FX's "Dirt" comes back for season two on Sunday, March 2 at 10 p.m.
Courteney Cox - © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos
This season will be lighter with a ripped from the headlines satirical take on the perils of modern celebrity life.
The show is well-cast and scripted with a crack crew that dresses both Courteney Cox's character Lucy and her "Dirt" world, both at home and the office, with superb costume and production design.
Cox and her husband David Arquette head up their own robust production company, Coquette Productions which recently turned out the very clever under-the-radar film, "The Tripper," in which both appeared in as actors.
Cox's comic sensibilities are high-brow; she understands how to play the camera, and inhabits her character Lucy Spiller - a powerhouse editor for a top tabloid rag - with veracity as she deals out toss-away lines that eviscerate the recipient.
Spiller lives, breathes and eats her position at DirtNow , the magazine she shepherds with her flock of Machiavellian staff writers. The first season ended with a cliffhanger as jilted TV star Julia Mallory obsessively stalks Spiller and stabs her in retribution for ruining her life and stealing her man Holt.
Cox as Lucy has perfected the "killer Queen" stare for her intended prey along with a tenderness and spot-on chemistry with her loyal and devoted paparazzo Don Konkey (gifted actor Ian Hart). Don is afflicted with Schizophrenia and their shared scenes are scripted with realism and humor; they possess a chemistry that isn't sexual but is love none the less.
Monsters and Critics had a chance to participate in an interview with other online journalists to ask Courteney all about the "Dirt."
This season feels a little bit more ripped from the headlines, and we were just curious to know if that was something of a conscious choice, just following the past year of what’s gone on, or if it was just accidental?
C. Cox No, it’s absolutely a choice. We thought that would be a good way to just start the season, and it is absolutely ripped from the headlines. We usually do a hybrid of celebrities and then add to the story like maybe what happened to cause this to happen to them or sum it up in a different way just for fun. But yes, it’s definitely relatable this year and I think it makes for just a more exciting television show.
Are there any other celebrities, because right now we have some story lines that are a little bit a la Nicole and Paris and David Hasselhoff, are there any other celebrities that we can expect to see something from? Any little tidbits you can give us on that?
C. Cox Well, there is definitely going to be, in almost every episode you’ll see something that you will recognize, and that’s kind of hopefully the fun of it that you’ll be able to guess who this person we might be talking about, even though it’s not really about them. It could be about, like I said before, just a couple of people or a couple of situations. But yes, every episode there is that kind of relatable story line.
Have any of the celebrities that have been touched upon contacted you guys?
C. Cox No, I don’t think they’ve seen them yet. We air March 2 and we’ll see. I think there’s a fine line that the producers, even me as a producer, will take. We don’t ever intend to hurt anyone. And as a matter of fact sometimes we make the characters sympathetic just by showing our creative version of what their life must be like or how they got to the place where they did something outrageous. It’s all in fun. It’s much lighter this year and it’s funnier, and I don’t think anyone’s going to get upset. And if they do, that I guess, it wasn’t intentional.
How do you kind of keep the show grounded and not go too far and not make the characters too out there? It seems like a show where this must be something you have to think about of making it still relatable. Do you find that difficult as you go into season two?
C. Cox Well you know you would think that that would be a problem, but really if you just look at any magazine or follow any celebrity that people are fascinated with, they seem to do the outrageous things on their own. We’ll come up with something that we think “okay, now what’s really shocking,” because we want to make good television. So obviously we want to shock people. But then, lo and behold, it ends up happening or something.
Life is outrageous enough. I don’t think that we have to worry about making anything seem crazy, because through time if you look at all the tabloids from the last whatever many years it pretty much speaks for itself.
Do you find that true even for your character, that you don’t have to worry about keeping her grounded because just the world she’s in is out there?
C. Cox Yes, I think that the world of magazines, and I think it’s so competitive that you do have to go to great lengths to get the exclusive story or the perfect picture. It’s just so competitive.
So I think that that’s what great about this show and the subject matter, because there are no limits. You could go anywhere and it wouldn’t be—yes, last year we did some things, which I really loved, where Don Konkey, he cut off his finger to get a story, but that’s because he really was loyal to Lucy. He’s also a schizophrenic and wasn’t on medication. I want to be as kind of outrageous but within the realm of reality as possible, and so far it hasn’t proven to be something that’s hard to come up with.
Tell us about this season’s guest stars.
C. Cox We have great guest stars this year. We don’t have any cast members of Friends, but we do have, Tom Arnold was on and Rosanna Arquette, my sister-in-law, and Vicki Lewis and Sharon Lawrence and Richard Karn, all just really great actors. And we have recurring role characters and new characters on the show that work in the office. I think it’s been a great season for just really good actors being on the show.
You said this year’s going to be lighter and funnier. You seemed to have a great year last year, was there some feedback that made you say we do need to lighten it and funny it a little bit this year?
C. Cox I think it’s just more making it relatable. Last year I thought was really interesting, and we had kind of the subject was about the Apocalypse and it was heavier.
This year we just want it to be a little bit more of a broader appeal. I think the people who loved Dirt last year will hopefully love it this year, but there will be just more of an audience because the people who read US and In Touch and all those tabloid magazines I think will get a kick out of the show.
Can you just talk a little bit about doing the double duty of both starring and being exec producer. Can you wear both hats at the same time?
C. Cox No, I would say I wear the hat all the time. But the only difference is because I’m an actor I probably have a lot more, I mean I have probably not more compassion, but I definitely am for the actor always. Just because I’ve been there and I understand, and trying to take care of their needs I think is really important to me. But no, this job was something that I love every hat that I wear and it’s been fantastic.
Konkey (Hart) and Lucy (Cox)
You have cast some brilliant secondary characters in the show. Don Konkey—played by Ian Hart is wonderful.
C. Cox Yes, he’s wonderful.
How did you find him? Also the subject of schizophrenia your writers treat with humanity and humor, and it’s not pandered to. A lot of mental illnesses are treated in these extreme arcs. What was the story of Don Konkey and how you found Ian to play him?
C. Cox Well, how we found Ian was he came in to read, and Ian’s an amazing actor and he’s done tons of stuff, but he came into our office at Coquette, our production company, and read as well as all the rest of the cast that we hired, but he just was so unique and interesting.
And what happened was, when we originally pitched the show to FX we had a very outrageous paparazzo, but he didn’t have schizophrenia. And when we hired Matthew Carnahan, who ended up writing and creating the show, he put that character trait to Don Konkey.
It wasn’t there originally in the first pitch. And I just think it made it so great because you had sympathy for him, so he kind of got away and can get away with doing even more kind of strange things.
And Ian has such heart and walks such a fine line of making his character not seem—I mean just making him real. Actually, Ian knows a lot. He’s got a few—well, I don’t know if I can say this, but I guess he does—he’s got a couple family members that have schizophrenia or had schizophrenia and so he knows it really well.
So he’s never overdoing it, and he’s just playing it as real as possible.
It’s very well done. I’ve noticed that your show exposes the dividing line in the celebrity world from the serious celebrities who are in it for art and a career versus the people who are in it for the party and the photo events. Do you feel that your show illuminates the paparazzi in a kinder, fairer light?
C. Cox Well no, I don’t think we’re trying to show them in a more positive light. The only thing that you can say is how many there are and how competitive it is, but no, I don’t think anyone in our show really comes off smelling like a rose.
And I think that we’re showing the humanity of everyone, but no one’s looking great, whether it’s Lucy who’s out to, you know she’s having more fun this year at getting the stories and she’s loving her job more.
She may be a little lighter on her staff than she was last year, but she almost died and I think she just has a different outlook on life. But she still will go pretty far to get what she needs.
We are illuminating those people because that’s the stories that you read about. So in making a fun television show you want people to be able to relate and go “Oh my God, is that so and so? Oh wait a minute, but didn’t that happen to that girl?” And then we kind of are combining them and making just really for fun television. But yes, we are highlighting those people because they’re the ones that are in the headlines of these magazines.
Favorite story line in season two?
C. Cox We have this character on the show this year that will definitely resemble someone that’s in the press all the time, but she’s a recurring character. And I won’t say who she’s portraying, because you’ll be able to figure it out relatively early on, but what I like about it is it kind of shows a side to this person’s character like what could have happened or maybe there’s a different side to the story that we don’t know about. And we give another version and I think it’s been really interesting.
How has playing Lucy affected your views or your feelings at all towards the paparazzi or towards tabloids?
C. Cox I would say that playing this character and working on this show has definitely shown me how hard it is and how competitive it is. It’s just really hard to run a successful magazine. I get that.
And I’ve gotten just how many paparazzi there are out there and how hard it is to get the exclusive picture. So yes, I guess I’ve learned, it doesn’t mean that I agree with it all, and I definitely don’t agree with the obsession on certain celebrities. I understand the fascination, but when it gets obsessive I think it gets dangerous. So I haven’t changed my view, but definitely I’ve learned all sides of it, for sure.
Do you ever worry that real life is almost stranger than fiction at this point?
C. Cox Well, I think that there’s a fine line in deciding what is appropriate, what’s just good entertaining television, and what is exploitive and hurtful. But I feel like what’s been really interesting is that we come up with these story lines, and sometimes we think wow, no way this could happen, but man would it make for a good episode, and then you find out after you filmed it, you’ve written it, that something even more outrageous has happened, or they’ve done exactly what you thought they were going to do.
When you sit in a writer’s review you go okay, what is the wildest thing that you could imagine this character doing? Sometimes it actually happens, because people are just really unpredictable. So it doesn’t scare me, but I definitely feel sometimes that people will see things on our show and say oh my God, they just took that right from what happened, and we actually may have filmed it before it even happened.
Will Don and Lucy’s special relationship evolve more this season?
C. Cox Well there definitely is more of it this season, and I think they’re kind of the core of the show, and that relationship is really important. And Don this year has taken, he’s on medication now so his schizophrenia has been toned way back and he’s much more in control, which makes him have to look at what he’s do for a living and how far he goes for Lucy.
So they’ve kind of reversed roles a little bit. As opposed to her taking care of him, he’s taking care, did I say that right, yes, he’s taking care of her more. And so it’s an interesting change this year.
Does Lucy come back with a different outlook or is she the same ruthless person we saw in season one?
C. Cox She is ruthless, but she definitely has a different outlook on life. She doesn’t take it quite so seriously. I think she’s a little more appreciative of what she has and how great—I think she just likes her job more as opposed to needing to tell the truth for some personal reason.
It’s more like hey, I’ve got a great job. This is fun. I want to be the best I can be at it. And I think that she’s a little more daring in certain ways, but for a better reason, just for a more fun outlook as opposed to for, like I said before, some personal vendetta against people.
What about playing the editor-in-chief of a tabloid magazine appealed to you?
C. Cox Well, just playing a character that is strong, that is very ruthless, but with a heart. When I originally pitched this show to FX it didn’t even have a woman character in it.
It was really about a Hollywood young actor who was willing to kind of sell his soul to a paparazzo to kind of keep up in the world of Hollywood; FX came up with the idea of making it centered around a female at a tabloid magazine. And it sounded so good the way John Landgraff pitched it back to us that I was like, wow, maybe I should be playing this character, and that’s how it kind of happened. I know this world, so I thought it would be a fun character to play, and it turned out it is.
Can you talk about the ending of season two? Any cliffhangers?
C. Cox Well, we didn’t know that we were going to not finish, but the strike kind of changed all of that. So luckily, what works in our favor this year, which would have not have worked last year at all, is that each episode is self-contained, even though there may be a character that goes over a few episodes you can watch each one and feel like you’ve wrapped up a story.
So luckily, episode seven, which is the one that we finished on, if you didn’t know it wasn’t, no one’s getting stabbed, but it’s still an exciting episode. I mean, do we have bigger plans? Sure, but does it work? Yes.
Can you touch on the new hires in the office and how they’re going to be changing the dynamic in the Dirt workplace?
C. Cox Well, I think the whole show this year takes place, not solely, but much more, well maybe solely, in the offices of Dirt now and what it takes to run this magazine. So we have new cast members that are enriching that world. And I think that it’s great.
It just kind of keeps it all within the office, and you’ll see love triangles and personal issues and stuff. We have a new character named Farber, and his name is Ryan Eggold, and he’s just a great actor and a great asset to the show. He’s got a little love thing going on with another character.
I think it just makes for a much more enriched world within the walls of Dirt.
Will Lucy and Holt evolve more as a romantic relationship. Do you think that they ever will have some kind of healthy relationship, and is Lucy able to have a healthy relationship?
C. Cox That’s definitely something that we were going to explore, and we did. I like Holt and Lucy too. I think it’s really interesting. Two kind of lost souls trying to make it, and the way they come together.
I think that’s kind of what we were going to explore and we started to. And we’ve continued to explore it in season three, if we get picked up. So she definitely has her fears and intimacy issues, as many of us do, but I don’t know, I like that you like that and I think we’re going to explore it more.
Do you get back at the paparazzi a little bit?
C. Cox Well, you know it’s funny because I definitely have a lot of experience with the paparazzi, but I don’t feel like it’s really a retaliation. I feel like we’re just kind of—I’ve said this before, but I really mean it, I think that no one’s really a good guy in this. I think it really shows the dark side of magazines, it shows the dark side of paparazzi and it also shows, I think we humanize everyone too. So it kind of is, I think, a little bit of an accurate portrayal of these kinds of characters.
Will your long-suffering new assistant Kenny be fleshed out more?
C. Cox Absolutely. He is such a great character, and there is a condition like that where people get really nervous and need to self-soothe. But yes, I think he adds for a lot of comic relief and he continues to be throughout the whole season. He’s great, just a really great actor.
The actor is Kevin Wheatley is playing the new Kenny.
Holt’s fame appears to be rising and Willa wants to take on a bigger role at the magazine. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
C. Cox Yes. This is for season two. What happens at the end is that I get stabbed, we open it up with me in the hospital, and at this point Holt is extremely famous. He’s kind of gotten all of his wishes come true except for he has a lot of baggage that came with it. And Willa, who was wanting to take over my job, she kind of has a revelation that maybe it’s harder than she thought.
But she’s now not the young, new reporter, she’s much more savvy this year and she’s just become really smart. And Don Konkey is on medication, so there’s been a bunch of changes this year.
As the executive producer, what else is important for you to change when coming back for the second season?
C. Cox To make it more relatable so it wasn’t alienating. I think the fans that liked it last year, hopefully they will be like you and hopefully they will enjoy the changes that we’ve made.
But I felt like last year it was dark and it was serious, and it was really interesting and I loved it. But I think this year it’ll be more of a fun show to watch, where you’re kind of guessing who are we talking about. And it’s stuff that people know about, and then we can give you a different perspective on it.
We have new characters that I think add humor. It’s just an all over more fun, lighter tone, but hopefully still outrageous.
NatalieJun 12th, 2008 - 17:11:58
I absolutly love this show i hope another tv company pick them up so they can do a third season. I would love to know haoe Lucy and Holt get on and how Willa turns out. Will she ever get Lucy's job?
Hope to see it on another tv programm soon
Love you Courteney
Natalie x x
Report this comment