Emails from the hack of Sony Pictures reveal the studio's concern over alienating the NFL with its film, "Concussion"; writer Jonathan Ames turns the erudite actor Patrick Stewart into a rambunctious TV news anchor in "Blunt Talk"; Kera and the Lesbians calls its sound "bi-polar folk."
Jonathan Ames turns Patrick Stewart into an impulsive, hard-drinking newsman in 'Blunt Talk'
Drinking, using drugs and picking up prostitutes is not a role usually associated with actor Patrick Stewart.
But as fictional news anchor Walter Blunt in the new TV series “Blunt Talk,” Stewart dabbles in a variety of vices, much to the chagrin of his production team. Blunt is a British news man who moves to Los Angeles with an eye towards conquering the American cable news industry. Only his antics both on and off the air begin to complicate his plans.
The series which airs on Starz was created by writer Jonathan Ames, who you might remember as the creator of the HBO series Bored To Death, starring Jason Schwartzman. Ames wrote the part of Walter Blunt specifically for Patrick Stewart, after Ames was approached by the series executive producer, Seth MacFarlane.
When Ames stopped by The Frame, we noticed a peculiar piece of flair adorning his suit jacket. A name tag with the name Doris.
This name tag is my great aunt's name tag. She passed away about a year ago, she was 101 and a half, and I was carrying it in my pocket while I was doing a bunch of press and publicity in New York, just to have her with me. And then while I was doing a TV interview, a publicity person said, "Oh, Jonathan, you have a stain on your jacket." So I put the name tag over the stain, and now I'm glad — this way, she's with me all the time.
Interview Highlights:
I want to talk a little bit about the origins of "Blunt Talk," which is a series about a newscaster, and if you think Brian Williams has moral problems, I think this makes him looks like a saint. What was the genesis of this character?
My agent sent me an email: Would you like to get on the phone with Seth MacFarlane? Sure, why? [laughs] These agents send really terse emails, but is he going to practice voices on me?
He said, "Well, he's looking for a writer to come up with an idea for a comedy for Patrick Stewart." I thought, Okay, that's interesting.
The call was going to be the next day, so that night I happened to be channel surfing and I saw Piers Morgan on CNN, and I thought his head looked very large and interesting in front of this blue background and I thought, Patrick Stewart would look formidable and amazing behind an anchor desk.
Patrick Stewart's character is caught and arrested with a transgender prostitute. So he's somebody who lives life a little dangerously, a little on the edges of what most people would consider to be acceptable behavior. Was that part of what you and Patrick talked about very early on? Was he willing to go as far as you were willing to go with this character?
I had the general idea of that story in the first episode, but I might not have told him too much. I might have told him, "Oh, he has a crisis, perhaps he gets arrested." I didn't get into detail, I just wrote the script and I followed my own impulse to take Patrick Stewart, this interesting figure, and put him in odd situations but also tell a story.
Like many first episodes, you begin in crisis and we learn who this character is, and much of the season is trying to come back from this crisis, to be a phoenix and rise from the flames. I sent that first script off and he liked it! I was like, Okay, cool! He was very game, very open, and very brave.
This is your first series since "Bored to Death" was cancelled in 2011 after three seasons. When you've put so much of your own life and your own story into a show, when it's cancelled does it provoke a different reaction than it would had it been created out of whole cloth?
That's the only show I've had cancelled. I did have a pilot I did for Showtime in 2004 in which I played myself, so that was maybe worse — I wasn't good enough at playing myself. So then I was smart, and the second time around I got a wonderful actor, Jason Schwartzman, to play me.
It wasn't so much that the show was autobiographical, because I don't know that it was. It was a bit of a fantasy of Brooklyn, and it was a private detective fantasy, but I did put my heart into it, and when you make a show, you become a family.
When you're cancelled, you lose the circus you've been traveling with, but at the same time it was an incredible run that I'd had. I'd been a struggling novelist for 20 years and then I got the keys to a Lamborghini. So I recognized that I'd been given a great gift, and I had a lot of gratitude for those three years.
When you were shopping "Blunt Talk" around and there were a number of interested parties, Starz came on board with a commitment for two seasons. What does that give you as a creator in not having to prove yourself week to week?
That was a real vote of confidence from Starz and it's why we went with them. We didn't have to worry about putting in all this effort, making a pilot, and then being shot down. At the same time, a pilot allows you to figure out what works, you learn how the actors speak, and you get a greater sense of the world, you can make some mistakes. But we had to hit the ground running and do 10 episodes, 300 pages, and I wrote the first four scripts without ever having heard any of these actors speak.
Was that before Patrick was cast?
No, I wrote this Patrick. This was developed for him.
Didn't Patrick come up with the name Walter Blunt?
Yes. This thing was moving forward and I emailed Patrick about his character's name. I wanted to give him a dignified name, so I sent some ideas to Patrick, and he said, "How about Walter Blunt?"
"Walter Blunt was the first character I ever played in the Royal Shakespeare Company," I think it was in "Henry IV," and that character delivers some information to the king and the king has some famous line about news, going, "That's not news, that's yesterday's fish," or something like that.
I was like, Oh my god, that's perfect! It's the first role he ever played, the character delivers information and is told it's not news, and Patrick had used it as an alias before. I had one of those instantaneous ideas — let's call it "Blunt Talk," that will be the name of his news show like "Anderson Cooper 360" or "The O'Reilly Factor." And then we'll call our show "Blunt Talk." I emailed Patrick back instantly. If you saw the two emails, his came at 12:03 and mine went back at 12:07.
Sony Pictures reportedly softened 'Concussion' out of fear of NFL
On Monday, Sony released the first trailer for its sports drama, "Concussion," which stars Will Smith. The movie seemed poised to provide an uncompromising take on the NFL's battle to hide the debilitating brain injuries from which its athletes have suffered.
But now, as part of the continued fallout from the series of cyber attacks that leveled Sony last winter, it seems as if the struggling studio might have softened the impact of "Concussion" to maintain positive relations with the NFL.
Ken Belson of the New York Times reports that dozens of emails between Sony executives, Smith's representatives, and the film's director, Peter Landesman, reveal that elements of the movie — from its script to its marketing — were changed to "avoid antagonizing the NFL."
When Belson joined us on The Frame today, we asked him about the NFL's controversial history with media companies, the ongoing issue of concussions in football, and whether or not he was able to see any of the changes that reportedly "took most of the bite" out of "Concussion."
Interview Highlights:
Before we talk about the politics of Sony's decision, let's talk about concussions and brain injuries in football. How big of a problem is it, and what's going on legally and medically on that front right now?
It's the biggest existential crisis that football in general, and the NFL specifically, have ever faced. You're talking about a revelation about brain injury that essentially can lead people, including parents of kids who might play, to conclude that it's potentially lethal to play football. That's a pretty big red flag.
Within the past 10 years, the NFL has had to grapple with that. They were aware of this problem even before then, but they put out a lot of research to discredit that notion. But in the last 10 years the NFL has had no choice but to confront this issue head-on. Sorry for the pun.
And they have been sued, as you alluded to. They're in the process of settling a massive class action suit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. They accept no fault in that, but money talks, so it's a way of trying to make the problem go away. And a movie focused squarely on a doctor who discovered early-onset dementia in football players is not a heartwarming story for the NFL.
Peter Landesman, the writer and director of the film, said in your story: "There was never an instance where we compromised the storytelling to protect ourselves from the NFL." Does it look as if the movie was not watered down to satisfy concerns, real or imagined, that the NFL might have?
I can't speak to Peter's specific point, but there was a specific email that mentioned an Excel chart with lines from the script that were altered. I asked for examples for things that were altered. If there was nothing substantive altered, why not show them to me?
That didn't happen, so I can only take his word that the final script is still just as powerful as it may have been in earlier drafts, but we don't know that. I do know that there were conversations among executives at Sony wondering about how to position the movie so as not to stir up the hornet's nest.
This isn't the first time that the league has engaged with a media company about professional football. What are some of the other examples where there's been a debate or a clash between the NFL and a media company about content?
To be clear, the NFL never engaged with Sony here. [The film's] director did reach out to the head PR guy at the NFL about a year ago, and ultimately they never met so it never went anywhere. There are no emails to say that the NFL specifically said, Take this out of the script. This is a story of Sony trying to make the film as airtight as possible so that they can't be opened up to attack later on for playing loose with the facts.
But there have been other reported instances of the NFL pressuring ESPN as well as the Disney company, which owns ESPN, to curtail the filming of a show, as well as a documentary about concussions that ESPN and [PBS'] "Frontline" were involved with. The NFL wasn't terribly excited about that documentary, and as a result ESPN broke off its partnership with "Frontline." "Frontline" ended up showing the documentary, and a book written by two ESPN reporters was ultimately published, but the partnership between ESPN and "Frontline" ended at that point.
Kera and the Lesbians uses 'bi-polar folk' music to amplify queer identity
Kera and the Lesbians’ blend of rockabilly, folk, surf and reverb-filed garage rock has been coined “bi-polar folk” by the band’s frontwoman Kera Armendariz. The genre is as attention grabbing as the band's name.
“I love anything that’s ironic," says Armendariz of the group's name, "considering that I do play with a lot of men. So I enjoyed that element. But as this project has grown and evolved. I like it for a different reason now. Because especially now, the queer movement is more at a forefront. I think it’s more relevant. It opens up the idea of, What is a lesbian? Why do we have to label things? Why can’t we leave things a little bit more ambiguous?"
The band’s name, initially a joke suggested by a former band member, seemed to stick.
The group is comprised of Armendariz, 27, and drummer Michael Delaney, 26, who, according to the band name, would be a lesbian. Armendariz, however, is the only queer band member. On stage she’ll wear vintage two-piece suits, a zip-up jumpsuit or Hawaiian print button-ups with hairstyles ranging from a fully shaved head to loose waves falling down her face with the sides buzzed. Her androgynous look tends to confuse audiences.
“It never bothers me during a show to be confused or mis-gendered” Armendariz says. “It doesn’t because I’m in my own skin. I feel good after a set. I’m like, You know what? Whatever. You don’t get it? See ya. I played a good show. I’m out of here.”
Onstage is the only place Armendariz says she feels free. And it's where she first met her music role model, indie demigod Devendra Banhart, back in her hometown of San Diego. She was the first person who caught his attention after he invited someone from the audience onstage to perform. She sang “Apple,” part of an LP released in 2011, and they’ve been in touch ever since. Banhart guest DJ’d one of Kera's shows back in 2014 that garnered DoLa’s best live show of 2014.
While the band gains more buzz around L.A. and beyond, Armendariz is learning to create her own version of family. Not having support from her biological family because of her queer identity is something she struggles with everyday, but she finds solace in her music.
“It’s ok to be vulnerable, it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to feel the things you’re feeling,” Armendariz says. But let’s get out of it. Come on, come with me. That’s more of like my focus with this and where my songwriting has gone.”
Kera and the Lesbians have a full-length album slated for a fall release.