, and she said, “Would you guys consider working on a TV show?” And we said, “Yeah!” And she showed us this show called “The High Life.” It was black and white, set in the ‘60s, but it was this guy Adam Resnick who was doing it, so we said, “We’ll do that!” She said, “Will you move to New York?” “Yeah!” “In three days?” Sure!” [Laughs.]

So that’s how we got into TV. And that show didn’t do well, but people liked it. Y’know, it was a good show, and people respected it, so it allowed us to have really our choice of working on television shows…and we liked it. I mean, the thing about TV is that you have a little bit more control over the medium, and you do a lot of them, so you can learn more, whereas you make so few movies that you can’t really learn anything, so you can’t really get better. Now, oddly enough, because the world’s changed, Dave and I are able to do animated TV, live-action TV, live-action movies…everything. Which is pretty great for us.

BE: When you got to “King of the Hill,” was there any sort of learning curve for working in animation?

JA: Yes, but…what’s interesting is that the writing wasn’t that different, because it was a very real show. You know, a lot of reviewers even said that it was the most realistic show on TV. And being from North Carolina, it just sort of fit in our wheelhouse. So the writing itself wasn’t so different, but when we started producing…animation is an incredibly intricate, long process that really takes about 10 years to get a handle on. There’s just all of these different stages and processes, with designs going here and then going to Korea and then coming back…it’s just this never-ending loop. But the writing was actually not that different.

BE: I must tell you that, were it not for “King of the Hill,” no one would know that I once spent three months working for A&B Propane in Chesapeake, Virginia. But the show has provided me with a certain pride in being able to say, “You know, I once sold propane and propane accessories…”

JA: [Laughs.] Yay! Our work is done!

BE: When “King of the Hill” was finally shuffled off into oblivion by Fox, who apparently finally realized that it was still on schedule…

JA: Yes, and they were upset that we were still making money. [Laughs.] I’m never going to understand the workings of that. We were a great show, and they just kept trying to cancel us. But we just kept hanging on until they finally succeeded in canceling us. It was, like, “What’s the deal? Is the problem that we’re too good and we make you too much money?”

I don’t think they ever understood why it was funny. It’s, like, with “Family Guy,” even though they canceled that, too, at least they go, “Oh, we know why it’s funny!” Even though they don’t. They think, “It’s ‘cause it’s crude!” But “King of the Hill” makes no sense to them. It’s not replicable in their minds. It’s, like, “Well, that show’s not funny. It’s boring!” That’s all I can figure out, anyway.

BE: Well, I loved it, anyway. In fact, I’m in the Television Critics Association, so I was in attendance for that table read that you did for the 200^th episode.

JA: Oh, so you’ve heard me blather on before! [Laughs.] Well, good.

BE: So what was the timeline as far as the end of “King of the Hill” and the beginning of “The Goode Family”?  

JA: Well, Dave and I had done the screenplay for “Blades of Glory” while we were doing “King of the Hill,” so what happened was… [Hesitates.] I’m trying to remember the exact timing, but…oh, of course we were still doing “King of the Hill” when we did “The Goode Family,” because Fox was very angry at us. [Laughs.]

BE: My apologies. I had convinced myself that “The Goode Family” was actually after “King of the Hill.”

JA: Hey, trust me, with this brain of mine combined with my general lack of sleep last night, I’m familiar with confusion. But, no, we did the season of “The Goode Family” concurrent with doing “King of the Hill.”

BE: You must’ve been pretty exhausted, then.

JA: You know, it wasn’t bad, because the timing of it…we only did the pilot and the 12 episodes of “The Goode Family,” and…Dave and I were really efficient. [Laughs.] And we were so ahead with “King of the Hill.” We had just great personnel – this woman Garland Testa was helping – so “King of the Hill” was going really fairly well, so we could concentrate. So we had a lot going on, but…it’s strange. I don’t know if you know this feeling where…well, like you just said, you cover what you want to cover for your column, so you cover a lot of things, I bet, which means you’re not bored and you’re not angry, because you’re sort of in control of what you’re doing. But when you’re on someone else’s clock and someone else’s dime, that’s devastating. When it’s your show, though, it’s kind of energizing. If that makes sense.

BE: It does, thanks to you putting it into my frame of reference. [Laughs.] Okay, so it’s fair to say that “The Goode Family” wasn’t exactly on for a lengthy period of time, but was there ever anything that had to be changed because ABC said, “Sorry, you can’t do that”?

JA: You know, it’s interesting, because ABC were actually really good partners creatively. With all the problems of when we were aired and how we were aired and picking shows to pair us with that we were not a great fit, they were very good with us creatively. The only thing we would run into were things like…we had the character of Charlie, who the gruff, Archie Bunker-ish character, except milder, say something like, “Let’s go down to the Asian place, those guys really know their way around a pig.” And it’d be, like, “How is this a Standards note?” And they’d go, “Well, you’re implying that all Asians like pork.” And I’m, like, “They do!” [Laughs.] “What do you want me to say? You go find me an Asian that doesn’t like pork that isn’t Buddhist…and even the Buddhists like pork!” So that was sort of frustrating.

And then one time we did an episode where the neo-Nazis adopt a highway, and at one point…what happened was that the main Standards guy was out of town, and we got these Standards notes that were just unbelievable. They wanted to shut us down! They even cited the word “sturm und drang,” which is just an uproar, because they thought it was some sort of slur! At one point, I was, like, “Okay, are you afraid we’re going to offend the neo-Nazis? Because I can’t figure out what the hell is going on!” And to be fair, when the normal guy got back…see, the stuff that Dave and Mike I do, we have absolutely no interest in offending people. We just don’t. But we like dealing with interesting stuff that nobody else deals with. So when you’re first working with us, it’s, like, “Oh, my God, you can’t do that, you can’t do that,” but then when you see how we handle it…

Like, when you pitch, “We’re going to do a show about class warfare in the lesbian community,” they’re horrified. But then they see it, and…the lesbians loved our show! [Laughs.] Basically, they see that we don’t do hatchet jobs. In fact, some people said that one reason maybe why the show didn’t catch on was that we didn’t do a hatchet job, that we sort of made the Goode family likeable when maybe we would’ve been better off just going the other direction. But that’s just not what we do. Look at “King of the Hill.” We’re just not into ridicule.

BE: And like “King of the Hill,” “The Goode Family” may have been a little exaggerated at times, but for the most part you tried to paint character as realistically as possible.

JA: Yeah, exactly. And, oh, my God, you come out here to California, my friend, and I’ll show you that things might seem a little bit ridiculous on that show, but we actually had to tone down reality to put it on that show. [Laughs.]

BE: To look at the IMDb page for “The Goode Family,” you kind of see that the show’s biggest problem was that people had such diverse opinions about it. The first user review calls it “the best show ever,” while the “Did You Know?” section leads off by noting that the show was canceled after a single season because of poor ratings and poor critical reception.

JA: Yeah, but, y’know, we actually got great reviews. For the most part, anyway. I mean stunningly good reviews. The bad reviews that we got…it’s pretty interesting and actually makes sense, but we got scathing reviews from The New York Times, NPR, and The San Francisco Chronicle. And it’s like a fucking joke, because they’re literally, like, “Oh, my God, how can you make fun of global warming?” But to be honest, we were pretty freaking happy, because we got a lot of great reviews. The sad thing, though, was that the reviews tended to say, “Watch it while you can.” [Laughs.] I remember one case…it was a good review, but the guy said, “The show’s fantastic, but it will not make it past the first season. If it was on Fox, it’d last for eight seasons, but on ABC, it’s gonna be gone.”

So there were a lot of reviews like that, and…it’s interesting, and we’ll never know if it was the wrong place, the wrong time, if the show wasn’t hard-hitting enough. We loved it, though, and when people watch it, when people actually see it, they seem to really respond to it. “That was great!” And all we can do is say, “Well, we thought so.” So who knows why it didn’t take off?

BE: Before the show premiered, did you consider the fact that, because it was being so politically correct to an absurd degree, it might take time to find an audience?

JA: You know, what’s interesting is…I thought it would connect, even though we knew it was weird going on ABC. We were really worried when we were put with “Wipe Out.” It was, like, “Oh, boy, this doesn’t seem like our audience.” This one comedian said, “You know the people you made your show about…? People really hate those people. They really don’t want to hang out with them.” And we were, like, “Okay…” [Laughs.] It was interesting, though, that the lefty blogosphere types really liked the show. Lesbians, even wacko environmentalists, they sort of understood that, yes, we were making fun of them, but it wasn’t ugly making-fun. But the ABC audience for a family game show was decidedly different.

BE: How long ago did you start working on the DVD set? Was it right after the show went off the air, or did it only come about because Shout Factory asked about doing one?

JA: Well, this was very frustrating, actually. The DVD set happened because of the tenacity of this guy named Glenn Lucas, but what was frustrating was that…I don’t know, I guess we kind of fell between eras, sort of. It wasn’t actually before Hulu, but it was before Hulu had a lot of deals set up. You couldn’t get “The Goode Family” anywhere. You couldn’t stream it, you couldn’t buy downloads…it just wasn’t available! But basically Shout Factory just loved the show, and this guy Glenn Lucas made the deal for us. It was a tough deal, because a lot of times with Hollywood, if there’s not a lot of money involved, companies will just say, “Eh, let it go.” And not “let it go, go ahead and do it,” but, “nah, we’d rather not.” So it took a few years, but we did it, and…it just makes me happy. Because, y’know, we’ve just put so much work into the underground-comic look of the show that I just think is so beautiful. And, I mean, where else do you get to see a vegan dog running around eating all of the other pets in the neighborhood? [Laughs.] Well, I think it’s fun, anyway…

BE: Shout Factory invariably does a great job with their reissues.

JA: Oh, they’re a top-flight company. They’re just good at what they do, and they’re solid citizens. We’re going to keep working with them.

BE: If only you could get them to put out the rest of the “King of the Hill” seasons…

JA: Oh, God, they want to.

BE: Do they, really?

JA: They do! They’ve been trying, but…I guess it’s just not going to happen.

BE: That sucks.

JA: Yeah. And it’s really frustrating because, like Mike Judge points out, Fox stopped putting them out just as the show had a resurgence and started getting really good again. [Laughs.] And he wants those out on DVD, but they’re not.

BE: Well, at least they’re available for online screening. That’s something.

JA: Something, yes. But it’s still frustrating.

BE: Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask about a few other things very quickly, the first being the script for “Blades of Glory.” Given that you and Dave came out with the intent of working on features, that must’ve been great to get that big-screen break at last.

JA: Oh, it was great. And it was interesting, because Dave and I were brought on, and we did the script, and it got put right into production. It was, like, “Wow, when does that happen?” [Laughs.] It was a very fun project, because the initial idea was not ours. The script was, but the initial idea wasn’t. We just stepped in, and we were, like, “Okay, let’s take this and treat it incredibly seriously, where everything with these skaters is life or death, and take it completely over the top.” It’s been incredibly satisfying, because people just love that movie. I mean, I can’t even tell you the range of people. There’s this judge who’s very high up in the ranks, and his favorite movie is “Blades of Glory,” and I met a woman at a party who said, “You know, we bought that movie  for my dad because it’s the only thing that makes him laugh!” So it’s beyond gratifying. And it opened up a lot of doors for us. So we’re very proud of it.

BE: So what’s the status of “Silicon Valley,” the live-action pilot you guys are doing with Mike for HBO?

JA: We’re working on that as we speak. Literally. We’re starting to cast that, and Mike Judge is going to direct it, which I think is great. We love it. We think it’s a show that needs to be made, because…my brother is an electrical engineer, my brother-in-law is an electrical engineer, Mike Judge was an engineer, and the one thing we’ve noticed is that nobody gets these guys right. I mean, “The Big Bang Theory” is fine, but that’s not who these people are, and it’s such an interesting, vibrant world where everything’s happening. So it was, like, “Oh, let’s go make fun of that!” [Laughs.]

BE: Finally, I feel as though it’s my responsibility to get status updates on everything currently attributed to you on IMDb.

JA: [Laughs.] Well, “The Jetsons” is…that’s funny, we were just talking about that recently. Who knows what’s going to happen with that? But “The Giants of Groil” definitely isn’t going to happen. And “Woody Woodpecker,” man, that’s gonna be a long, long, long process. Like, we just started, and animated movies…by the time you say, “Oh, we’re rolling,” it’s four years later. But we’re doing this project, “Brigadier Gerard,” that has Steve Carell attached to star and Jay Roach to direct. It’s hard making movies these days, though. It’s tough. Good thing you’re in TV, my friend!

Indeed, I was sufficiently affected by it that I continued to keep tabs on the case over the years, right up through when Baldwin, Echols, and Misskelley were finally released after almost 20 years behind bars. Similarly, directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the gentlemen behind the camera for “Paradise Lost,” continued to follow the saga of the West Memphis Three, resulting in two sequels, “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations” and “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory.”

The whole trilogy has just been released in a four-disc set – one for each film, plus an extra disc of bonus material – and upon receiving a review copy, I was pitched an interview with Berlinger. At first, I hesitated, thinking, “Geez, do I have any place to run this?” Then I realized, “Hello, technicality: all three films made their debut on HBO, so I’m calling in a loophole and putting this baby in ‘The Light from the TV Shows’!” The next thing you know, I’m on the phone with Mr. Berlinger, having the chat that sits before you now. Read on…

Bullz-Eye: I should probably start by telling you that I’ve just spent a fair amount of the preceding 24 hours plowing through the new “Paradise Lost Trilogy” set.

Joe Berlinger: Oh, my God. Watching it in one fell swoop…

BE: Yeah, I said on Facebook, “This is a whole lot of depressing footage to watch and know that you’re only going to get a semi-happy ending in the end.”

JB: Yeah, I know. Imagine me living it! [Laughs.] At least I spread it out over two decades. But to pile it all on like that…I’m actually curious: how does it feel watching one after another? Does it feel repetitive?

BE: No, it doesn’t. [Hesitates.] Well, okay, there are moments, I guess. But they’re acceptable knowing the fact that each one was made several years after the next.

JB: Okay, so it holds up as a trilogy, watching one after another?

BE: I’d say so.

JB: Cool!

BE: Okay, let’s go all the way back to the very beginning. You’ve probably discussed this elsewhere, but how did you and (fellow “Paradise Lost” director) Bruce Sinofsky first begin your collaboration?

JB: Our collaboration together as filmmakers? Or do you mean our collaboration on (the “Paradise Lost” films)?

BE: As filmmakers.

JB: We met years ago. The Maysles brothers are famous documentarians. They kind of were one of the pioneers of what we do. Y’know, cinéma vérité. They did films like “Grey Gardens,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Salesman,” and, y’know, classic cinéma vérité films in the ‘60s, when that art form was just becoming discovered. [Hesitates.] Do you know “Gimme Shelter,” by any chance?

BE: Absolutely, yeah.

JB: Okay, so these are the guys who made those films. The Maysles brothers, (Richard) Leacock, (D.A.) Pennebaker…all these guys are the godfathers of cinéma vérité, and we were of disciples of that form. Bruce was an editor at the company, mainly working on television commercials, ‘cause they…like many documentarians, including myself, we support ourselves not just by making documentaries but also by doing TV spots and corporate filmmaking. I actually had been working… [Hesitates.] This is, like, way too much detail.

BE: No, no, you’re fine.

JB: Well, I had actually been working in the advertising business, for a big ad agency called Ogilvy & Mather, and we had hired the Maysles brothers to do some real-people commercials. This was, like, years ago. When I was 25 years old. [Laughs.] I was a junior producer, and David Maysles – who died in 1987 – and I kind of hit it off, and I wanted to get into the film business, and I loved documentaries. And they wanted someone to try and get them more TV commercial work, so I was asked to come join the…well, Maysles Films is what it was called, but to join the Maysles brothers to help them push into commercial work. I mean, they were already doing commercial work, but I was being hired to kind of push that business along. For me, I kind of used it as my film school, because I was a language major in college and didn’t have any formal film training. So it was a great opportunity for me. And that’s where Bruce and I met.

Because he was the senior editor for TV commercials and I was the guy who went out and brought that work in, Bruce and I just developed a really nice friendship in those years. And then I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker. I made a short film called “Outrageous Taxi Stories” in 1989, which was basically…y’know, I found taxi drivers telling me the most outrageous things that ever happened in their cabs over the years. It was a half-hour film that actually did quite well on the film-festival circuit. I asked Bruce to cut that film for me – he and I just really were hitting it off both as friends and collaborators – and we kind of observed that, after the death of David Maysles, Maysles Films wasn’t really making those kinds of cinéma vérité films that made them famous…maybe because they were a victim of my successful efforts to get them commercials. [Laughs.] So Bruce and I decided to go and make our own kind of ambiguous human-portrait cinéma vérité film called “Brother’s Keeper.” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

BE: I am.

JB: Okay, so Bruce and I went off to make “Brother’s Keeper” kind of on the weekends, y’know, maxing out every credit card we could get our hands on, and it was one of those Cinderella stories where, even though we were shooting the film part-time and really going broke and investing everything we had at the time… I was 28 when we were shooting “Brother’s Keeper,” and Bruce is almost five years older than me, so he was 33 or 34, and when we were literally down to our last penny and maxed out on a bunch of credit cards, the film got into Sundance and won the audience prize and kind of launched our careers…which leads to “Paradise Lost.”

Sheila Nevins at HBO saw “Brother’s Keeper,” really liked it, and wanted us to make a film for her. This was literally…”Brother’s Keeper” came out in ’92, and in June of ’93 Sheila sent us a newspaper clipping. It was not a big story. It wasn’t even on the front page. It was basically an AP wire service story that had gotten picked up and buried somewhere in the New York Times, but when a local story gets reduced to the AP wire, it kind of makes it very cut and dry, so the story we read…one of the ironies of our three-film, two-decade journey on this story is that we were sent an article by Sheila that made it seem like these kids were guilty. And that’s the story that HBO wanted us to look into: how could three kids be so twisted and disaffected from life that they could do such a horrible, rotten thing as murder three eight-year-old boys in a devil-worshipping ritual? And that’s really what sent us down on that mission. [Laughs.] Which is kind of funny when you think about what the films have come to symbolize and the amount of time and effort that’s gone into them, but at the time…

Just a few years before, there was that Jamie Bulger case in the UK that I was also trying to make a film about, but I couldn’t get it together. You know, there were those two young kids who lured a younger boy out into the railroad tracks and murdered him and beat him senselessly, and it was all caught on closed circuit television. So when we were sent this article by Sheila, we all talked about how, boy, there seems to be a pattern of teen killers, and let’s go find out what that’s about. So we went down to Arkansas thinking we were making a real-life “River’s Edge” about bad guys, and the first couple of months… [Hesitates.] By the way, do you want me to stop?

BE: No, no, no!

JB: Okay, because I’m off and running…and I’m just kind of running off at the mouth here. [Laughs.]

BE: It’s cool. Hey, it’s your story!

JB: I just hope you’re recording. [Laughs.] Because no one could possibly be writing all of this down! But that’s what’s so fascinating to me about this whole experience. The first couple of months…we literally arrived within days of the arrest. June of ’93 was when we started embedding ourselves in that community, a full eight months before the trial started. And just to go off on an aside, I think that’s the real… [Hesitates.] While I think the third film is really good and the second film is deeply flawed, I think that first film is…in addition to being an important film in the sense of its advocacy result of kind of launching this worldwide movement, I’m actually just very proud of that film aesthetically. We just did a lot of really hard work and deeply embedding ourselves into that community. And when you think about the access that we got to all of the families of the victims, all of the families of the accused, the defense, the prosecution…I mean, the fact that it was us, the “Paradise Lost” filmmakers, who convinced everybody to allow cameras in the courtroom…there would be no footage of the trial being used by many other productions – not just ours – and news organizations if it wasn’t for the work that we did to convince everybody to let us film those trials. So I think that first film is just a pretty amazing example of just getting incredible access.

But the first couple of months, we were primarily spending… [Hesitates.] The reason I mention that is not to pat ourselves on the back but to make the point that we arrived within days of the arrest and really…I mean, we just camped out in town for eight months, which I think was the last time I have so invested that much time in a project. The Metallica film (“Some Kind of Monster”), we certainly spent a lot of time, but we went back and forth. This was really descending into this world and staying and doing everything we could to build relationships, and it’s the building of those relationships that produced that access. That’s what news organizations and television coverage just isn’t able to do. Anyway…

BE: Um…

JB: Sorry, sorry. Go ahead.

BE: No, don’t apologize, you’re fine. I’ve been enjoying this. But I was just curious: you were talking about how you went in knowing what HBO was looking for with the film, but was there a particular point where you told them, “Um, I don’t think this is going in quite the direction you anticipated”?

JB: Yeah. Y’know, I wouldn’t say the light bulb went off one day and we said, “Oh, my God, they’re definitely innocent!” It’s not like one day we just completely turned on a dime. But as I said, the first couple of months we primarily spent with the families of the victims. We were tentatively getting access to the families of the accused, but that took a little more time. But when you come down making a film, thinking you’re making one about guilty teenagers, and you spent time mainly with the families of the victims, and the police and the prosecution are trying to convince you of the solidity of their case…we had no reason to suspect otherwise. But by the third month, we had actually started spending time with the families of the accused, and they seemed very credible and sympathetic. And that, of course, troubles you. But the thing that really made us question that something was wrong here was…well, by November, we finally negotiated access to the West Memphis Three – although obviously they weren’t called the West Memphis Three at that time – and their lawyers. The guys were being held without bail in county lockup awaiting trial, and we did a series of interviews with them that you see in the film, and after those interviews were over, we just…I mean, again, the light bulb didn’t go off in terms of us saying, “Oh, my God, they’re innocent,” but it did in the sense that we were, like, “Something is really, really wrong here. They don’t feel like they did this.”

The thing that had the most impact on me was when I was interviewing Jason Baldwin, who you see in the film as a sweet, shy, credible kid. And over the course of the three films…by the time you see him in “Paradise Lost 3,” he’s developed into an incredibly morally upright, incredibly positive person, but that quality you saw even in that little kid. And when I looked down at his wrists…I mean, the kid was scrawny. He had the tiniest little wrists. And when I looked at those wrists and thought about what the detectives had told me he had done with a survival knife, it just didn’t add up. Echols admittedly was a tougher read because he seemed to be enjoying the attention, didn’t quite realize what he had gotten himself into, and kind of liked the spotlight, but he too was extremely credible. And Misskelley is not the most intelligent communicator, but he also felt very believable. And so after we had done several rounds of interviews with these guys, I remember with great trepidation calling Sheila Nevins up at HBO, thinking they might actually pull the film or something, and telling her, “Bruce and I feel like these guys might not have done it.” And much to her credit, and thank goodness, she became even more excited about the potential of the project and said, “Go wherever the story takes you. If these are innocent guys, then that’s an even better story.”

BE: Wow, a network exec with a journalist’s instincts. That’s impressive.

JB: Exactly! And, again, at the time, the outrageous Salem witch hunt of rumor and innuendo that actually took place, that was the farthest thing from our minds. Back in November of ’93, when we realized something was amiss and that these guys seemed like they were innocent, we actually assumed it would work itself out at trial. That’s another reason we kind of stayed for such a long period embedding ourselves: we felt that, from a film standpoint, it’s not the trial that’s going to be the most important part of the film, but the events leading up to the trial. Because we assumed that these guys would ultimately be acquitted, because, y’know, how could they be convicted on such flimsy evidence? That was when I still had faith and belief in the justice system. Because, of course, I had just come off of…I don’t remember if you said you knew “Brother’s Keeper” or not, but I had just come off an amazing situation where the truth had come out at trial and the guy was acquitted. So we were not prepared for the media to descend like vultures.

One of the reasons we structured “Paradise Lost 3” through all of that media over the years was to show just how the media polluted the situation. Just the printing of the confession…not in its multipart problematic form, but they printed just the final result, as if it was given as one contiguous problem-free statement. That was what was printed in the newspaper. And they had a ceremonial change of venue 150 miles to Corning, Arkansas, but in a television and radio age, that is largely ceremonial and meaningless, because the entire state was blanketed with that confession and news about that confession. So by the time the trial started, we realized that we were into some other place, that there was no way these guys were going to get acquitted, that it was a trial based on rumor and innuendo and fear and all the things you see in the film. So it was really in November of ’93, when we did those first series of interviews, that we just felt like, “Wow, this is not what we came down for…”

BE: You said you consider the second film to be deeply flawed. What about it is flawed to you?

JB: Um, well, it’s…it’s my least favorite of the three. Y’know, it’s not a bad film, but it’s, uh, not a great film, either. [Laughs.] It was borne out of…okay, the first film was initially borne out of trying to tell a story. It had a cinematic impulse, a storytelling impulse, at its core, and we had tremendous access and an unfolding, evolving story to literally capture as it unfolded before our cameras because we were there and made ourselves be at the right place at the right time. The second film is kind of the opposite, in a sense. It’s advocacy in search of storytelling.

First of all, cameras – most specifically our cameras – were banned from the appeals process, so there was no unfolding dramatic narrative of courtroom material to film, which, structurally speaking, purely from a cinematic standpoint, gives you something to hang things on. We lacked that. The appeals process is inherently un-cinematic and slow-moving.  And in hindsight, the information contained in that film is not wholly accurate. I mean, it’s accurate in the sense that it’s a time capsule of the state of the investigation in 1998 and 1999. I remember we shot that film just two years after the first “Paradise Lost” movie came out, and at the time…

You know, some have accused “Paradise Lost 2” of pointing the finger at the wrong person, meaning Mark Byers. I don’t subscribe to that theory. That is not why I think the movie is flawed. Because at the time…well, first of all, we the filmmakers did not create the suspicion, we were following the suspicion. At the time, the state of the investigation…and, interestingly, the state of forensic science at that time, and that particular profiler, those forensic experts that were hired by the WM3.org people…the prevailing theory was that the wounds were human bite marks, and the fact that Byers had removed his teeth, as well as some of the many other areas of suspicion that were directed towards him, made him somebody that the investigation was looking at.

As somebody in the truth business, it troubles me that that film at the time documented the then-prevailing theory, so it’s truthful in the sense that we were documenting the theory at the time, but…the theory is wrong. And that troubles me that, in hindsight, the footage and…you know,  the document that was put out into the world about what these guys felt was the theory of the crime was incorrect. So that troubles me. But it is a correct retelling or recapturing of that particular time. Now, some people have accused us of doing to Mark Byers what was done to Damien in that film, the rumor and innuendo, and that is a charge that I don’t agree with. I guess a lot of people don’t see it this way, as I’ve learned over the years, but the fact that he was allowed to take a lie detector test and the fact that he willingly participated in the film in which he confronts his accusers – the accusers weren’t us, they were many, many people all around him, including WM3.org – ironically, the fact that the film includes the lie detector test that he passes at the end, in many ways the inclusion of that underscores the very theme that it is quite dangerous to point a finger at somebody based on rumor and innuendo. And I think the film takes you on that journey of suspicion and then, at the end, he passes the lie detector test and leaves that question open for others to investigate.

So my feeling that it’s a flawed film is not the Byers question. My feeling that it’s a flawed film is that it lacks a driving narrative the way the first film did, and, y’know, it ultimately presents a theory that has now been discarded. And that troubles me. At the time, it felt very credible and real, but that theory now is no longer valid. I believe the forensic work that has been done courtesy of Peter Jackson’s reinvestigation is extremely rock solid, but 10 years from now, will we look back and say that there were problems with that investigation? That’s the question that I guess the second film causes me to have.

BE: Actually, I was just going to ask you what your thoughts were on “West of Memphis.”

JB: Um…what did you think of it?

BE: A-ha! Well, I haven’t seen it yet – it hasn’t shown in my area – so I have that to fall back on.

JB: [Laughs.] You know, I think it’s a very strong film. I think it’s a strong companion film to the “Paradise Lost” series. Um…I think it’s aesthetically and philosophically a very different film. “West of Memphis”…well,  I want to say first of all that there can’t be enough films about this injustice, both for the specific need to exonerate these guys, which is unfinished business, and for the general need to remind people that these kinds of wrongful conviction cases happen all the time. You know, the fluke in this case is not that three teens were wrongfully convicted. The fluke in this case was that there happened to be filmmakers around to capture it. And so I’m fully supportive of “West of Memphis” as a strong companion piece to the whole canon of books and movies about this case. I think they’re coming at it from a different place, which is great.

I look at the “Paradise Lost” trilogy as independent journalism. Objective independent journalism, meaning we are independent of our subjects. Whereas “West of Memphis” is being made by the film’s subjects. The people who created the news of that specific reinvestigation, the people who paid for that investigation, are the people paying for this documentary. And so, to me, that is probably one of the greatest examples of impassioned advocacy filmmaking that I can think of. But I think it’s different than the independent journalism, the independence from our subjects that the “Paradise Lost” trilogy represents. [Hesitates.] Does that make sense, what I’m saying?

BE: It does.

JB: And I think the other major difference between the films is that…I believe (director) Amy Berg started shooting this film at the end of 2009, so it is more of a retrospective look in hindsight at the actions that some of the people involved in this case took to fight for the freedom of, in particular, Damien Echols. Whereas the “Paradise Lost” series begins days after the arrest and ends when they get out of prison, and we were there for two decades. So we were kind of immersed, and that’s why, when you see six and a half hours of the trilogy, it is immersive twists and turns while it is unfolding. As opposed to the very cogent…she does an excellent job of putting all the pieces together and retelling the story, but it’s being retold in hindsight. I think that’s a different aesthetic feeling. It’s a strong film, but it’s a different aesthetic feeling than being immersed. And I think there’s a fundamental difference.

Again, please understand that I’m not criticizing at all. I’m just trying to distinguish between the two. Because I think it’s a super strong film and people should definitely see it, but I think there’s a difference between our following/uncovering the news as independent journalists versus actually creating the news and putting it on film. The film is largely about Peter Jackson’s efforts to reinvestigate the crime in order to free Echols and, by extension, the other two. But Jason and Jessie aren’t really in “West of Memphis.” Jason Baldwin’s team did some outstanding forensic and legal work that is not in the film. So it is some of the West Memphis Three players telling their own story, and that kind of impassioned advocacy I think is really strong, but it’s different than… In other words, they (the subjects of the film) are telling their own story about the news that they are making, whereas I think the “Paradise Lost” trilogy is covering or following and uncovering the news as it’s unfolding independent of the film’s subjects.

BE: On a related note, I feel like it’s a testament to the level of awareness that people have of this case that, rather than being turned into a Lifetime movie, it’s going to be a theatrical release with big-name actors being directed by Atom Egoyan. (“Devil’s Knot,” starring Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth, is scheduled to hit the big screen in 2013.)

JB: [Laughs.] I know, right? No, it’s great that he’s doing it. Atom and I have been touch about his film, and I’m very excited for it.

BE: Honestly, he’s the biggest reason that I’m intrigued about it. You never know how sensational films like this will turn out, but I have faith that if he’s helming it, it’s going to be as good as it possibly could be.

JB: I’m curious about it, too, and I have tremendous…of all the filmmakers I can think, he would be way high on the list, so I’m glad it’s him and I share your feelings. Over the years we ourselves have been approached about turning the original “Paradise Lost” into a feature film, and I always demurred because I felt like particularly the first film is an incredibly complex weave of a lot of balls in the air, and the very process of dramatizing a story and making it fit the Aristotelian rules of drama that you must do to make a feature film would so oversimplify the power and content of what “Paradise Lost” is that I felt like I did not want to trivialize my own work by making a feature film about it. [Laughs.] But, look, Atom’s a great filmmaker. “The Sweet Hereafter” is one of my all time favorite movies, so I’m truly excited to see what he’s gonna do with it. But we had been approached over the years, and it’s just a job that I did not want to take on.

BE: But if you can’t trust the guy who did “The Sweet Hereafter” to do a good job, who can you trust?

JB: Exactly!

Bullz-Eye: To begin at the beginning, how did you find your way into “Hunted”? Was it an audition situation, or did they come looking for you specifically?

Melissa George: They were very strict about making people read. Some jobs, not so much, they know who they want. But “Hunted” is (being produced by) HBO and BBC together, and they were both having to choose and decide, so we had the English with the Americans, so that’s why the audition process was so long.

I was walking on the West Side Highway in New York, and my phone rang. It was my agent saying, “I’ve just read the most dynamic role for a woman, it’s as complex as what you played on ‘In Treatment,’ with a bit of action, which you’ve done before. It’s shooting in Europe, it’s really good, it’s written by Frank Spotnitz, it’s an English and American production…you’ve got to get it.” That’s kind of what he said. And I hate when they say that, ‘cause that means no sleep for me. Because, y’know, of course if it’s that great I want to play it. And I was then shooting a movie with Julia Stiles in Los Angeles (“Between Us”) and I was busy with that, and I had a video camera set up in the hotel room, and I put together a scene. They asked me to do three scenes, but I just did one. It was the one where she confronts her ex in the apartment. Very emotional. And I remember I was just so choked up…and I was recording myself, not speaking to anybody, because I didn’t have an actor reading with me. And I was, like, “Oh, my God, I really love this part…” And I cut, printed, and sent it. I couldn’t do any more scenes because I was really upset. I felt really strongly about this woman. And I waited. I didn’t care, because I was shooting a movie.

Then I got a call saying, “They want you to meet with Frank and read a scene.” I was, like, “Oh, my God…” There were so many freaking people in this room. [Laughs.] So many people! I thought it was just going to be me. Every actor thinks that when you’re asked to read, it’s just gonna be you. But it was a lot of people, and I was on my own. But I met Frank, and he said to me later on, once I’d gotten the role, that he knew from when I put myself on tape, and when I went in to read, he said, “I just feel really connected to her.” But that was it. I didn’t hear for awhile after that, so I was, like, “Ugh, this is gonna be one of those jobs…” And then S.J. (Clarkson), who’s directing, got onboard, and…the director has a big say, so Frank’s got his choice made, BBC and HBO made theirs, but now I have to wait for S.J. to make hers. So I had to meet her. They fly me from New York to L.A. to have lunch, and all we do is talk about film, and then…I was the only girl, but I had to read with lots of guys. And none of the guys I read with got it. [Laughs.] But I was the only girl they were using, and yet still hadn’t told me that I’d got it! And I was, like, “What’s going on here?”

But I was so convinced that I was onboard that I went around convincing everyone else around me that I was. I was, like, “Oh, yeah, I’m gonna be playing this role in a few months…” But I hadn’t heard anything, and I was going, “This is ridiculous! They’re going all over the world looking for this actress, every single country, and I’m, like, “Well, does she have to be from a particular place?” “No, they don’t care where she’s from, because she has to play so many nationalities, so many different languages and accents.” So I waited while they went around the globe, reading hundreds of girls, and they were losing me, because I was going, “Well, if they wait too long…” And then finally everyone was, like, “C’mon, S.J.!” So that’s the story. And it was so funny on set, because while we were filming in Morocco, S.J. would come up to me and speak French, then she’d say, “Oh, sorry, wrong actress.” Like she’d found a girl in France that she really liked. I was, like, “Shut up, I know you didn’t find anybody!” [Laughs.] It was one of those things where the joke went on forever. Like, the whole season of the show. “Sorry, what’s your name?” So I don’t quite know what happened that made it take so long to decide, but I know that when I seize on something, man, I’d better get the job. Because I was honestly delusional. I was, like, “Yes, I’m shooting London in a few months,” and everyone was, like, “But have they said ‘yes’?” “No. But I’m going to be shooting!”

BE: You obviously latched on to the part pretty quickly, but—if it’s not a spoiler—do you recall the particular moment in the script where you first realized, “Oh, I’ve got to do this”?

MG: You know, it was just… I had a very good childhood, so it’s not like I related to this woman losing her mother and being tortured as a child and traumatized to the point where she has to be a spy in order to get revenge on the world. None of that. But when a woman suffers, whether it’s the role I’m playing or not, I just feel like I want to hold them and hug them and be there for them and help them. And as an actress, I also want to show the audience that they’re somebody more than just what you might read. So I think it was just a combination of me feeling for her and then trying to sensitize that. And then all the action…that’s lovely to read when you’re sitting in Central Park and having a coffee. It’s, like, “Oh, this is like a great book!” But the reality of actually shooting the show…? That’s a whole different thing. [Laughs.]

BE: You mentioning Central Park actually ties into what I was just about to observe, which is that you must’ve really wanted the part, given that it necessitated a major move for you.

MG: Well, you know, it’s so strange, because you start fantasizing about this life as this spy and living in London and Morocco, but it’s like I was saying: when you’re sitting in a park, it’s, like, “Oh, that would be so fun,” but then suddenly it’s, “Oh, my God, it really came true!” And once it comes true, you don’t regret it, you’ve got to run with it. But, yes, it’s hard. I mean, I moved to London, and I had the best time and…I miss New York, but I’ve learned that, as an actor, I can’t live my life missing things, because you’re always going to be moving around doing things, the more you fight it, the more depressed you get. You’ve got to approach it, like, “This is great, living in a house I’ve never lived in before!” [Laughs.]

The WIGS channel on YouTube could unkindly be called the online equivalent of television’s Lifetime network, specializing in stories of the lives of women that are, ironically, primarily created by men. The first of these web series is “Jan,” created, written and directed by Jon Avnet, who is probably best known for producing hit ’80s and ’90s films like “Risky Business” and “Fried Green Tomatoes,” the latter of which he also directed. Like the superior “Blue,” “Jan” is simply named after its lead character, Jan (Caitlin Gerard), an aspiring photographer who has just gotten what might be her big break, so long as her life doesn’t get in the way.

Jan works as an assistant to Mel (Virginia Madsen), an established photographer whose latest project is a book called “Afterglow,” which is a collection of shots of women immediately after the completion of sexual encounters. The first session features British movie star couple Gery (Stephen Moyer, best known as Bill Compton on HBO’s “True Blood”) and Andie (Jaime Murray, best known as Lila Tournay on the second season of Showtime’s “Dexter”). Gery seems to immediately like Jan and, when Mel is preoccupied with a phone call at the crucial moment, he convinces her to take the shots instead, which leads to Jan being fired. Luckily for her, deadline pressures from the magazine Mel works for causes her to rehire Jan, though Mel takes the credit for the photographs and warns Jan that she is on thin ice.

Jan also has a junkie boyfriend, Robbie (Kyle Gallner), who is constantly pestering her and her roommate, Vanessa (Laura Spencer), and complicating their lives. This subplot should make the series more interesting, but what it mainly does instead is make everything feel less focused. The tone of the entire series is very uneven, and quirks like Jan’s initial clumsiness and her habit of getting the hiccups when she’s nervous come and go without ever really going anywhere interesting. Likewise, the late addition of a new boyfriend for Jan feels inconsequential and tacked on, despite the conflict it would seem likely to create with Robbie, the ex, and Gery, who flirts openly with Jan and drops by her place to take showers (another contrived quirk that feels less than genuine). All in all, the stakes are never really high enough, nor is Jan a compelling enough character to make this series particularly worthwhile. Check out “Blue” instead, if you want to see what the WIGS channel is like.