Jeremy Jordan sobre Toyman, un episodio musical y el ver el traje por primera vez
Por Russ Burlingame 12 Septiembre, 2015
A longtime Superman villain in the comics, CBS and Warner Bros. Television have reinvented Winslow "Toyman" Schott as a potential love interest for Kara Zor-El in the forthcoming Supergirl television series -- and it's not clear when or whether he'll do his heel turn.
It's not unprecedented territory; in The Flash, the character of Caitlin Snow is a villain in the comics, but so far as no powers or discernibly evil predispositions on TV. Schott is arguably a little stranger in part because he works for CatCo, the media conglomerate run by Cat Grant...whose son Schott murdered in the comics.
Jeremy Jordan, who plays Schott, joined ComicBook.com and a roundtable of reporters at Comic-Con International: San Diego back in July to discuss his future on the series, which debuts on October 26 on CBS.
In the comics, Winslow Schott has a very...we'll say conflicted relationship with Cat Grant. Is it interesting for you having that in the back of your mind and playing this character?
Well, yeah. It's not hard to have a conflicting relationship with Cat Grant. She's a very difficult person to work with. But yeah, I think it's cool to keep that in the back of our minds but at the same time we're sort of reinventing all of these characters' origin stories. You can see it by having a very different kind of Jimmy Olsen. We're kind of working Kara's whole story and Hank's story and everybody's kind of finding their own thing.
We don't know a whole lot about Winn. He appears on and off in comics throughout the years, but I think we have a little more leverage to really create this character from scratch. I can't imagine, having named him that, that he's not going to get to a darker place eventually, but right now, he's fun, excitable, youthful, really happy and sort of silly and quirky and young and in love with Kara even though she doesn't like him like that (but it's okay, they're still friends).
So going from that energy to a place where you can become something like who Winslow Schott may become, which is a villain in the DC Universe, could be very fun to explore. Hopefully over the course of many seasons, becuase I don't want to die halfway through the first season when Kara zaps me wit her heat vision. Damn, that would suck!
Kara is technically a single person regardless of what costume she's in. I was wondering, for you, was there any mental trigger when she stepped out and you were doing a scene with her in the costume.
Well, the first time I saw her in the costume is the first time the audience sees her in the pilot, because my character sort of makes her clothes for her -- he's her personal superhero tailor. And so when she steps out, I think I kind of had a very similar reaction. I hadn't seen any of the promo pics, I hadn't seen any of that sort of stuff.
But at the same time, I had to remove myself because Melissa and I are two total goofball dorks. So the first time she stepped out in rehearsal, she's like [making a funny voice] "Hey! Lookit this!" And we're just laughing and being idiots. So we have to switch gears when they call action, because between takes we're just acting stupid the whole time, which I think is great because so many times, I come from a theatre background and when you're working with a new person for the first time, it's sort of crash course, get-to-know-you, let's be best friends. And you don't see a lot of that in film and television because it's so fleeting, you know? When you're in theatre, you do the same thing every night. And Melissa and I sort of hit it off instantly, and I think that reflects onscreen and hopefully will continue to in the future.
Supergirl is a fun show and there's a lot of musical talent on board. It's kind of unlikely we'll get a musical episode but do you think we might see the music incorporated somewhere, like on The Flash with Grant doing karaoke?
You know, that's up to the producers. I think if that happens, wait a second, let us establish these new characters, because people see especially Melissa and I as singers, ahead of being just an actor. I think it would be cool to do that down the line, though; we can also do fun, promo-y things with it and keep it out of the actual show. I was saying that next year for Comic-Con, for our panel, we should do a big group number to introduce the show.
How is it for you to be playing in a lot of scenes, the audience surrogate?
It's so much easier and more exciting. When I read the pilot, I was the audience member at that point and I was like, "Well, this is the character I relate to, because I feel like him. I feel like that's me watching the show, experiencing these sort of fanboy moments for the first time." And I'm really excited to be that character that people can sort of relate to, at least at first. I don't ever get a chance to play that character. I'm usually the dark and brooding, young angry man. It's the brows.
http://comicbook.com/2015/09/13/supergi ... l-episode/
Por Russ Burlingame 12 Septiembre, 2015
A longtime Superman villain in the comics, CBS and Warner Bros. Television have reinvented Winslow "Toyman" Schott as a potential love interest for Kara Zor-El in the forthcoming Supergirl television series -- and it's not clear when or whether he'll do his heel turn.
It's not unprecedented territory; in The Flash, the character of Caitlin Snow is a villain in the comics, but so far as no powers or discernibly evil predispositions on TV. Schott is arguably a little stranger in part because he works for CatCo, the media conglomerate run by Cat Grant...whose son Schott murdered in the comics.
Jeremy Jordan, who plays Schott, joined ComicBook.com and a roundtable of reporters at Comic-Con International: San Diego back in July to discuss his future on the series, which debuts on October 26 on CBS.
In the comics, Winslow Schott has a very...we'll say conflicted relationship with Cat Grant. Is it interesting for you having that in the back of your mind and playing this character?
Well, yeah. It's not hard to have a conflicting relationship with Cat Grant. She's a very difficult person to work with. But yeah, I think it's cool to keep that in the back of our minds but at the same time we're sort of reinventing all of these characters' origin stories. You can see it by having a very different kind of Jimmy Olsen. We're kind of working Kara's whole story and Hank's story and everybody's kind of finding their own thing.
We don't know a whole lot about Winn. He appears on and off in comics throughout the years, but I think we have a little more leverage to really create this character from scratch. I can't imagine, having named him that, that he's not going to get to a darker place eventually, but right now, he's fun, excitable, youthful, really happy and sort of silly and quirky and young and in love with Kara even though she doesn't like him like that (but it's okay, they're still friends).
So going from that energy to a place where you can become something like who Winslow Schott may become, which is a villain in the DC Universe, could be very fun to explore. Hopefully over the course of many seasons, becuase I don't want to die halfway through the first season when Kara zaps me wit her heat vision. Damn, that would suck!
Kara is technically a single person regardless of what costume she's in. I was wondering, for you, was there any mental trigger when she stepped out and you were doing a scene with her in the costume.
Well, the first time I saw her in the costume is the first time the audience sees her in the pilot, because my character sort of makes her clothes for her -- he's her personal superhero tailor. And so when she steps out, I think I kind of had a very similar reaction. I hadn't seen any of the promo pics, I hadn't seen any of that sort of stuff.
But at the same time, I had to remove myself because Melissa and I are two total goofball dorks. So the first time she stepped out in rehearsal, she's like [making a funny voice] "Hey! Lookit this!" And we're just laughing and being idiots. So we have to switch gears when they call action, because between takes we're just acting stupid the whole time, which I think is great because so many times, I come from a theatre background and when you're working with a new person for the first time, it's sort of crash course, get-to-know-you, let's be best friends. And you don't see a lot of that in film and television because it's so fleeting, you know? When you're in theatre, you do the same thing every night. And Melissa and I sort of hit it off instantly, and I think that reflects onscreen and hopefully will continue to in the future.
Supergirl is a fun show and there's a lot of musical talent on board. It's kind of unlikely we'll get a musical episode but do you think we might see the music incorporated somewhere, like on The Flash with Grant doing karaoke?
You know, that's up to the producers. I think if that happens, wait a second, let us establish these new characters, because people see especially Melissa and I as singers, ahead of being just an actor. I think it would be cool to do that down the line, though; we can also do fun, promo-y things with it and keep it out of the actual show. I was saying that next year for Comic-Con, for our panel, we should do a big group number to introduce the show.
How is it for you to be playing in a lot of scenes, the audience surrogate?
It's so much easier and more exciting. When I read the pilot, I was the audience member at that point and I was like, "Well, this is the character I relate to, because I feel like him. I feel like that's me watching the show, experiencing these sort of fanboy moments for the first time." And I'm really excited to be that character that people can sort of relate to, at least at first. I don't ever get a chance to play that character. I'm usually the dark and brooding, young angry man. It's the brows.
http://comicbook.com/2015/09/13/supergi ... l-episode/
- Cómo Melissa Benoist convenció a la CBS que ella volaría (EW):
Cómo Melissa Benoist convenció a la CBS que ella volaría
Por James Hibberd 14 Septiembre, 2015
It’s been 40 years. Can you believe four decades have passed since a major broadcast network launched a TV show about a female superhero based on a comic-book character? You have to go all the way back to 1975’s Wonder Woman to find a costumed lead heroine — Lynda Carter, gold lasso, star-spangled shorts. That’s why CBS’ upcoming Supergirl is a series that’s equal parts revolutionary and way, way overdue.
And the fate of the series all depends on a 26-year-old from Colorado in her first lead role: former Glee actress Melissa Benoist, whose days and nights are crammed with learning to perform one superpowered feat after another. Like during EW’s visit to the L.A. set when Benoist had her first Kryptonian quick change. Remember how Christopher Reeve’s hunky dork Clark Kent whipped off his glasses while rushing to transform into Superman? It’s like that, only with a feminine twist — the glasses come off, then she releases her pinned-up hair with a freeing toss, like a shampoo ad. (But not too much like a shampoo ad — that would be the silly come-hither version that Benoist jokingly performs between takes.)
Oh, and no pressure — she’s told production is running behind and she only has “one shot” to do this manuever.
So Benoist, naturally, just starts rapping Eminem: “You better never let it go! You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow… “
She doesn’t finish, but the next lyric, the one that’s so perfectly fitting, hangs in the air anyway: This opportunity comes once in a lifetime …
“Action!”
Benoist strides through a chaotic horde of extras, flicks off her specs, pulls the hairpin, and her locks … don’t … quite … unfurl in time.
So? Girl’s got thick hair, okay? Her cousin Superman never had to deal with this.
And that’s the whole point of the show. “It’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” executive producer Greg Berlanti has often said. Because Rogers had to do every dance move Astaire performed, “but backwards and in heels.” Which is exactly how the superproducer, also responsible for The Flash and Arrow, pitched the show to CBS last year, along with key monologue from the show’s pilot — the one where Calista Flockhart’s media empire boss tackles head-on the “girl vs. woman” naming issue, reframing “girl” as empowering, not belittling. So take that, Twitter.
“I didn’t want to do a Supergirl show and call it something else,” Berlanti says. “And I knew sometimes corporate people and executives can get scared. We wanted to have the conversation that we felt the audience would have.”
Once CBS was on board, the biggest challenge was finding an actress who could pull off playing Kara Zor-El (a.k.a. Supergirl). Benoist was the first seen out of thousands that producers considered — just like Stephen Amell was the first to audition for Arrow, and Grant Gustin was first in line for Flash. So it’s like fate, right? Actually, Benoist’s placement was no accident. Casting director David Rapaport “made sure [producers] saw Melissa first,” exec producer Sarah Schechter reveals. “By the third time, he knew how superstitious Greg and [exec producer Andrew Kreisberg] were, and he used that.”
There was a good reason Rapaport pushed for Benoist. She brought a joyful optimism to her audition that influenced the pilot script even while it was still being written. Yet it took months to get everybody, including CBS, to agree. “I definitely had a moment where I couldn’t understand why I [hadn’t gotten it],” Benoist recalls. “Some people were hesitant because I hadn’t had much experience.”
Another concern was the producers’ Annie Hall-ish rom-com conception of Kara, which veered from most tights-wearing crime-fighters and from Supergirl’s flying-cheerleader look in the comics. “Everyone just wanted to be sure,” Berlanti says. “They knew that this was the most important decision that we would make. They have pictures in the comics of a massive mane of blond hair, and an emphasis on her chest or legs. Whereas if you’re casting Superman, everyone’s going to go, ‘How much does he remind you of Christopher Reeve?’”
Other perception-busting casting moves included tapping True Blood’s Mehcad Brooks (tall, ripped, African-American) as Superman’s buddy Jimmy Olsen, typically a redheaded geek. “I’m like, ‘Wait — the Jimmy Olsen?’” Brooks says about being approached for the part. “I’ve gone out for things where people talk about ‘color-blind casting’ before, but normally it doesn’t go your way.” After getting the good news, “I screamed like there was a fire.”
For the role of Kara’s demanding boss, media magnate Cat Grant, Berlanti swayed Flockhart to come back to broadcast TV, where she last worked on his ABC show Brothers & Sisters. “I don’t know that I’ve ever begged as hard as that,” Berlanti says of signing Flockhart.
With the cast in place, the next hurdle was scripting the ambitious pilot, in which Kara juggles a regular, bill-paying job as a personal assistant in National City with her love life, all the while secretly moonlighting as a freelance hero capturing alien bad guys. (Kara’s famous cousin, Superman, remains off screen in Metropolis.) The pilot, reported to cost $14 million and stuffed to the gills with special effects, took more than a month to film. “It sometimes turned a little tedious for us, like, ‘Take 40!’” says Jeremy Jordan, who plays Kara’s friend-zoned confidant Winslow. “We were like, ‘Am I that bad of an actor?’ But they wanted to get a bunch of options so they could find the right tone.”
CBS tested the pilot with a focus group where producers had a particularly scary moment during a scene in which a villain beats up Supergirl. The focus group did not like that. At all. “The first time a man punches a woman, everyone went, ‘Oh my God’ — so that was tricky,” says showrunner Ali Adler. But as Supergirl recovered and triumphed, the dials turned positive again. “She has the exact same powers as Superman, so I think we just needed to show the audience that,” Adler says.
In May, CBS greenlit Supergirl to series and almost immediately the finished pilot leaked onto BitTorrent. Given the polished high-def quality of the print, some suspected studio Warner Bros. secretly leaked the pilot itself in order to create buzz. Berlanti is adament this wasn’t the case. “No, no, no, it wasn’t,” he said. “When people watch stuff that way, it’s like going to a restaurant and leaving before you pay the bill.”
Still, fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive, especially toward Benoist. Now comes the rest of the hard part: crafting all the episodes to come this season, which Benoist teases is a “roller-coaster crash test of what it takes to be a hero” as her character tackles Phantom Zone fugitives while solidifying her team of helpers.
Which brings us back to the Supergirl herself. She’s sometimes working until 2:30 a.m., cheerfully hanging board-stiff on “flying” wires (which feels like trying to set a record for holding the world’s longest plank), wearing a corset under an increasingly uncomfortable muscle-padded suit, dragging around a cape all day … and all that time, she’s showing the same spirit, on screen and off, that landed her this role of lifetime — even when she’s not feeling it inside. “Kara is so optimistic, and so positive, and just full of hope all the time,” Benoist says. “My tendency can sometimes be ‘Oh, man, if I were in this situation, I’d feel hopeless.’ But she never feels that. There’s never really a horribly dark moment in Supergirl’s life.”
Yet for executives watching her every move, Benoist is the one element — the most important one — they’re not worried about. “She is going to change the way girls feel about themselves with her energy and her light,” Adler declares. “It’s crazy. She’s going to fly.”
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/14/su ... 1752127660
Por James Hibberd 14 Septiembre, 2015
It’s been 40 years. Can you believe four decades have passed since a major broadcast network launched a TV show about a female superhero based on a comic-book character? You have to go all the way back to 1975’s Wonder Woman to find a costumed lead heroine — Lynda Carter, gold lasso, star-spangled shorts. That’s why CBS’ upcoming Supergirl is a series that’s equal parts revolutionary and way, way overdue.
And the fate of the series all depends on a 26-year-old from Colorado in her first lead role: former Glee actress Melissa Benoist, whose days and nights are crammed with learning to perform one superpowered feat after another. Like during EW’s visit to the L.A. set when Benoist had her first Kryptonian quick change. Remember how Christopher Reeve’s hunky dork Clark Kent whipped off his glasses while rushing to transform into Superman? It’s like that, only with a feminine twist — the glasses come off, then she releases her pinned-up hair with a freeing toss, like a shampoo ad. (But not too much like a shampoo ad — that would be the silly come-hither version that Benoist jokingly performs between takes.)
Oh, and no pressure — she’s told production is running behind and she only has “one shot” to do this manuever.
So Benoist, naturally, just starts rapping Eminem: “You better never let it go! You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow… “
She doesn’t finish, but the next lyric, the one that’s so perfectly fitting, hangs in the air anyway: This opportunity comes once in a lifetime …
“Action!”
Benoist strides through a chaotic horde of extras, flicks off her specs, pulls the hairpin, and her locks … don’t … quite … unfurl in time.
So? Girl’s got thick hair, okay? Her cousin Superman never had to deal with this.
And that’s the whole point of the show. “It’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” executive producer Greg Berlanti has often said. Because Rogers had to do every dance move Astaire performed, “but backwards and in heels.” Which is exactly how the superproducer, also responsible for The Flash and Arrow, pitched the show to CBS last year, along with key monologue from the show’s pilot — the one where Calista Flockhart’s media empire boss tackles head-on the “girl vs. woman” naming issue, reframing “girl” as empowering, not belittling. So take that, Twitter.
“I didn’t want to do a Supergirl show and call it something else,” Berlanti says. “And I knew sometimes corporate people and executives can get scared. We wanted to have the conversation that we felt the audience would have.”
Once CBS was on board, the biggest challenge was finding an actress who could pull off playing Kara Zor-El (a.k.a. Supergirl). Benoist was the first seen out of thousands that producers considered — just like Stephen Amell was the first to audition for Arrow, and Grant Gustin was first in line for Flash. So it’s like fate, right? Actually, Benoist’s placement was no accident. Casting director David Rapaport “made sure [producers] saw Melissa first,” exec producer Sarah Schechter reveals. “By the third time, he knew how superstitious Greg and [exec producer Andrew Kreisberg] were, and he used that.”
There was a good reason Rapaport pushed for Benoist. She brought a joyful optimism to her audition that influenced the pilot script even while it was still being written. Yet it took months to get everybody, including CBS, to agree. “I definitely had a moment where I couldn’t understand why I [hadn’t gotten it],” Benoist recalls. “Some people were hesitant because I hadn’t had much experience.”
Another concern was the producers’ Annie Hall-ish rom-com conception of Kara, which veered from most tights-wearing crime-fighters and from Supergirl’s flying-cheerleader look in the comics. “Everyone just wanted to be sure,” Berlanti says. “They knew that this was the most important decision that we would make. They have pictures in the comics of a massive mane of blond hair, and an emphasis on her chest or legs. Whereas if you’re casting Superman, everyone’s going to go, ‘How much does he remind you of Christopher Reeve?’”
Other perception-busting casting moves included tapping True Blood’s Mehcad Brooks (tall, ripped, African-American) as Superman’s buddy Jimmy Olsen, typically a redheaded geek. “I’m like, ‘Wait — the Jimmy Olsen?’” Brooks says about being approached for the part. “I’ve gone out for things where people talk about ‘color-blind casting’ before, but normally it doesn’t go your way.” After getting the good news, “I screamed like there was a fire.”
For the role of Kara’s demanding boss, media magnate Cat Grant, Berlanti swayed Flockhart to come back to broadcast TV, where she last worked on his ABC show Brothers & Sisters. “I don’t know that I’ve ever begged as hard as that,” Berlanti says of signing Flockhart.
With the cast in place, the next hurdle was scripting the ambitious pilot, in which Kara juggles a regular, bill-paying job as a personal assistant in National City with her love life, all the while secretly moonlighting as a freelance hero capturing alien bad guys. (Kara’s famous cousin, Superman, remains off screen in Metropolis.) The pilot, reported to cost $14 million and stuffed to the gills with special effects, took more than a month to film. “It sometimes turned a little tedious for us, like, ‘Take 40!’” says Jeremy Jordan, who plays Kara’s friend-zoned confidant Winslow. “We were like, ‘Am I that bad of an actor?’ But they wanted to get a bunch of options so they could find the right tone.”
CBS tested the pilot with a focus group where producers had a particularly scary moment during a scene in which a villain beats up Supergirl. The focus group did not like that. At all. “The first time a man punches a woman, everyone went, ‘Oh my God’ — so that was tricky,” says showrunner Ali Adler. But as Supergirl recovered and triumphed, the dials turned positive again. “She has the exact same powers as Superman, so I think we just needed to show the audience that,” Adler says.
In May, CBS greenlit Supergirl to series and almost immediately the finished pilot leaked onto BitTorrent. Given the polished high-def quality of the print, some suspected studio Warner Bros. secretly leaked the pilot itself in order to create buzz. Berlanti is adament this wasn’t the case. “No, no, no, it wasn’t,” he said. “When people watch stuff that way, it’s like going to a restaurant and leaving before you pay the bill.”
Still, fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive, especially toward Benoist. Now comes the rest of the hard part: crafting all the episodes to come this season, which Benoist teases is a “roller-coaster crash test of what it takes to be a hero” as her character tackles Phantom Zone fugitives while solidifying her team of helpers.
Which brings us back to the Supergirl herself. She’s sometimes working until 2:30 a.m., cheerfully hanging board-stiff on “flying” wires (which feels like trying to set a record for holding the world’s longest plank), wearing a corset under an increasingly uncomfortable muscle-padded suit, dragging around a cape all day … and all that time, she’s showing the same spirit, on screen and off, that landed her this role of lifetime — even when she’s not feeling it inside. “Kara is so optimistic, and so positive, and just full of hope all the time,” Benoist says. “My tendency can sometimes be ‘Oh, man, if I were in this situation, I’d feel hopeless.’ But she never feels that. There’s never really a horribly dark moment in Supergirl’s life.”
Yet for executives watching her every move, Benoist is the one element — the most important one — they’re not worried about. “She is going to change the way girls feel about themselves with her energy and her light,” Adler declares. “It’s crazy. She’s going to fly.”
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/14/su ... 1752127660
