Archive for the Anastasia Griffith Category

The Golden Globe Nominations were announced this morning and there are some squee worthy nods and sadly some of my faves that are missing. *cough* Friday Night Lights *cough*

DRAMATIC TV SERIES
“Big Love”
“Damages”
“Grey’s Anatomy”
“House”
“Mad Men”
“The Tudors”

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA
Michael C. Hall, “Dexter”
John Hamm, “Mad Men”
Hugh Laurie, “House”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, “The Tudors”
Bill Paxton, “Big Love”

BEST ACTRESS, TV DRAMA
Patricia Arquette, “Medium”
Glenn Close, “Damages”
Minnie Driver, “The Riches”
Edie Falco, “The Sopranos”
Sally Field, “Brothers & Sisters”
Holly Hunter, “Saving Grace”
Kyra Sedgwick, “The Closer”

TV SERIES, MUSICAL OR COMEDY
“Californication”
“Entourage”
“Extras”
“30 Rock”
“Pushing Daisies”

BEST ACTOR, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
Steve Carell, “The Office”
David Duchovny, “Californication”
Ricky Gervais, “Extras”
Lee Pace, “Pushing Daisies”

BEST ACTRESS, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY
Christina Applegate, “Samantha Who?”
America Ferrera, “Ugly Betty”
Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
Anna Friel, “Pushing Daisies”
Mary-Louise Parker, “Weeds”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Rose Byrne, “Damages”
Rachel Griffith, “Brothers & Sisters”
Katherine Heigl, “Grey’s Anatomy”
Samantha Morton, “Longford”
Anna Paquin, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ”
Jamie Pressly, “My Name is Earl”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Ted Danson, “Damages”
Kevin Dillon, “Entourage”
Jeremy Piven, “Entourage”
Andy Serkis, “Longford”
William Shatner, “Boston Legal”
Donald Sutherland, “Dirty Sexy Money”

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
“Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”
“The Company”
“5 Days”
“The State Within”
“Longford”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Bryce Dallas Howard, “As You Like It”
Debra Messing, “The Starter Wife”
Queen Latifah, “Life Support”
Sissy Spacek, “Pictures of Hollis Woods”
Ruth Wilson, “Jane Eyre”

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Adam Beach, “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”
Ernest Borgnine, “A Grandpa For Christmas”
Jim Broadbent, “Longford”
James Isaacs, “The State Within”
James Nesbitt, “Jekyll”

I’m super psyched for a good chunk of nominations. Pushing Daisies, Lee Pace, and Anna Friel have to be my biggest joy this morning! You know I love me some PD and this really gives me hope that the show can be bigger and better post-strike. Kick ass for summer shows like Damages and Mad Men! They kept television in a higher class all summer long so they are much deserved of this honor. Kudos to John Hamm and Rose Byrne for being the summer newbies! Also huge props to 30 Rock, Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin because there is pretty much not a funnier duo on television at the moment.

Sadly Friday Night Lights is shut out, as is Battlestar. It’s hard to believe that The Office got shat upon as well. I thought for sure there was a nomination in there for Jenna Fischer. She killed it at the end of last season and the beginning of this short season. Lost’s Matthew Fox and Elizabeth Mitchell were robbed. What about Barney? Oh god, Neil Patrick Harris didn’t get a nom, kinda sucks.

The 65th Annual Golden Globes will be awarded on January 13th (NBC).

DAMAGES Renewed For 2 More Seasons

Wow, we’ve been waiting weeks to hear if FX was going to renew their amazing thriller DAMAGES and word just came out that they have… for 2 more seasons!

Per Ausiello:

FX has ordered not one more but two new seasons of the critically acclaimed Damages, for a total of 26 episodes. “To be able to tell 26 more hours of mind-blowing stories with Todd A. Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler is an incredible position to be in,” says Jamie Erlicht, Co-President of Programming and Production, Sony Pictures Television. “FX has continually shown enormous support for both this show and for Sony, and it’s evident in this extended renewal.”

I’m psyched! As you know, DAMAGES was one of my favorite shows this summer and over the past television year. I cannot wait to see Ellen work Patty over and bury her. If you missed any of my INTERVIEWS WITH THE DAMAGES CAST head on over to the Interview page.

DAMAGES Season 1 Finale

FX’s incredibly intricate and deliciously diabolical first season of DAMAGES just finished and I’m still trying to piece it all together and catch my breath from all the twisty-turny awesomeness.

Quickly I think this is how it goes in one big long paragraph so get ready…

Patty hired Ellen to get to Katie who’s David’s sister and soon to be sister-in-law of Ellen in order to bring down Arthur Frobisher for screwing his employees out of their retirement funds somewhere in the ballpark of $500,000,000. Katie took money from Frobisher to open a restaurant but it was all because she was with Gregory Malina on that fateful night in Florida. Patty had Katie’s dog killed, blackmailed Frobisher’s lawyer Ray Fiske which led to his blowing his brains out in her office because she threatened to go public with the fact that he gave stock to and told to sell it to Gregory whom he was secretly in love with. George Moore worked for the SEC and leaked to Frobisher that they were investigating him which led to the selling of the stock which led to the lawsuit which was the catalyst for the show. Moore was working with Ellen to set up Frobisher until he was murdered by Frobisher’s hairy faced silent man who also killed Gregory after making a tape of all his secrets and leaving it with Katie who gave it to David the night he was murdered by the same hairy faced silent man and some jamoke. We all thought hairy faced silent man and some jamoke were also behind trying to kill Ellen in Patty’s apartment while Patty was at her beach house resting after witnessing Ray killing himself but in the end it wasn’t hairy faced Frobisher guy and some jamoke, it was Uncle Pete letting some other jamoke into the apartment to kill Ellen on Patty’s orders. Did I mention that hairy faced silent guy went back to Ellen’s apartment to get the flashlight left behind by the jamoke and turns out that not only is he Frobisher’s guy, he’s a police officer. What?!! Patty got Frobisher for 2 billion dollars, promised to seal all evidence against him but gave the confession tape of Gregory Malina to the DA whom she instructed to use come re-election time and hopefully sending Frobisher away for good. Probably don’t need to worry about that though because Frobisher was shot by Lawrence the ex-employee/mole who the rest of the employees cut out of the fortunes after discovering he was the leak in the case. Hollis Nye, the guy that warned Ellen in the premiere to not go work for Patty Hewes seemed all sorts of shady and pulled Ellen into a black car to find Mario Van Peebles and some other guy who are FBI agents trying to convince Ellen to help them investigate and nail Patty for Fraud, obstruction of justice and a couple other nasty little charges. Patty summons Ellen to the beach house where she tells her that yes, in fact she is regretful of what they did about Ray and that she wants her back at work. Ellen agrees and then we realize that she agreed because she now works as an informant for the FBI and was just given access to all of Hewes Associates resources to “prove Frobisher killed David” and obviously to screw Patty for trying to kill her in the process.

Phew… I think that about covers the mystery. Maybe?

I need to watch the whole season again because honestly, the timeline for this show is one of the most complex and impressive works of writing I’ve ever seen. The storylines were so deep and embeded within each other that I know I’ve missed a ton of things. The whole Florida business is still a little vague for me. I lost track of what happened there and why it was important anymore because of the twists and turns. Like I said, another viewing is in order!

So fingers crossed it gets picked up for a second season because there are a whole slew of things out there just floating about unanswered.

Obviously there’s the whole Patty/Ellen face off. Patty had a kid named Julia 35 years ago that was born DOA. Patty’s son came back to the apartment the night Ellen was attacked for a reason but it was never answered. Who is his Father? We know that Michael Nouri is his step-father but do we know that story at all? What else has Patty done in the past that led the FBI to her way before the Frobisher case? Why is hairy faced silent man a cop and what the frak is that all about? And lastly, what happened to Lyla and crazy ass?

I need a break after all this. Damages was amazing and I hope you all get the chance to marvel in its glory at some point.

Don’t forget to read all the interviews I did with the cast of DAMAGES.

Tate Donovan is an actor that has been around for over 20 years. That’s long enough for me to have had a little boy crush on Tate back in the day… the SPACE CAMP day! Loved him more than words and it’s been fun to follow his career since. A few years back he nailed the role of Jimmy Cooper on The OC and currently he’s doing some of his best work on FX’s dramatic thriller DAMAGES.

Here is the interview from earlier in the week with Tate, and it saddens me that I didn’t get to ask about SPACE CAMP, working with super hot Kelly Preston, young Joaquin Phoenix, and Mrs. Steven Spielberg. Alas, he was fun and I hope you enjoy the interview.

Tate Donovan Interview Damages

Question: How has starring in a high-profile series with super popular Glenn Close rubbed off on you? Has it affected your life and/or career in unexpected ways?

T. Donovan: Working with Glenn Close is a fantastic experience. You have to bring your A game when you work with Ms. Close. She’s really well prepared. It’s actually really a joy, because she asks the director and the producers the best questions. Every time, she’s sort of like, “Well, hold on a second. Why is this?” She was asking about the plot, because it’s very confusing to everybody, exactly what’s going on in the case, since we’re not really lawyers. She’s very inspiring in terms of just the questions she asks, and you’re always going, “Geez, I wish I had asked that question,” like “Why does Frobisher do da, da, da, da, da?” Yes, she’s wonderful, a total inspiration.

Question: The writing, the characters are so nuanced in Damages. There is no clear-cut bad or good, just all sorts of shades of gray and in between. Your character, Tom, is for the most part, an on-the-level guy, but are you hopeful that the character will veer into the dark side more or stay more above the fray and above all the machinations that Patty has up her sleeve?

T. Donovan: What’s kind of exciting about Tom is that he, like all of us, we’re just trying to do the best we can and we’re trying to succeed and trying to do well. I think he lacks that killer instinct. Patty has it in state. She’s a genius. She knows exactly how to go in for the kill. Tom, I think he wants people to like him more. Patty doesn’t care; she just wants to win.

Somebody who wants everyone to like him generally gets into trouble, so I imagine Tom, like everyone else, like every other character, he has his moments of selfishness and his moments of greed. It’s funny; a lot of people are like, “I can’t believe, you’re the worst kind of evil. Your character is the worst, because he’s a nice guy and he’s evil.” I don’t particularly see him as evil. I see him as just a guy who is trying to survive in a pretty cut-throat environment.
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I didn’t get the chance to see last night’s DAMAGES so I don’t have any thoughts for you, instead I bring you an interview with Anastasia Griffith (Katie Connor) that I participated in.

It’s an interview heavy day (Kyle XY’s Matt Dallas) folks, hope you enjoy.

Anastasia Griffith, Damages Photo

Question: With growing up as the youngest child with a lot of older brothers, I was wondering growing up were they very over-protective of you or maybe too much so?

A. Griffith: Surprisingly, not so, actually. For people who don’t know, I’ve got six older brothers and I am the only girl and the youngest. I think secretly they were a lot more protective than they ever let on to me. You know, people have told me since, being an adult, that my brothers are fiercely protective of me, but they’ve never kind of let me know that, which I think is probably a good thing.

Question: In one of the interviews with your brother Jamie a few years ago he mentioned that your father was kind of very reluctant for him to go into acting. I was wondering if you met that same kind of issue?

A. Griffith: Dad has always been a businessman himself and he’s always just been a little bit cynical about the world of acting and I think for Jamie, Jamie is an incredibly bright guy and he had so many opportunities when he was younger and acting kind of grabbed his attention, as it did mine.

I think Dad is old school and he kind of, I think, thinks it’s more fitting for a daughter to go into acting than it is a for a son, but having said that, he’s done everything he can to encourage me to do other things. He’s got huge confidence in my intelligence and my ability to do things and also to act. But he just has no trust, I think, in the world of acting.

But, having said that, since Damages has taken off for me and it’s doing so well he’s actually written me a note recently saying congratulations and you, obviously, did the right thing.
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