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NBC's 'Grimm' cast talk new season, Fred Armisen's near walk-on and more (VIDEO)
By April MacIntyre Jan 7, 2013, 4:40 GMT
Glorious Portland is having her close up still as IFC\'s "Portlandia" continues to draw fans and NBC\'s "Grimm" dazzles brightly in a sea of stultifying network tripe.
Glorious Portland is having her close up still as IFC's "Portlandia" continues to draw fans and NBC's "Grimm" dazzles brightly in a sea of stultifying network tripe.
Today at the Pasadena winter press tour (TCA) the “Grimm” panel spoke of their rabid fanbase, their suspenseful storylines and unique storybook characters. M&C loves the show.
The panelists included Sasha Roiz, Bitsie Tulloch, David Giuntoli, Silas Weir Mitchell, Claire Coffee, Reggie Lee, Jim Kouf, David Greenwalt and Bree Turner.
An excerpt of the Q&A:
On why Renard kissed Juliette in the first place? Because he certainly seems unhappy about it, and Adalind seems very unhappy about it.
DAVID GREENWALT: He kissed her because he was afraid that without her he didn’t know what was going to happen exactly. And he was afraid that without her, Nick might leave Portland and might leave the influence of Renard and go his merry way or he might even be destroyed by it in some way.
He didn’t know that they were going to have those kinds of feelings for each other, no.
JIM KOUF: All he knew is he would save her life.
On what the producers think it would take to take “Grimm” into to make it like a true breakout hit?
DAVID GREENWALT: Well, first of all, I thought it was a true breakout hit. Did I miss something? And second of all, I love the time slot. It’s the old “X Files” time slot Friday nights at 9:00. It’s a great time for that show. And by God, if we’re not a true breakout hit yet, we will become one soon.
On putting the Friday-night network curse to rest:
JIM KOUF: Well, I don’t believe in curses so much. But as long as people find the show and they we found out a good core audience who believes in it and keeps watching. And if they don’t watch it Friday night, they seem to watch it next Saturday.
On what is it about “Grimm” specifically that has managed to stick out in that period where other shows maybe of similar tone haven’t?
DAVID GREENWALT: Well, what’s kind of interesting about “Grimm” to us is that it’s a hybrid. It’s a police procedural, but then there’s this whole other world going on and this ability to explain in an odd and bizarre way crime.
For example, Nick can see the Big Bad Wolf in the child molester. It’s a way to explain evil in the world. And we’re going you know, that’s on sort of the micro level and we’re going to be going more and more to the macro level of what’s wrong with the entire world? What’s going on, you know, with all the violence and upset everywhere in the world and seeking ways to explain it.
David Giuntoli, what are your favorite episodes to play, the sort of standalone monster of the week thing, the really emotional things, the arc things?
DAVID GIUNTOLI: No. I really enjoy the kind of deeper mythological episodes. I mean, I enjoy them all. But I’ve started to grow into really enjoying the larger kind of fight scenes. Those usually happen in kind of a more emotional episode anyhow. And, yeah, I like kind of learning the tricks of that. But I really do enjoy the kind of deeper, emotional episodes.
Reggie Lee, your character seems to be the only person on the panel, because Juliette looks poised to learn the big secret, who doesn’t know what’s actually going on in this show. Does it make you feel left out or does it make you feel unique?
REGGIE LEE: Both of those things, both of those things. But that’s me, Reggie, speaking to you. As a character, this character has been so much fun for me to play and they can’t come up with better lines for me every week. It’s really great. So on the larger scale, I don’t think everyone can know what a certain all at once, otherwise you wouldn’t if everyone knew, it wouldn’t be as fun to watch, because there’s always that someone that’s on the outside.
That’s me speaking as a character. But as Reggie, sure, I love I want to be a part of it. I always want to be a part of it. But I think on the grander scale of things, you know, I think that there’s certainly a plan for everybody. So we’ll see what happens. I’m excited about it.
Bitsie...In Season 1, Juliette was a support system and very loving to Nick. And now Season 2, it’s all over the place with obsession and magic and all the things that she’s going through with memory loss. As an actress, are you enjoying this season?
BITSIE TULLOCH: I think that there was a lot to be said for Season 1, because in Season 1, and actually still, Juliette was really the only character who isn’t a cop and who wasn’t a monster. So I always sort of approach the character as being the one through which the fans could see it from like a normal person’s point of view. But this season has been so much more fun for me.
And now being under the spell and just being completely confused and really, like, she is starting to completely lose her mind, as I think anybody would, if you wake up from a coma and there’s some guy staring at you, saying that he’s lived with you for three years and you go to your home that you remember and there’s photographs of you with somebody else.
And it’s really trippy. And it’s kind of fabulous. Like, I was reading this I know, I’m going to be such a geek. I was reading this Oliver Sacks book on prosopagnosia right when I got the first script, about, like, facial recognition and whatnot. And I just thought it was so interesting and fascinating and then they come up with this awesome storyline, so and now the stuff with the love triangle which is obviously very, very fun for me.
Jim and David, it looked from the clips that we just saw that there are going to be some reveals. But can you talk about Renard possibly ending up being an ally of Nick?
DAVID GREENWALT: Well, it depends what’s what service that Nick can perform for Renard. And he’d as soon have him as an ally. He’d rather have him as an ally than an enemy, but he could have him either way.
JIM KOUF: There’s some big issues that have to be dealt with for Renard and for Nick, and they have to come to terms with those.
DAVID GREENWALT: And this had to come to a head. We didn’t want to just play it out forever between the two of them, because, you know, it is his girl that Renard is messing around with, albeit under a spell.
JIM KOUF: Not that he wants to.
Silas, talk about the dichotomy of the character and how you play it and how you just either revel in it or it’s a struggle for you:
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL: As an actor or as Monroe?
Could you do both?
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL: Well, as an actor, it’s a delight to have these two poles towards which you could go at any time, because there’s an element of the unknown where there’s the hermit like clockmaker and then there’s the guy who wants to run through the woods with his girlfriend and, you know, get down in the trees. You know what I mean?
So those two sides of a person, it’s fun to have that at your disposal as an actor. As a character, it’s much more troubling, because you have these two poles that you might yank, be yanked towards one way or the other. So the more difficult it is as a character, the more fun it is as an actor.
As far as the makeup process, truth of the matter is I don’t do that much of the makeup because there’s not enough time in the day, because if I every time I morphed I had to do makeup, that’s about eight to 10 hours, because you got to put it on and then you got to take it off. So a lot of what they do for me is computer graphics. Every now and then, there’s some prosthetics, but it’s too time consuming.
I feel like I’m having more fun than a guy should have. I really love this group. I love the stories that David and Jim and the writers are writing. I love the themes. I think they’re really pertinent and they’re handled in a very delightful way. There’s dark, there’s light, there’s a gallows humor thanks to these guys. And we’re dealing with crime and real stuff. There’s nothing I don’t like about this situation.
JIM KOUF: And he gets to play the zither.
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL: And I learned the zither. I got it. I got it down. You ever seen one of those things? You don’t get it down.
On how much more bitchy can Adalind get?
CLAIRE COFFEE: Oh, no, much bitchier is the answer to that. Bitchier beyond my wildest dreams, in fact. But my reaction was first sort of disbelief and then quickly followed by elation to get to do this role and with all these people was just the greatest. I know everybody says it, but I mean it for sure.
She doesn’t much care what happened to her cat. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research about psychopaths, because I think for Adalind, she’s just she’s fueled mostly by ambition and just, you know, you get one thing, you want the next thing. So she doesn’t have a lot of friends, and so far I don’t think she’s focused on that. I think she’s more focused on this kind of supreme this, like, supreme amount of power that she has in her mind.
SILAS WEIR MITCHELL: Psychopath or sociopath, do you think she is?
CLAIRE COFFEE: Actually, it’s similar. It’s very, very similar. They’re both psycho, both psycho.
Sasha and David, what did you guys think about this sudden change in the relationship?
SASHA ROIZ: It’s been a long time coming.
DAVID GIUNTOLI: Yeah.
SASHA ROIZ: It was a long time coming. I was very excited to finally have a confrontation, I think we waited a season and a half to see what will transpire when he finally discovers, and it’s going to be a powder keg. And it’s a lot of fun to work with David on a whole other level now that he’s in the know.
DAVID GIUNTOLI: Yeah. And our not to spoil it too much, but it finally all comes to a big angry
SASHA ROIZ: Kerfuffle.
DAVID GIUNTOLI: Yeah, kerfuffle we’ll say, to resurrect a word. And, yeah, it comes to blows, and he has a bit of a height advantage on me, but I had a rage advantage on him.
SASHA ROIZ: It’s not noticeable. You had a beard advantage on me.
DAVID GIUNTOLI: Right now.
BITSIE TULLOCH: Yeah, I just want to say, the first episode back, which is on March 8th, after, obviously, the fall finale, there’s a tremendous amount of stuff going on. And in addition to the kerfuffle between these handsome men, there was also a sort of bedroom scene that was so intense that it required a stunt coordinator and hours of rehearsal, which “Grimm” has not yet done, which is really, really fun and crazy.
On Fred Armisen's story during the Portlandia TCA panel that he tried to sneak on Grimm's set as an extra:
BITSIE TULLOCH: Here’s what’s so crazy. Within two days of moving up to Portland, Fred was my next-door neighbor in my apartment building. And then Timothy Hutton who was shooting on “Leverage” was I saw him on the elevator. And I was like did I leave Hollywood? I mean, what is going on? So then Fred became friendly, and then he was saying, like, how funny would it be if there’s an episode of “Leverage” with, like, Giuntoli and Fred in the background and then we do this big crossover? And I know “Portlandia” just got renewed for two more, so maybe there’s time.
