The Carnivale Interviews

2006-03-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

CARNYCON UPDATED!

Announcing CarnyCon LIVE!!!

CarnyCon LIVE is an in-person, fan-run convention for "Carnivale" fans, and we are NOW taking paid registrations!

CarnyCon LIVE will be held in Los Angeles on the weekend of Friday, April 21st 2006 thru Sunday, April 23, 2006.

What will CarnyCon LIVE entail?

CarnyCon LIVE will begin Friday evening with a casual meet & greet party for the fans. Carnivale treats, such as popcorn, soda, corn dogs, etc. will be served (included in membership price) and the fans will have the opportunity to mingle and get to know one another in a friendly and fun-filled atmosphere. Friday Night entertainment will include fan-made music videos, Tarot Card Readings by Stacey Haines of Witch-on-Wheels, and feats of mentalism and sleight of hand magic by Master Magician Rich Ferguson. Saturday will be filled with Question and Answer periods with folks from the Carnivale cast and crew, as well as an autograph session. There will be a Saturday Lunch Buffet served, and a Dinner Buffet/Party on Saturday night -- and BOTH meals are also INCLUDED in the price of your registration! Sunday will include a Writer's Panel, as well as various Carnivale guest speakers and panels through mid-afternoon.

Our Celebrity Guest line-up includes Carnivale Creator Daniel Knauf, Clancy Brown (Brother Justin), Clea DuVall (Sofie), Cynthia Ettinger (Rita Sue), Debra Christofferson (Lila), Brian Turk (Gabriel), Carla Gallo (Libby), Amanada Aday (Dora Mae), Patrick Bauchau (Lodz), Diane Salinger (Apollonia), Michael J. Anderson (Samson), Ralph Waite (Rev. Norman Balthus), John Savage (Henry "Hack" Schudder), and Scott MacDonald (Burley).

Our Writer's Panel includes Special Guest Carnivale Writer/Producers Daniel Knauf, Tracy Torme, William Schmidt, Dawn Prestwich, and Nicole Yorkin.

(All Special Guest appearances are contingent upon professional availability.)

We are sorry, but due to professional commitments, Adrienne Barbeau, Tim DeKay, Rob Knepper, and John Carroll Lynch will not be able to attend CarnyCon.

CarnyCon will be held at the Hilton Woodland Hills, in Woodland Hills, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles) Our Hotel Room Block Rate will be $89.00 per night, plus taxes -- a GREAT price in LA!

Registration fees for Attending Members are $150 (if registration is sent in BEFORE Sept. 1, 2005), $165 (if registration is sent between Sept.2, 2005 thru Dec. 1, 2005), $175 (if registration is sent between Dec. 2, 2005 thru April 1, 2006.) International fans, please pay in US Funds only please.

We WILL accept registrations via PayPal (with an additional, non refundable PayPal service fee.) PayPal prices (US Funds only, please), are: $155 (if registration is sent in BEFORE Sept. 1, 2005), $171 (if registration is sent between Sept.2, 2005 thru Dec. 1, 2005), $181 (if registration is sent between Dec. 2, 2005 thru April 1, 2006.)

Attending Memberships for Children between the age of 3 and 12 years of age are US$50.00 (US$52.00 via PayPal.) Children 2 years of age and younger will be allowed in for free. Minors between the ages of 13 and 17 must pay the full membership price. All children 13 years of age or under must be accompanied by a registered adult member at all times. Minors between the ages of 14 and 17 must register along with an adult member who will be responsible for their actions.

There will be NO memberships taken at the door.

Supporting Memberships (for people who WILL NOT be able to attend the convention but who would still like to contribute money to help support CarnyCon LIVE), are $50.00. All Supporting Members will receive a royal blue Carnivale baseball cap (the same as the ones given out to the cast and crew), and a Thank You Letter signed by Dan Knauf and Clancy Brown. Supporting Membership caps and letters will start being shipped by September 1st. We will also accept payments for Supporting Memberships via PayPal (with an additional, non-refundable service fee.) The PayPal price for a Supporting Membership is $52.00.

Registration forms and PayPal information are available at the CarnyCon LIVE Website.

Please follow the link to our Ticketing Information Page.

Please Download and fill out the CarnyCon Registration Form and send it along with your payment to: CARNYCON, c/o Beth Blighton. PO Box 8655, Benton Harbor, MI 49023. We accept checks and money orders made out to CARNYCON (US Funds Only please.)

If paying by PayPal, follow the links on the ticketing page directly to PayPal. Please send a printout of your PayPal payment confirmation along with your registration form to CarnyCon, c/o Beth Blighton, PO Box 8655, Benton Harbor, MI 49023, for our records.

Please be sure to fill out ALL information on your Registration Form and
sign the waiver.

Memberships to CarnyCon LIVE will be LIMITED to 250 Attending Members.

We hope you will join us at the CarnyCon LIVE in Los Angeles next spring! It'll be great to put faces to names, party with our fan friends from all over the world, and spend time with the very generous cast & crew of "Carnivale" who we've all grown so close to in this wonderful fandom. If you enjoyed the ONLINE CarnyCon, we think you will enjoy the live and in person version even more.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Best wishes,
-- The CarnyCon LIVE Convention Committee

2005-07-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Adrienne Barbeau and Tim DeKay
at Flashback Weekend in Chicago!

Carnivale's own Tim DeKay (Jonesy) and Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie) made an appearance at the "Save Carnivale Rally" held at the Flashback Weekend Horror Convention on Saturday, July 29th. Both Adrienne and Tim had their own discussion panels, and also signed autographs and took photos with fans in the dealer's room, throughout the day.

Tim and Adrienne were interviewed onstage by Ain't It Cool News' own "Capone", concerning Carnivale's cancellation and fandom's efforts to bring it back. Tim & Adrienne also fielded questions from the audience.

The interviews/Q&A session with Tim and Adrienne were filmed, and Capone said that the rally organizers would be forwarding tape from the rally to the powers-that-be at HBO.

A Save Carnivale petition was also circulated through the audience during the rally and garnered approximately 100 signatures, which will also be sent to HBO. Though this was primarily a horror convention, with a very specific audience in mind, there was a nice crowd in the ballroom during both panels and the rally. So, it wouldn't be surprising if Carnivale picks up a few new fans this weekend!

Flashback Weekend continues through Sunday, July 31st, with a Carnivale panel featuring Adrienne Barbeau, Tim DeKay, Bill Moseley (Possum), and Matt McGrory (the Giant).

Many thanks to Flashback organizer, Mike Kerz, for his generosity & help, to Adrienne and Tim, for their gracious kindness to all the fans in attendence, and to Diane & Julie, for sending in Save Carnivale buttons & stickers to the convention, and for putting together the Save Carnivale petition that was circulated.

2005-04-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

Our SAVE CARNIVALE Telegram Drive!

We are encouraging all the fans of "Carnivale" to take a moment this weekend or throughout the week to send a Telegram to HBO Entertainment CEO, Chris Albrecht, to let him know that we want "Carnivale" back for a third season! All Telegrams sent through Western Union this weekend (through 6:00 pm Eastern time on Monday) will be delivered to Mr. Albrecht by Tuesday, April 19th. The final decision about renewal rests in Mr. Albrecht's hands, and we feel that Telegrams could be a VERY effective way for the fans' voices to be heard.

You see, Telegrams cost MONEY, and MONEY is the language Networks talk. If the fans are prepared to spend $14.99 to send HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht a Western Union TELEGRAM telling him to "Save Carnivale!" (or the like), it WILL get to his desk. It will get to SOMEBODY'S desk, for certain. And it will say "Here is a fan who is willing to spend what MIGHT have gone to a month's subscription of HBO, who has spent it instead on letting the Big Boss know what program we want back above all others."

You have 1000 characters (about 200 words) to let him know JUST how you feel about the issue. And those telegrams say MONEY SPENT. It'll be something that gets delivered by a messenger -- in DROVES -- to the one man in whose hand the fate of our show rests... Chris Albrecht.

ADDRESS:
Chris Albrecht - Chairman and CEO
HBO Entertainment
2500 Broadway, Ste. 400
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Here is the URL for Western Union:
https://wumt.westernunion.com/asp/tgReceiver.asp

Dan Knauf has thrown his support behind this campaign, as well. Here is his message to the CarnivaleHBO Yahoo group...

From Daniel Knauf:

This is a great idea! I officially endorse it. But first let me go buy some stock in Western Union! Heh...

Guys, you're so right. The lack of a decision from HBO has a devastating effect on fans, cast and crew alike. I don't think a day goes by in which I don't field a question from friends, crew-members or cast regarding the status of the show.

Why are they waiting? You got me. HBO has all the ratings info. They know how much the show cost. They have the DVD sales figures. There's really only two possibilities:

1.) The fix is in, the decision to cancel already made--in which case they are simply hoping to delay an official announcement to mitigate any ill will from fans and subscribers and potential repercussions; or

2.) They're on a fence, and just need something to tip them into picking us up.

If the former is true, a delaying tactic makes some sense. The farther down the road from the finale, the duller the sting.

At least, that's the theory.

However, I believe the latter is more likely. So tip away. And keep tipping. Shove if you have to. At the end of the day, if the show is cancelled, at least we'll know did everything we could.

D.

PS - And the ad in the trades? Don't bother with that one. It'll be in everyone's wastebasket by the end of the day. I'd rather you spent the money (as someone suggested) on your preferred charity.

So there you have it, folks. PLEASE help us help "Carnivale" by joining in this Telegram Drive, and be sure to pass the word along to friends, fans, co-workers, and family.

Let's make some noise and get "Carnivale" renewed for a third season!

2005-03-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

WIRX “Decoding Carnivale” call-in with Clancy Brown & Dan Knauf • 03-07-05

This is the transcript from Clancy’s radio call-in segment on Southwest Michigan’s WIRX/Rock 107.1, with Shelley Morgan.

SHELLEY: First, it’s after four o’clock! Time to “Decode Carnivale” with Brother Justin Crowe from the show, actor Clancy Brown… And a Special Guest this week! “Carnivale” creator Dan Knauf! Always fun to get to talk to Clancy, but I gotta tell ya, Dan. I’m pretty excited to get to talk to you!

DAN: Aw… I’d hold that in reserve until you talk to me for a bit, and then you might be completely regretting it.

Shelley: I shouldn’t be so impressed, right at the beginning?

Dan: (Laughing) Um… no.

Shelley: Okay. So, I’ll hold the impressed until later.

Dan: Yeah!

Shelley: I really enjoyed the show.

Dan: Yeah, Ben’s become a regular heal-a-thon lately!

Shelley: He has, hasn’t he?

Dan: Yeah, he’s a busy little guy…

Shelly: But I’m sitting there watching and seeing the most horrific thing. Because you hear of people who have been tarred and feathered, but it’s not something you ever really visualize.

Dan: Yeah, we kind of took it out of the Three Stooges territory.

Shelley: Yeah, you think?

CLANCY: It always seemed like such fun, didn’t it? It always seemed like such a fun image…

Dan: Yeah, just sort of Small Town Wacky!

Clancy: Yeah!

Dan: But no, it wasn’t fun.

Shelley: It was VERY horrific!

Dan: (chuckles)

Shelley: I mean, wow! And so Ben shows up… and you knew that was gonna happen!

Dan: Oh, yeah!

Shelley: Because Ben needs to, as Clancy and I have been talking about, Ben needs to start building his army. He needs to start bringing his disciples together.

Dan: Plus, he was kind of presented with a Hobson’s choice there. He needs to stop the guy from getting Scudder to Brother Justin, which is really important for the whole world, but then again, his friend is in trouble. And not really even his friend! Just somebody he worked with. And thank goodness he made the right choice.

Shelley: But you still get the feeling… You know that, if it were anybody at the side of the road, Ben would do it.

Dan. Ah, I don’t know.

Clancy: I don’t know!

Shelley: Really?

Clancy: I don’t know, I was kinda surprised he did it.

Dan: Yeah, I think if it was just some guy, like, holding up a sign that said “Will Work For Healin’!” he probably woulda just blown right past him.

Shelley: (laughing)

Clancy: (chuckling)

Shelley: Yeah, I’m thinkin’ that. But Ben is… He’s compassionate! And if there was someone who really needed his help…

(Dogs barking in background)

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Clancy: Ben is a softie…

Shelley: It was such a cool moment between Ben & Jonesy.

Dan: Yeah!

Shelley: There was this great connection before Ben started to heal him.

Dan: I think it’s kind of cool when you’ve got two guys who have always sort of not gotten along, and you go, “You know, those guys should be friends, cuz they’re both nice guys.” And then they finally hook up. You know what I mean?

Shelley: Um-hmm.

Dan: So yeah, it was fun to write, and I think it was fun to watch.

Shelley: And then, when the tar just kind of falls off of him…

Dan: Yeah.

Shelley: That was a really great image to see, too. Because earlier, Libby had tried to pull it off of him, and she knew that just wasn’t gonna happen.

Dan: Yeah!

Clancy: But there are a couple of spas here in Southern California where you can have a Tar Treatment.

Shelley: (chuckling) Wow! That doesn’t sound like fun at all.

Clancy: (chuckling) That Hot Tar Treatment, it’s great for the skin!

Dan: I went to Two Bunch Palms, I got the whole Tar n’ Feather deal!

Shelley: (laughing) How much did that set you back?

Dan: (laughing) Actually, they were payin’ me…

Shelley: Oh…

Dan: See, it was another guest who actually got to do it to me. So it’s sort of a thing.

Shelley: (laughing)

Clancy: And it was for the show, so you get to write it off.

Dan: Yeah.

Shelley: It was research, exactly. Beautiful! “Decoding Carnivale” with not only Clancy Brown, but “Carnivale” creator Dan Knauf. A bit of a glance inside the character of Brother Justin Crowe last night!

Dan: What I liked about this episode is that it kinda brought back the whole thing… There was real sincerity and love from Justin to Balthus.

Shelley: Yeah!

Dan: And Clancy played it beautifully, as just “Get away from this man!.” Cuz he LOVES him! That’s his FATHER!

Shelley: Right!

Dan: And that doesn’t just go away because you happen to be the Creature of Darkness!

Shelley: (chuckling) Right, because he’s not all bad. He’s human, and there are good points and bad points.

Dan: Yeah, and when he sits down and starts being Pastoral with Sofie, I think he’s really trying to help her. I don’t think he’s, “Well hey, maybe if we get down on our knees and pray, I can work somthin’ here!” I think he’s half-human. And nobody’s the bad guy in their own story!

Shelley: It worked so well because it was caring and compassionate.

Dan: (Laughing) And yet, you know no good can come of it!

Clancy: (Evil laugh)

Dan: The casts of both worlds very rarely meet. And when they do, it’s always kind of like two guys waving from passing ships. So in a way, it was really kind of neat to inject Sofie into that world. And it’s fun to see her playing scenes with Iris and Brother Justin.

Shelley: She’s out of her element, but she’s so excited to be someplace else, and seeing something else, and having new experiences, and stuff.

Clancy: Yes! Yes! And plus she’s a lot cleaner…

Shelley: Well, that’s true.

Dan: (Evil laugh)

Shelley: Maybe that’s what the difference was! She actually had taken a bath!

Clancy: Yes, she’s thrilled to have soap.

Shelley: (Laughing)

Clancy: In the last few episodes, and this one included, we’ve seen Justin have visions of mortal vulnerability, and the impression it’s headed his way.

Dan: Yeah, I think Justin is beginning to hear that ticking crocodile.

Clancy: Yes, he’s hearing the ticking crocodile, so there’s real fear in it. And maybe the only comfort he has anymore is in his human side. He’s entering Jerusalem, as it were, so he knows somethin’s gonna happen that could very well result in his death. He hasn’t quite put it all together yet, but…

Shelley: No, because Justin doesn’t have as much information as Ben does, because Scudder’s still alive.

Clancy: Right:

Shelley: And speaking of Scudder… We see Scudder and Stroud in a cheap motel room, and Ben sees them too! Because Ben’s there I the room.

Clancy: Yeah, what was that, a little astral projection? I didn’t know Ben could do that!

Dan: Yeah, Ben can… But it HURTS.

Shelley: Oh, it does?

Dan: Oh yeah, if he focuses… He’s not really taking himself out. He’s not really going there like in a bi-location. Physically, he’s not there.

Shelley: Right, the people he’s looking at can’t see him. It’s kind of like “A Christmas Carol.”

Dan: Yeah, but it takes it out of him.

Shelley: That’s why he started the nosebleed.

Dan: Yes, the blue nosebleed.

Shelley: With the blue blood… Very nice.

Clancy: And I liked the line he said, too. “Jeepers!”

Dan: It’s always fun to write that stuff in.

Shelley: Cuz you can’t really use those kinds of words writing it for contemporary…

Dan: You could, but the person would be like a total dork. But in that time, you could say stuff like “Jeepers!” Jeepers-Creepers! And still be cool. Maybe we’ll bring back “Jeepers”, Clancy!

Clancy: I’m… looking for opportunities. I’m looking for opportunities to say a lot of these lines…

Dan: Like “Putting the boots to the biscuit”…

Clancy: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Shelley: Bringing back Jeepers… That’s gonna happen, I can tell!

Dan: (chuckling) Jeepers!

Clancy: Jeepers!

Dan: It sounds cool when YOU say it!

Shelley: It sounds cool when Clancy says it, cuz anything sounds cool when Clancy says it.

Dan: Yeah.

Clancy: You’ll have to use that on the radio more and more. Say Jeepers!

Dan: Yeah, just start saying it! Jeepers!

Shelley: Yeah, that’s gonna happen guys! (laughing) Didn’t you just say that when people say “Jeepers” now, they sound like dorks? (laughing) Yeah… We’re gonna continue that. We’ll keep the Jeepers goin’! So let’s see, what else happened last night?

Dan: That whole thing with Ruthie was really creepy!

Clancy: Yeah, no kiddin’!

Dan: I tell ya, it’s times like that I’m really happy that we went with Adrienne, cuz she’s got all the experience on all those John Carpenter movies. Ya know? She really knows how to open her eyes into a freaky reveal.

Clancy: (chuckling)

Dan: BOING!!!

Shelley: (laughing) And then Lila’s knocking on the door.

Dan: Isn’t it funny how Lila is courting her?

Shelley: I know! She’s hitting on her!

Clancy: What’s that all about?

Dan: (chuckling)

Shelley: Well, I don’t know. Maybe she feels that when Ruthie channels Lodz, she might get some. I don’t know! Maybe Lila’s lonely!

Dan: I felt a little bad, though, cuz you can actually see the beard kind coming off Debra in that shot!

Clancy: (evil chuckle)

Shelley: I was gonna say something about that…

Dan: Yeah, the beard was really falling off… (evil chuckle)

Shelley: It looked very sparse. It hasn’t looked that sparse before.

Clancy: I was just looking at her eyes, those pleading, pathetic eyes…

Shelley: Puppy dog eyes…

Dan: I know! Isn’t she great?

Shelley: Yeah, she really is.

Dan: Yeah, it’s always like that when your boyfriend suddenly becomes a girl.

Shelley: (giggling)

Clancy: I know, in your pursuit of the unattainable… You’ll try anything!

Dan: And Amy rocked last night.

Shelley: Didn’t she?

Dan: She’s just really freakin’ scary!

Clancy: She is sooo scary!

Shelley: Because she can go from those moments, as well, when she’s talking to Balthus, ya know?

Dan: (evil chuckle)

Shelley: She’s still being very hard as a rock, but she’s being very gentle with him.

Dan: Yeah!

Shelley: And then just pickin’ up that oar, and just smackin’ Eleanor on the top of the head! And just beating her to death!

Dan: Yeah, it’s been YEARS since I’ve seen anybody get a good oar-whackin’ on TV! (laughing)

Clancy: (chuckling) I always like the arrest after the initial smack. It’s like, “Oh, I smacked her over the head.” Like that’s enough. “Well… maybe that’s not enough,” (laughing)

Dan: (Laughing)

Shelley: Maybe she needs three or four more!

Dan: One good whack deserves another!

Clancy: Yeah, I LOVED that!

Dan: And another, and another, and another… I think this show, the theme, in a way, if you look at it, it’s really kind of a Three Stooges thing. Between getting hit on the head with an oar and getting tarred & feathered… There was a lot of Moe-ness going on.

Shelley: (laughing) I didn’t catch that! I didn’t catch the Three Stooges analogy so much. But you’re right!

Clancy: Curly is the Creature of Light, and Moe is the Creature of Darkness, and they’re battling for the soul of Larry, I think.

Dan: Yeah, that’s pretty much… Shh! Don’t let the cat out of the bag!

Shelley: (laughing)

Dan: What we’re doing here is really The Three Stooges meets Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. That’s basically the theme.

Clancy: (chuckling in the background)

Shelley: Wow. That was your pitch, wasn’t it?

Dan: That’s EXACTLY what I went in with.

Shelley: Mm-hmm… And kudos to HBO for being able to go, “You know, that sounds pretty awesome! Let’s do that!”

Dan: They were pretty drunk.

Shelley: (laughing hard) I think that’s always a good move in a pitch meeting, to make sure the guys you’re trying to get that story sold to are just hammered off their ass.

Dan: Oh, yeah! Chris Albrecht woke up the next morning and just, “I bought WHAT?!?”

Shelley: Well, we still have a couple more episodes left, what’s next for us on HBO’s “Carnivale”?

Clancy: Well, there’s gonna be MANY more questions and MANY more answers in the coming weeks, so…

Shelley: We’ve got three new episodes left!

Clancy: Three episodes left for this season, and they’re chock full of fun stuff, too. (evil laugh) There’s not a lot of exposition to happen anymore, there’s only loose ends to tie up -- or at least pay-offs to pay off.

(sound of train going by in the background)

Shelley: Okay.

Clancy: We’re going to the bank. We’re cashing in a lot of the atmospheric exposition chips that we’ve built up over the last couple of seasons.

Shelley: Alrighty then! You heard it from the men themselves! Clancy Brown and Dan Knauf, thanks for taking time out to help us “Decode Carnivale” again – on HBO2 tonight, the repeat, and then, Sunday night at 10:00, a brand-new episode. We only have THREE MORE new episodes, so if you haven’t gotten into it yet, there’s still time. And it’s a really great show! So, check it out. And thanks again, you guys!

2005-01-13T18:17:00.000-08:00

CarnyCon • the Online Carnivale Convention OPEN SOON!

Coming Soon! CarnyCon Opens to the public Thursday, February 24th, 2005!

www.CarnyCon.com

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Madames et Messieurs, Damen und Herren, step right up...

Prepare yourselves to enter the wondrous, the exotic world of the mysterious Carnivale!

Stroll our midway. Feast your eyes upon the amazing and the bizarre. Partake in a friendly game of chance, or enter a different realm and communicate with "the other side."

What fortunes may be foretold within? What secrets may be revealed? What treasures might be purchased, should one throw one's self with abandon into the thrills & chills of our tent revival/auction? And who might you run into in the press of the crowd?

There's only one way to find out...

Join us for CarnyCon, the Online "Carnivale" Convention, opening Thursday, February 24th!

Remember... Admission is FREE!

2005-01-11T15:18:00.000-08:00

Decoding Carnivale with Clancy Brown • 01-10-05

There's a brand new "Decoding Carnivale" transcript up at the Official Clancy Brown Fan Club Weblog!

Hope you all enjoy!

2004-09-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

New Article
About Visiting a "Jackie Chan Adventures"
Recording Session with Clancy Brown

Now Available at:
The Official Clancy Brown Fan Club Weblog

2004-08-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

Adrienne Barbeau Interview
Part 2
Interviewed by Beth Blighton
2-9-04

Beth: Another one of the theories we've been kind of kicking around online, it seems that some of the people in the carnival have a better idea of the big picture, of what's going on, what's at stake, than others. Do you think Ruthie has some kind of instinct that Ben needs to be taken care of, that she needs to watch out for the Lodz-type characters? Or do you think she has actual knowledge and understanding of what' really going on? Because it seems like some of the characters kind of know. Like Lodz knows, and possibly Samson knows. But others seem to be completely in the dark.

Adrienne: I think anything Ruthie knows, I don't think she knows anything from a past history. She was the first one, she knew early on, because Ben told her that Hack Scudder, that the picture in the photograph was his mom. And so, "You think he could be your father?" comes out of that. So Ruthie knows early on that there is some connection. And she knows, again early on, when Ben says, (when Apollonia walked and Ben caught her, and all of that), "I didn't do anything. I didn't touch her." She says, "I know." And she knows that! So she knows that there is something unique about him. And, of course, when she realizes that he's healed Gabe's arm, that's the reason I call him for the snake bite. I know he has certain abilities. More than that? (laughing) I'd have to go back and watch the whole thing! Which I fully intend to do before we start shooting again.

Beth: And it is wonderful. When they did that marathon and you get the chance to see it all in one sitting, it just plays like an epic movie!

Adrienne: Unfortunately, I was having such trouble with my cable for the first six episodes, until I finally got rid of the cable company and switched over to satellite, all of the episodes I've got taped are almost unwatchable! So I hope we go into reruns eventually.

Beth: Yeah, I hope they show the reruns before they air the second season, too. Just so they can get new audience members up to speed on this story before going any farther with it.

Adrienne: I do, too.

Beth: I think it'll be a little tough for new people to know what's going on, if they don't.

Adrienne: Yes.

Beth: One of the best scenes that I thought you had was the eulogy for Dora Mae. What was it that Ruthie put into the grave? I know some of the objects seemed to have a specific meaning, did the object that Ruthie put in have a specific meaning, too? I think it was a shawl she put in...

Adrienne: I don't remember...

Beth: (laughing) Oh, no! Okay... bad question.

Adrienne: (laughing) Now, what WAS it? Was it a piece of fabric?

Beth: I think it was, it was like black fabric of some kind, but it was hard to tell if it was a costume or a shawl, or what it was!

Adrienne: Ah, well ya got me, Beth. (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) Sorry about that!

Adrienne: It's one of those questions everybody else can answer! (laughing)

Beth: But that was a great scene for you, and it was just so emotional, and I thought, again, that Ruthie was sort of the heart of that group. She was the one who needed to say something. From what I've heard, Amanda Aday was just so good as Dora Mae that nobody really wanted her to die by the end!

Adrienne: Yes! It came as a huge shock. All of them! I mean, Lodz came as a shock! But I think Amanda knew going in that she was contracted not for the whole season. But we didn't know, and we were really sorry to lose her.

Beth: I also loved the scene between Ruthie and Samson, after Ben has been kinda nasty to her.

Adrienne: That's my favorite! That's my favorite! I loved it!

Beth: Here they both are, just trying to figure out what in the world is going on.

Adrienne: I loved it. (laughing) It sorta reminded me of a Howard Hawks woman, pick a number, put a number on it. Ya know one of the things that's so wonderful about the scripts is the dialect of the dialogue. You can't help but find your character and know your character, just by the way the words are written on the page. And I know when I went in for the original audition, the words were so specific. Sometimes when you go in for an audition and you change a "the" an "and" or a "what" or something, it doesn't damage what you're doing. It doesn't really change anything because it's contemporary and somebody might say, "What the heck are you doing?" and somebody else might say, "What are you doing?" ya know? But Ruthie's dialogue, the first speech that I said over Ben's mom, which got cut, was written so specific to the period and to the place, that I just knew who she was. I think it was, (as Ruthie) "Lord. Never met this woman. Don't know what kind of life she had. Whether she sinned or did good. All's I know, she got a son who went through great trials and tribulations." Aw, shoot, I'm gonna forget the rest... "To put her here safe..."Something like that, there was more to it. "And that says somethin', Lord." I can't remember the rest, but you could tell from the way it was written.

Beth: And they took that out?

Adrienne: Well, it was too long. They needed to get the story going and all that. But that has carried through throughout all twelve episodes. Each of the writers has such a strong sense of how these characters sound, it really makes our life very easy.

Beth: Yes, just that color all the way around, the accuracy of the scenery, of what's there.

Adrienne: I didn't know. I'm not a history buff, and it's not a period of time that I had studied...Growing up in California, we'd studied the Spanish coming up from Mexico and all of that, but I don't remember even studying the Depression, or the 20s and 30s, or even the first World War, that much. And if I did, it was so long ago that the brain cells have gone. So I had a great time researching the period, researching the first World War, researching... I rented all of the documentaries that were made by the WPA and government at the time, and then just read everything I could get my hands on and looked at the photographs. And even to find out what was on Broadway at that time and what was on the radio at that time. What were the hit songs? Who was in jail? I tried to put it in some... In fact, I think at one time I even thought to myself that Ruthie had probably seen Little Egypt at the World's Fair in Chicago, which may have given rise to... I'd have to go back now and see if the timing was right, but may have given rise to her interest in snake dancing. But it was great fun as an actor to have a reason to explore that.

Beth: Ruthie's tattoo has come in for some discussion, too. I mean, obviously, she's a snake charmer so it would make sense that she has a snake tattoo. But with the symbolism of the Tattooed Man with the tree, and she has the snake, we've been putting together theories about the whole Genesis, Tree of Knowledge angle.

Adrienne: Oh! I'll have to go online and see about that! (laughing) It's funny because, right before the show... I think we had done the pilot, but we hadn't gone into filming yet, I did a production of "Fiddler on the Roof." I was originally on Broadway in "Fiddler on the Roof" playing one of the daughters, but now I'm playing the mom. But one of the girls who played one my daughters had a tattoo. And so I asked her about it and said, "So, why'd you do it?" Because she was young and I wanted to know what made her do it. And I asked several other people, "Why do you do this?" Unless it's in a drunken state and you just got off the ship. (laughing) And so I think I sort of based some of Ruthie's... I think I clarified it for myself. I don"t think I could clarify it for anybody else, but it has not to do with... Certainly it never crossed my mind that it had anything to do with the Tattooed Man or... I think part of it is... It's a sales gimmick! She's a performer. She's an entertainer. This is what she does! And if this will draw people in.... It's something unique. People who tattoo their bodies do it because they think that's it's beautiful, it's an enhancement. She has an enormous affinity for snakes. She holds them dear to her heart, so it's all of those things.

Beth: Which makes it kind of a nastier way for Lodz to get her, knowing that.

Adrienne: Yeah!

Beth: That was pretty cruel. And I'm wondering, now that she's been resurrected, how much of that is she going to remember?

Adrienne: I have no idea! I have no idea what's going on next year. I mean, I know I'm back! That's all I know!

Beth: But that's a GOOD thing to know! (laughing) Ya know, that last scene of that final show still startles me, when she wakes up and gasps like that!

Adrienne: Only yesterday I was making a copy for a friend who hadn't seen it, and that was the show I was doing. And when it went to black I thought, "Oh, I bet there were a lot of people who just got up and said, 'Oh well, it's over,' and shut it off, and never saw that last moment!" (laughing) It went to black for a good second and a half, at least!

Beth: Well, won't they be surprised next season! (laughing) Ya know, I wondered that, too. I though, "Oh, I hope they didn't miss that!"

Adrienne: Yeah, there was time enough for them to hit the button!

Beth: My husband and I were watching it, and his comment was, "Why did they stop throwing water on the burning bus as soon as Jonesy ran in there?"

Adrienne: Oh! (laughing) That's interesting! I'm fascinated, along with everyone else, to see who comes out and how damaged they are. I mean, that was a major fire in a small area!

Beth: Exactly! But the last fifteen minutes or so of that season finale were just amazing, some of the best television I've seen in a long time. Just the way Apollonia looked at Sofie when she grabbed her arm, that was just eerie and awful. (laughing)

Adrienne: Yes!

Beth: Also, "Carnivale" has broken a lot of stereotypes in casting and in the relationships, in that they haven't used the Playboy standard type of girls for the Cooch dancers, you have a man who is one of the love interests who is also disabled, they put Ben & Ruthie together though there is an age difference. Do you feel as if this show is breaking down some of those stereotypes?

Adrienne: It was one of the things I was so proud of early on when I talked in interviews. It was one of the things I love about the show. Whether or not it's breaking them down, it's certainly not kowtowing to stereotypes. I mean you've got a woman who a lot of people find extremely sexy, and she's a big, bearded woman. You've got Cynthia who is not the waif or the nineteen-year-old who is the sexual draw. And Ruthie! It's fantastic to be able to do something like this. I just went to see "Something's Gotta Give" about an older woman/older man, and I came away angry, actually, because I felt like, "Geez, it was an opportunity to really deal -- in a humorous way -- with some real issues." And, c'mon, they don't even talk about AIDS! And I think, if anything... I don't know what's going to happen, but "Carnivale" is certainly more realistic, and gives an opportunity for me to play someone who... I had just said to my husband, as the years are going on, "Well, ya know, I'm gonna be relegated to lawyers and judges, and weeping mothers, and all of that stuff." But then something like this comes along, and it's fantastic!

Beth: Yes, it is! And it's just nice to see the change. Because even Libby is not... They haven't done things to make her look different, to fit into that Penthouse mold. She is what she is. All the women on the show are what they are.

Adrienne: Yes!

Beth: And everybody is getting some kind of relationship somewhere along the way.

Adrienne: You even have Samson with the prostitute!

Beth: Right! Samson has a relationship, the Bearded Lady Lila has a relationship, an older man, Lodz, has a relationship! So it is kind of different in that we've just gotten so used to having romantic relationships portrayed in this very narrow, exclusive way on television. So it's good to see a shift away from that kind of attitude. Good for them! I hope it opens up some horizons for some other actors, too. What I'd really love to see is an Annie Lebowitz Vanity Fair cover of the entire "Carnivale" cast. I can just see it! It could be gorgeous! Done up to the nines, with all the period clothes.

Adrienne: Mmm...

Beth: If they ever do an article on "Carnivale", that's what I would really love to see.

Adrienne: Me, too! (laughing)

Beth: Or even just the women of "Carnivale" -- people who look like real women!

Adrienne: Yes, yes!

Beth: I'm kinda surprised nobody has landed on that for a feature.

Adrienne: I think the show needs more visibility. I think our second season, hopefully, will do that. It's just premiering in Europe, I think, fairly soon. I talked to one of our producers the other day, who said he has a friend over in Ireland who had been seeing ads for it. So, it needs a larger audience before we get to that point. But hopefully we'll make it.

Beth: I think Ireland has gotten it, but England hasn't yet. but soon!

Adrienne: I think France will love it, Germany will love it! I think it's a very European series.

Beth: It's very stylized.

Adrienne: I think so.

Beth: Now, from some of the conversations that have gone on in the various discussion groups, there's kind of a consensus that Ben was a little bit rude to Ruthie the morning after. (laughing)

Adrienne: (laughing) Oh, more than a little! We cut some of the scene!

Beth: Really? Well, then!

Adrienne: Well, Ben's got his demons. He's got his morality, and his mom, and his religious upbringing. When I first saw it, I thought, now wait a minute! We're not married! I mean, I'm not married, what sin has he committed? I mean, he's thinking adultery? Then I was, oh, oh! He's gotta be married to sleep with her. (laughing)

Beth: Right. But I was trying to figure out if there was more to it than just the morality or if he just has a fear of being touched at all, or touching anyone else, because what might he accidentally do?

Adrienne: Well, there's certainly... He says that in the scene where we're off hunting for the snake. He says,
"There wasn't much touchin' in my family." And he cringes at it.

Beth: And isn't that sad and terrible?

Adrienne: And there's obviously a very strong religious indoctrination, so I think that's where some of it came from.

Beth: And it was so nice that Lodz was holding that over his head, too. The whole, "You killed your mother, and you could have saved her, too!" That's not small potatoes he's using there. But hopefully, now that Ben has lost Ruthie once, he'll have more of an appreciation for her, now that he's brought her back.

Adrienne: I don't know. I really have no idea where they're gonna go with it.

Beth: I'm totally obsessed -- and I admit I may be the ONLY person obsessed with this -- but I keep thinking, well, how are they going to explain the dead body?!? I mean, they've got a dead Lodz to explain now! He's got purple strangle marks rising up on his neck as we speak. What are they gonna tell people? These people believe in Carnivale Justice!

Adrienne: Well, the only person left there who wanted him alive is Lila. The rest of us aren't gonna care! (laughing)

Beth: (Laughing) The rest won't care if he just gets disappeared.

Adrienne: Oh, no! Get rid of him! (laughing) But then, all he'd have to say is that Lodz tried to kill Ruthie. I'd have to go back and look... But does anybody even know I've been bit? They don't know I've been killed, do they?

Beth: No, they put poor Gabe out in front of the trailer.

Adrienne: That's right!

Beth: For DAYS! I was getting a little worried about you there. I was like, "I don't know... She might be getting a little tough to bring back about now." (laughing) But do you have any hopes for the character for the next season, something you'd like to see happen?

Adrienne: I would love it if Ruthie had some metaphysical abilities of her own. Just because I'm so interested in that, in psychic ability or intuition, and tarot and all that. Well, Tim DeKay and I have been teasing Dan Knauf since the first week of production. We're both trying to pay him off so Jonesy and Ruthie get together! (laughing)

Beth: There ya go!

Adrienne: (laughing) Cuz they seem like... Not quite the same age difference.

Beth: That's right, get Ben out of there. He doesn't appreciate Ruthie properly anyway!

Adrienne: (laughing) I mean, there's only so many machinations and relationships we can explore!

Beth: Hey, we're fans. We're all open to these kind of shifts!

Adrienne: Hey, maybe she could get pregnant, huh?

Beth: (laughing) Ah, that would be fun, too, wouldn't it?

Adrienne: That would be interesting! Good Lord. (laughing) I hope she gets to dance again.

Beth: And how was it with the snakes?

Adrienne: I had a ball.

Beth: That's scary to me, cuz snakes. I have a little bit of an aversion to them.

Adrienne: Well, if it were roaches, I wouldn't be here. But snakes, I don't have a problem with! But when they told me I would be doing a scene with them, I started calling around. I called a belly dancer, an exotic dance instructor, because I grew up listening to Armenian music and dancing in all the Armenian weddings, so I had some sense of the dance, the style and everything. But I thought I'd better go in and do a little learning. But when I called her she said, "Oh, you're gonna dance with a snake? Oh, no no... You don't want belly dancing, that's a whole different thing." And she gave me the name of a woman who dances with snakes. That's what she does for a living. And it was VERY helpful. I went and spent about three hours with this woman who has snakes in her house, a whole collection of them, and I was able to work with them and sort of work out a little choreography. But basically what it did was enable me to understand how to work with them, because once you're dancing with a snake, you're not really going to have a lot of choreography that you can stick to,

Beth: That snake is gonna do what it's gonna do!

Adrienne: And it's gonna do what you persuade it to do. So having learned that, I had a ball. We shot that one scene. We shot for about five hours, all the different takes and everything. Aside from the moment the snake decided it was time to deposit his digested dinner on my costume...

Beth: Ooh, boy!

Adrienne: We had a ball!

Beth: This is an awful question. but a guy I work with is an avid snake collector, too, and from the tales he's told us, don't they kinda deposit... it's sort of like a little composite package of whatever critter they ate, isn't it?

Adrienne: It's an entire rodent!

Beth: Exactly, the whole rat!

Adrienne: They take a whole month to go to the bathroom, and he decided it was time. And I had just said to the snake wrangler, "I think I'll put him in my hair."

Beth: Oh, no!

Adrienne: But we hadn't gotten that far. I was holding him in my hands, sort of away from my body, when I felt something moist hit my leg. (laughing) And, oh man!

Beth: Yeah, the whole idea of a desiccated rat that's made its way through a snake's system is like... Oh, no.

Adrienne: (laughing)

Beth: That would have gotten my attention. Now, snakes are kind of heavy, aren't they?

Adrienne: They are heavy, they are. I was at the chiropractor afterwards.

Beth: Oh, no!

Adrienne: Not so much from the heaviness, but because -- you didn't see it onscreen -- but there was one part of the dance where I was on the ground and I kept lifting him up. So when you do that over and over for five hours, I was hurtin'!

Beth: What kind of snake was that?

Adrienne: That was a... Wait a minute, we had two. There was one that was cut from the scene, and that was a Bolivian milk snake. And this was a diamond boa. I believe he was from Australia, I'm not sure.

Beth: Do we know what the other snake was, the black one that kind of slithered out of Ruthie's trailer after it bit her?

Adrienne: Ya know, I wasn't on the set that day, so I didn't work with it, and I never asked her.

Beth: That was a kind of scary looking snake.

Adrienne: Maybe they wanted it to look like a black mamba or something.

Beth: It looked a little like a black racer or something.

Adrienne: I don't know.

Beth: But being as I don't like snakes, her reaching into that bag just gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Adrienne: (laughing)

Beth: It was just such a wonderful series all the way around, and I really miss the quality, now that it's on hiatus. There just aren't that many series out there that go that extra mile with the look and the detail and the whole thing. I'm just so glad that they're bringing it back.

Adrienne: So are we!

2004-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

For more information about "Carnivale" visit: HBO.com

Adrienne Barbeau Interview
Part 1
Interviewed by Beth Blighton
02-09-04

Beth: What drew you to “Carnivale” as a project?

Adrienne: Initially, the fact that it was HBO. I never read the script until after they made me the offer. I knew Howard Klein, he was a friend and a business associate. And I had seen the pilot casting specifications in the breakdown. They call them the “breakdowns”, the thing that the casting directors send out to the agents saying, “This is what we’re looking for.” And I saw that they were looking for the woman in the coma, who seemed to be about my age, ya know? (laughing)
Ruthie was initially described as a wizened… I can’t remember how they said it… I don’t even know if Ruthie was in the breakdown that I saw. So, when I saw this, I called Howard and I said, “Listen, if there’s anything I’m right for, I’d love to be considered.” And he said, “Oh yeah, there’ll be plenty of stuff. Don’t worry, we’ll get you in.” And then I got a call to come in and audition. And they sent me the sides, which was a scene that eventually, pretty much … Well, my part of it was pretty much cut out of the first episode. It was… Ruthie spoke at the funeral for Ben’s mom. She had a long… I can remember it to this day, what the dialogue was. She had a long speech that she said. Samson said, “Ruthie, say a few words,” and Ruthie said… something. But I had no idea that it was a period piece, because on the sides I got it just said they were carnival workers. So I put on my cowboy boots, which I live in, and my jeans. And I thought, well, my hair looks much too contemporary. So I had this old ratty wig, from a show that I had done several years before. It was sort of long and looked a little less urban. (laughing)

Beth: A little wilder.

Adrienne: A little more rural, and I went in and I did the audition. When I walked out, the casting director said, “That was fantastic!” And I said, “Oh, thank you.” Then Howard Klein, who’s one of the producers, called and talked to my husband and said, “Tell Adrienne she was fantastic.” And I thought, “Oh, great!” Then I never heard another thing! (laughing)

Beth: Oh, no…

Adrienne: That was before Thanksgiving, I think, and I thought, “Well, I was fantastic, but they hired someone else.” (chuckling) But then, right before Christmas I got the call saying they’d be calling to make an offer and that I wasn’t even going to have to go to HBO to audition again – because the original audition was just for the producers and for the director, Rodrigo. And I was out of town, and it wasn’t until I came back after the first of January that I picked up the script.

Beth: Ah-ha!

Adrienne: And I was on my way to my son’s college, I needed to drop some paperwork off, so I started reading it in the car while I was driving. And by the time I got to the college, I just got out of the car and sat down under a tree and started reading it before I even did my chores!

Beth: Sorry, honey, but I have to read this!

Adrienne: It was fantastic! I mean, the pilot script, the original script, was just fantastic! It was the kind of thing that I’m drawn to. I have sort of an underpinning of metaphysics. I have dealt with psychics throughout my life. My grandmother was psychic. I think I’ve had some minor incidences of my own. I have a predisposition to a belief system. I have studied tarot and have done a little bit for myself. So all of that was already something that I was fascinated with. It was just incredibly well written, and I loved the character! And the fact that it was HBO, which meant freedom, prestige, quality. That’s what drew me.

Beth: And you were right! What do you see as the background history of the character of Ruthie? What have you brought to her history in your own mind, beyond what they’ve given you in the scripts?

Adrienne: Well, there was a time when I did have an entire back-story that I sort of worked out just to make everything logical for myself. I think her mom was probably Romanian or Armenian, eastern European, came over with a circus, ended up in a Midwestern town and stayed… I’ve never told anybody this! (laughing) But this is just one thing that might work for Ruthie. Maybe she stayed with an American farmer or something who had a strong religious background -- because Ruthie does tend to carry the religious aspect of the carnivale.

Beth: I think so, too.

Adrienne: But maybe the mom couldn’t stay with her dad and took off early, or maybe Ruthie just couldn’t stand the real strict disciplinarian of the Midwestern farmer, so she took off early, and eventually she hooked up with another circus. I think she’s been there for a while.

Beth: I know people have brought this up online. Do you see Ruthie as kind of a parallel with the legend of Lilith, who I believe was supposed to have been Adam’s first wife but wouldn’t be subservient, since Ruthie is the independent woman who will not be run by a man?

Adrienne: She says to Ben, “I don’t answer to anyone. It’s no one’s business who I take to my bed.” But earlier on, when he says, “You slept with Scudder.” She says, “I don’t answer to any man.” And she’s been on her own, alone, for a long time – just her and Gabe. So, yeah! Nobody’s gonna tell her what to do. Maybe Samson… I mean, she’ll listen to people, but when it comes to relationships like that, she has a pretty strong sense of her own self.

Beth: What do you think the link is between Ruthie and Hack Scudder? Do you think it’s possible, again, as some of the fans have theorized, that Gabe may also be Scudder’s son?

Adrienne: (long pause) No… I don’t think so. I never thought… I didn’t know that was theory! (laughing)

Beth: Oh, yes! (laughing) One of the many ongoing theories in fandom.

Adrienne: Um… I don’t think so. (chuckling) He’s so active as it is, old Hack!

Beth: Yes, he is!

Adrienne: I don’t think we need to throw somebody else in the pot.

Beth: And I think it was Clancy who threw out the theory that when Ben healed Gabe’s broken arm, does Ben have enough control over his own gifts that he could stop at simply healing his arm? Or is it possible Ben could have unwittingly aided Gabriel with his mental development, as well?

Adrienne: Oh, interesting! Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that… But I don’t know that Ruthie thinks of it as something that needs to be addressed.

Beth: That’s true.

Adrienne: That’s Gabe. That’s who he is. If Ben… (laughing) I’ve never thought about this, honest to God! But I suppose, if Ben came to me and said, “Hey, do you want him to be healed completely?” She’d say, “No. This is who he is. This is who God meant him to be. The broken arm didn’t have anything to do with nature or the universe.” It’s just…

Beth: (laughing) Sorry. This is just what we do in the discussion groups -- sit around discussing possible storylines and plot twists.

Adrienne: (laughing) Oh, man! I hate to tell ya, I’m an actress who shows up for work and reads the words, and then tries to find the part of myself for whom they are real. I think about what just happened, what’s gonna happen, and stuff like that. But I don’t sit around creating… I feel like that’s the writer’s, that’s their table.

Beth: Yeah, sometimes I think a lot of us in fandom are really just frustrated writers! (laughing)

Adrienne: I did, however, when there was rumor that maybe, if someone was gonna have to die maybe it would have to be Gabe, I did put my foot down and say, “If Gabe has to die, Ruthie is never gonna forgive Ben!” I mean, you can’t expect me to have a relationship with someone who takes my son’s life because he’s giving life to someone else.

Beth: And would she even be able to stay there in the carnival anymore if Gabe was gone?

Adrienne: Exactly, exactly!

Beth: That would be her heart he destroyed.

Adrienne: When I was in jeopardy, you can’t bring me back and have it be Gabe that’s gonna go. There’s no way. I mean, there is, but then don’t expect me to stay in a romantic relationship.

Beth: There seemed to be bad blood already in place between Ruthie and Lodz.

Adrienne: Oh, yes.

Beth: Did they ever give any kind of hint what that was about? Or is that maybe something we can look forward to finding out more later?

Adrienne: No, I’ve heard nothing specific. I know she doesn’t trust the man. He’s been trying to take over since we started, pretty much. But I don’t have any back knowledge about it.

Beth: I just loved the way she booted him out of that trailer. The “two legged rat” remark was really good.

Adrienne: (laughing) And a lot of her animosity toward him is because he’s messing with this kid! And from the first moment, I was the one who said, “We can’t just leave him.” I felt some compassion for him, the desire to care for him, to protect him. Maybe because my own son does have weaknesses, I just identified with him as a mother.

Beth: Do you think that’s what really brought them together? That she sees herself as a protector or a guardian to Ben. It didn’t seem to start out that there would be a romance there.

Adrienne: Yeah. I don’t know if she sees herself that way, but that’s what she’s doing. That’s her actions. I don’t think Ruthie thinks about it, but her instinct is to care for him. I think her instinct is to care for anyone who’s in need… unless it’s somebody who’s crossed her, like Lodz.

Beth: And he seems to have crossed her in a big way.

Adrienne: Yes.

To be continued….

2004-03-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

Daniel Knauf Interview
Part 2

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
01-12-04

Beth: Have you ever heard any theories online and what-have-you about the show that just make you go, “Whoa… That’s one that never would have occurred to me in a million years!”?

Dan: Every day. I mean, every day I’ll read something and go, “Oh, wow! That was really smart of me to do that!”

Beth: Weren’t you clever? (laughing)

Dan: Yeah, I’m a genius! (laughing hard)

Beth: That’s right…

Dan: I’ll be sitting there dribbling on my t-shirt going, “Look at me! I’m a genius!” (laughing)

Beth: Exactly. So are we looking to have any additions to the cast this year or any changes? Not that you could tell me who lives or dies in the trailer, I know…

Dan: Nah, I can’t tell you who lives or dies in the trailer. I’m enjoying watching people guess too much.

Beth: I bet!

Dan: You’d be depriving me of one of my sole means of entertainment! Suffice to say, there will be some cast changes. But what we’re doing is a carnival and, in carnivals, people come and go – and people come back again. Just to tell our story in a reasonably realistic way… I mean, this isn’t like “Gilligan’s Island.” There are other carnivals to go to, to join, to make more money at. So if somebody’s disgruntled, they may go on their way, but then they may come crawling back later. So we’re always gonna see that kind of a dynamic within our cast.

Beth: So the theory that’s kind of circulated on the various lists -- that maybe no one can actually leave the carnival – is kind of out the window then?

Dan: Any theory that has anything to do with determinism is probably false. And I don’t want to ruin anybody’s day, but free will is absolutely critical to our storytelling here. Everybody makes choices. Nobody’s destiny is spelled out.

Beth: So right up until the end, you have a choice.

Dan: Absolutely. And that includes… The whole idea of being born a creature of light and a creature of darkness, yeah, that’s all about potential. The man may be very different from the blood. And so we are going to find out, I would say, in the very first episode… A lot of things are going to be clarified because the game is now afoot. What Ben’s destiny is or what his quest is will be defined. We will forever know what the Tattooed Man is.

Beth: Excellent!

Dan: We will know what needs to be done. And the same will be true of Brother Justin’s world. So battle lines are now drawn. And we start our first episode off literally right where we left off. So there won’t be a heartbeat between… Of course, it’ll be a year and three months late, but as far as the storytelling goes, we pick right up from where we left off.

Beth: I thought the last fifteen or so minutes of the season finale this year were just phenomenal. That came together so well.

Dan: Yeah, we had a good time. It’s always fun to burn a bus. Everybody’s ridden on a school bus, it’s good just to set one on fire.

Beth: We were sitting there watching, and my husband was like, “Okay, now that Jonesy has run in there, why has everybody stopped throwing water on the fire?”

Dan: (laughing)

Beth: I guess that was his nitpick – you don’t immediately stop fighting the fire just cuz some wet guy went running in there!

Dan: Everybody was just standing there going “Whoa…” It was just kind of a lull… They started throwing water on it as soon as we said, “Cut.” (chuckling)

Beth: Okay…

Dan: But the thing that’s weird is, and I just realized it in telling you that, that two of my major school – and I went to parochial school – that two of my major elementary school goals have now been fulfilled.

Beth: (laughing) Oh, really?

Dan: In the first movie I had produced from one of my scripts, I blew up a church. And now I’ve burned a school bus.

Beth: There ya go…

Dan: That’s great! I’m gonna have to work on… Oh, I dunno…

Beth: It’s over!

Dan: No, there’s other things… (chuckling) There’s a whole list.

Beth: (laughing) You need new goals now!

Dan: (laughing) Yeah! I’m gonna have to take up croquet or something…

Beth: Or perhaps knitting.

Dan: No, that’s Dawn… Dawn Prestwich sits in the writer’s room, knitting, saying unspeakable things. Like she’s that lady, during the French Revolution, as they’re dragging guys up to the guillotine, sitting there knitting, knitting, knitting, saying unspeakable things…

Beth: (laughing) Waiting for the blade to fall.

Dan: Yes! She and her partner, Nicole… And when Nicole started out on the show, she couldn’t even look at a picture of a freak. She would actually, I would watch her, and she would be kind of averting her eyes. And now she has embraced her inner freak. And she’s become an even bigger freak than anyone else in the room.

Beth: See? That’s what happens…

Dan: Yeah, that’s what happens when you turn them to the dark side! (laughing)

Beth: Someone was asking the other day if you guys are planning on bringing back the giant who was in the first episode?

Dan: Oh, God! Ya know, everybody got so weird about that giant!

Beth: Well, he’s in that Tim Burton movie, “Big Fish” now, and I think that got people thinking about him all over again.

Dan: Well, yeah! See, the giant was never a regular. He was basically background, and he was in the pilot. And you have to keep in mind that the pilot was shot a year before the second episode. So availability becomes an issue when you’ve got somebody who’s just playing background, ya know what I mean? He didn’t have any lines. So by the time we went into production, it was like, “Oh, ya know, Mathew’s not available.” And it was like, “Oh, okay, well shoot,” and move on. And then all of a sudden it’s “Where’s the giant? They had a giant!”

Beth: We wanna see the giant! (laughing)

Dan: (laughing) And you’re thinking, wait a minute… We didn’t think anybody would notice. But then, how STUPID is that?!? How stupid were we?

Beth: (laughing) Other than the fact that he’s a GIANT???

Dan: Oh, no… Nobody will notice that this NINE FOOT GUY is gone! (laughing) But we will be… The word’s already gone out. We’re gonna try to book him whenever possible. It’ll never be as a featured background player. Maybe we can’t afford him anymore, who knows?

Beth: People know who he is from this movie and everything now…

Dan: He’s a very nice man

Beth: Now I know you can’t tell me who’s coming out of that burning bus, but people are kinda fascinated with Lodz’s murder, as well. Do you think Mr. Mentalist Lodz saw THAT one coming? Cuz he almost played it like, “Alright, Boss, let’s put on a show for this young man.”

Dan: I think Lodz made his own bed. And I think there are a million ways to sorta activate Ben. They were trying to activate this boy and make him understand what he was capable of doing. Only everything they kept trying, he kept turning away from – denying, denying, denying it.

Beth: Or trying to change the rules…

Dan: Yeah! And they just, at this point, it’s kinda like electroshock therapy. They had to do something! And, well, it is kinda of a coincidence, isn’t it, that Lodz chose as his person to force Ben’s hand the one person in the carnival who I’m sure that he loathed.

Beth: True enough.

Dan: The thing is there was no love lost between him and Ruthie, and I think that there was some ulterior motives in there. Look at it this way, it was a win-win for Lodz, cuz if Ben doesn’t step up to the plate, Lodz has just scraped Ruthie off the bottom of his shoe, and he doesn’t have somebody hanging around, getting in his way. Cuz she was on to him, you know what I mean? And if Ben hadn’t exercised his power, then Lodz would have thought, “Hey, great. No big loss.” And if Ben did, then that’s great, too. Lodz gets the credit with Management for coming up with this wonderful, devious scheme. But Lodz, as they say in Texas – and this is a valid defense, by the way, in murder trials in Texas, from what I understand – is the defense, “Well, he needed killin’.”

Beth: Well, Lodz must have needed some killin’, in that case, eh?

Dan: Yup, Lodz needed some killin’…

Beth: And the fact that Ruthie was the one person Ben happened to love… That’s kinda a bonus, too.

Dan: And the one person Lodz targets is somebody…is the one person HE just happens to hate. I mean, Ben wasn’t tight with a million people in the carnival, but it was just a nasty thing to do. Placing a snake in somebody’s laundry bag just isn’t cool! (chuckling)

Beth: No, that’s not nice. Do you think Lila knew? Or do you think Lodz just used her?

Dan: No, Lila did not know.

Beth: I didn’t think so. Now, does Lila think that Lodz might possibly still be in that burning bus, though? Wasn’t the last she saw of him when he went to go see Apollonia?

Dan: Yeah, but that was way, way earlier in the day. So I’m not thinking she’s thinking he’s in there.

Beth: Is it possible there was something between Lodz and Apollonia in the past? That’s kinda the couple I could see, the couple who might have had a lot of history…

Dan: (chuckling) Well, look at it this way. There’s not a lot of people who Apollonia can have a conversation with! (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) No, not too many!

Dan: But no, they never had a romantic relationship. It was more of a kinship, from the standpoint of somebody, besides her daughter, that she could have a conversation with. It went south at a certain point.

Beth: I would say…

Dan: She kind of realized what Lodz’s intent was and so forth.

Beth: The thing that cracked me up is the scene where Sophie is standing there over her mom with that big pillow!

Dan: (evil laughing)

Beth: (laughing) I thought, there’s gonna be some smothering goin’ on today! But then she puts the pillow down… But wait! She’s picking up the scissors! That’s not any better…(laughing)

Dan: (laughing) When she slapped her, ya know, what’s really funny about it is – here’s Sophie, slapping around her catatonic mom, and a good part of the audience is going, “Yeah! Give it to her, girl!” (laughing)

Beth: Yeah, let her have it!

Dan: She’s been asking for that! I just wished that Television Without Pity would start calling here Mamatonic. She’s not comatose. She’s catatonic. It’s so stupid, I had to keep correcting everybody on the staff, the cast and everybody. They’d say, “Well, we’ve got this one character who’s comatose…” And I’d be, “She’s not comatose! She’s catatonic!”

Beth: (laughing) There’s a difference, dammit! Look it up! (laughing) I can see you throwing the dictionary down.

Dan: (laughing)

Beth: But see, Mamatose just has such a nice ring to it.

Dan: I think Mamatonic has got almost a poetic sound to it.

Beth: That’s true. So, how does it feel to get a second season?

Dan: Well, everybody’s happy there’s a second season. Everybody’s thrilled. I think the things about the show that I think people really liked and responded to – there’s just gonna be a lot more of that in this next season.

Beth: Excellent!

Dan: And a lot less of the stuff that was just purely exasperating – where it was like something was set up that didn’t quite pay off. I think that was just a matter of the staff and all of us just sort of getting our sea legs for what was a fairly radical way of telling stories. I think that next season, I want to make sure the show’s accessible. It’s wonderful to have people as obsessed and passionate about it, and filling in the blanks – and we will certainly not be filling in ALL the blanks. But the main thing is, I’d like to see episodes where somebody who’s never seen it before can tune in, and watch it, and enjoy it on a certain level. But that’s really one of the hardest things in the world to do. I’ve really kinda set the bar really high for the staff this year, and certainly for myself in that, it’s sort of like, let’s try to get people who just want to be entertained, too. We had episodes that did that, I think. Our best episodes always did that. They could stand alone. But I want every episode to do that next season.
What we’re going to be doing… We were able to sit down as a group and see what worked and what didn’t work, and where did we drop the ball, and how do we avoid repeating mistakes. And often it was something like, “Okay, we went into this story with this intent, BUT there was this unexpected sort of thing that happened. And why did these two episodes that were so similar not work at the same level? What was missing?” So it’s been a lot of sitting down as writers and saying, “Okay, what wasn’t working?” And one of the things about this staff, which is just an extraordinary staff… I mean, Dawn and Nicole are back, Bill is back, we just signed Tracy Torme, who created “Sliders,” and we’ve got John McLaughlin, who’s this brilliant playwright. He’s from New York, and he’s going to be working with us. So when you’re in the room, everybody’s short-handing it. Cuz nobody in that room needs to be taught, “Why doesn’t that work?” It’ll be halfway out of somebody’s mouth before they’re going, “Oh, wait a minute… No, that won’t work.” And then somebody will jump in. So it’s really such a high level staff that it’s just a really neat experience. That room is just extraordinary.

Beth: Do you think it was a close call when it came to the renewal of “Carnivale”?

Dan: I think it was the internet postings that really put us up over the top as far as getting renewal. Because the ratings were just barely where they needed to be. They weren’t extraordinarily high, but they never really dipped to a level where we would have been in trouble. But keep in mind the expense of the show.

Beth: Right, right!

Dan: So yes, we were pulling ratings that were comparable to, I guess, “The Wire” or in some cases “Six Feet Under,” but “Six Feet Under” costs half what our show costs to produce. Although we did have a very expensive pilot to amortize, and just gearing up for something like that was just extraordinarily expensive. Getting a period Ferris wheel, you know…
By the way, there was somebody who posted something about the Ferris wheel not being correct for the period. It’s stamped right there by the manufacturer. I think the thing was built like in 1921. (laughing) They did have metal cars back then. He said, no, they had wooden cars. And I’m sitting there thinking, well, did you ever see a Model T built out of wood? Of course they had metal then! (laughing)

Beth: Sure, they had metal. It’s possible…

Dan: Yeah, why not? And most everybody on the crew and cast has been on that Ferris wheel. The last night we shot, after wrap, we ran the Ferris wheel, and everybody kept jumping on it… I wouldn’t get on that thing in a million years!

Beth: Well, I’m a big chicken and don’t even trust the ones we have now!

Dan: This thing is OLD! It only cost us like five grand! Isn’t that a trip? You can buy a Ferris wheel for less than a car!

Beth: And that’s an antique, too. You’d think that would add value because of collectors or something.

Dan: Well, no... See, in the world of amusement equipment, there’s no such thing as “antique.” There’s just decrepit or it works. And I think that’s basically… (laughing) Ya know, I think “antique” is not good in the amusement ride business.

Beth: Nah, I suppose it’s not. Now, I’d like to ask you about a couple of things in “Carnivale” that absolutely drive the fans crazy, but I’m not sure you’re gonna want to answer because people seem to be having so much fun trying to figure it out.

Dan: I’ll go on a case by case basis.

Beth: Fair enough. The first one is the fetus in the jar. That got tons of people going.

Dan: We’ve had a little trouble negotiating with the fetus in the jar this year. His representatives have been fairly obstinate. We’re hoping to close a deal within the next week or so, but you know…

Beth: Does he want points? Or is it all about the size of his trailer?

Dan: Well, ya know, he’s looking for a back end, which is totally out of the question. I understand, cuz he’s a fetus and everything. But I expect that we’ll be seeing the fetus again.

Beth: Well, I hope he has a good accountant handling his money for him and not his parents, cuz ya know how that can go. We don’t wanna see him robbing a liquor store in fifteen years when the acting thing is all over for him. (chuckling)

Dan: I will tell ya, somebody bright pretty much nailed the fetus.

Beth: And now… we get to figure out who the bright one is out there?

Dan: I will say definitively that… Ya know what? I’m just gonna take this one right off the table here. The fetus is not Management, okay? There’s not a jar behind the curtain with a dead baby floating in it. (chuckling.) That’s just silly. That is just silly! (long, evil laugh)

Beth: What can I say? Some questions I just gotta ask.

Dan: All the fans have to ask themselves is this. If Ben pulled the curtain aside and revealed Management… would I or would I not be horrifically disappointed if it was a jar with a rubber baby in it?

Beth: (laughing) I think it would depend on how much you’ve defended the rubber baby position.

Dan: Well, if you’d defended the rubber baby, you’d be thrilled. But you’d be like the only one. See, everybody else would be going, “Oh, my God! How lame!”

Beth: “No they didn’t!”

Dan: “What? WHAT?” I’m not saying that maybe it isn’t a manifestation of Management, but no, it ISN’T Management.

Beth: And then… we have The Bear.

Dan: The bear is a bear!

Beth: The bear is a bear?

Dan: To paraphrase Groucho Marx, “Sometimes a bear is just a bear!” The bear is a bear! What happened was that was Lodz’s act. Lodz had Bruno the Dancing Bear. And when they found themselves caught in No Man’s Land, with the constantly shifting battle lines that were drawn in Europe during WWI, and they were sort of trapped, and shells and mortars started going off, the bear panicked and ran off, and Lodz was out looking for him. And what he ended up with was a pretty good trade. He lost the bear but he got Scudder. Scudder was kinda like his new bear!

Beth: So the bear is gone, he did actually lose the bear then, permanently.

Dan: The bear is dead. The bear’s toast.

Beth: Aw…

Dan: The bear is gone.

Beth: And please indulge one of my personal theories here… Did Lodz lose his sight to mustard gas while attempting to help Scudder?

Dan: No.

Beth: Okay, I just had to ask.

Dan: No, he didn’t.

Beth: Okay, so he actually DID literally trade that sight away then?

Dan: Yes, he did.

Beth: Okay. And Scudder is an American or a Canadian soldier?

Dan: He is an American, but he was enlisted as a Canadian. You could enlist in the Canadian army… You could do that. If you really wanted to go fight, you could go fight with the Canadians.

Beth: So he’s wearing a Canadian uniform -- because there’s all sorts of questions about the uniforms.

Dan: It was a Canadian uniform.

Beth: And the other soldier is a Russian?

Dan: Yes he is.

Beth: Aha… And so the plot thickens…

Dan: Aha! That’s okay, because that’s stuff that should have been clear. Ya know, sometimes there’s things that should have been clear. We weren’t hiding them to be cute, just for some reason something didn’t read when we shot it or whatever. So that’s one of those things we’re going to be minding this year, to make sure that the things that people do need to know are clear in the way we tell the story.

Beth: Are we going to get anything more about the Justin/Iris/Plemina train wreck and the father’s evil, chasing-us, assassins thing?

Dan: Yes, but not, not, not… I’m not gonna… Yes, we will.

Beth: Good enough. No further elaboration needed. Is there anything you wanted to say to the fans in parting? Any advice you want to give us to get ready for the second season?

Dan: Well… It’s gonna be a much faster, funner ride. But what I’d like to say is thanks because, like I said, that’s what put us over the top. The internet and internet chat rooms, boards, groups, so forth – those are things that networks do not really know what it means. They can’t… There’s not the history like there is with the Nielsen’s and they can’t say, “What does all this chatter mean?” And I think that it was the sheer volume of postings that really kinda made them… Usually this is true, even with HBO to some extent – “No” is usually a very comfortable word to say in the entertainment business. People very rarely lose their jobs over a “No.” People lose their jobs over yeses. And the only way to get a “Yes” sometimes is to make “No” uncomfortable. So when somebody can say, “Look, we had all this internet chatter,” and maybe some subsequent show the same thing happens, and it turns out to be a big hit... But I think that what happened was that all of this internet chatter made HBO very uncomfortable with “No.”
I’m not saying they said, “Yes” because… I don’t want to be misconstrued as saying they said, “Yes” out of fear. But I think it was really the fans and the boards, I think that was the little thing that just put us over the top.

Beth: Because they’ve gotta be wondering, “Hmm, maybe there could be something here.”

Dan: I think they’re absolutely thinking that. I think they’re going, “We have no idea what’s going on here, but SOMETHING is going on here.”

Beth: Right, and until they know what it is…

Dan: And until we know what it is, let’s get behind this show.

Beth: And didn’t I read somewhere on the HBO site that the after-the-season finale chat they did with Nick and Clancy was the biggest online chat HBO has ever had since they first started hosting them?

Dan: Yeah, by far. And not only that, but what’s been really frustrating to me -- and I’ll tell ya one thing I would like to… Ya know, and it’s always smart to diss critics… And I won’t. The criticism on the show has been very, very… Even though negative criticism, more often than not, are things I agree with a little bit, at least I understand it. But what I have been a little bit impatient with is the characterization of the show as having gotten “mixed reviews.” I’ve got copies of every review we got, and I’d say that about forty to fifty percent of them weren’t just positive, they were raves, and another twenty percent of them were positives, and then the balance of them were negative. The show was overwhelmingly well reviewed, from the very get-go. It just kinda bugs me when they say “critically mixed” and, ya know… It’s just, to me, I think one person reads that another guy is saying it, and it just becomes a self-perpetuating truth. The critics were fairly supportive of this thing from the beginning. And it bothers me that it seems as though… There was one guy who actually announced that the show was not being picked up.

Beth: Oh, I remember him…

Dan: And to me, that’s a tell. There were people who were really rooting against the show, and I think, in a way, it’s disingenuous… Cuz one of the big criticisms that these guys come out with is, “Hey, when are these guys gonna come out with something other than a cop show, a lawyer show, or a doctor show? There’s nothing on. They’re all the same shows. There’s no originality in television!” And then, here HBO makes this insanely, just takes this incredibly big risk on extremely challenging material, set in a time and a place nobody’s ever seen before, and they’re getting beat up for it. Ya know, I have a thing about fairness. I don’t care… Well, yes, I do care what they say about the show, because it’s important that people like the show in order for the show to survive, and the critics are people. But I think some of the raps this show has been taking really haven’t been fair.

Beth: Well, I think a lot of them took their frustrations with “Twin Peaks” out on you guys, which was bizarre. Like you all had anything to do with THAT!

Dan: Yeah, they started getting into this thing that it’s too self-referential and it’s too this or that, and “Twin Peaks” never paid off…

Beth: And so? That was them!

Dan: I kept emphasizing, look, there is a THERE there. And some guy even said, “Well, I’m not sure I believe Knauf when he says that.” And, well, in that case, that’s not my problem anymore. That’s the individual’s problem. But, you know, I got a feeling – and I’m hoping – that when there’s a critical reassessment of the show in the second season, and there usually is with HBO shows… And a lot of their shows don’t hit their stride until the second season, and you’ve gotta keep in mind a season at HBO is only twelve or thirteen episodes, so it usually takes that many episodes for a show just to hit its stride. So it’s really not surprising that it’s the second season that’s sort of where HBO series begin to feel like shows. But I think that we’re gonna be surprising an awful lot of people, and I’ve got a feeling that this is gonna… I’m hoping this becomes a popular success as well as a critical success this year.

Beth: Yeah, I’m all for that because we want to see this series continue past season two, as well. We want to see what happens!

Dan: Yeah, and I want to see what all the Newbies have to say!

COMING SOON!
Our Exclusive Interview with Adrienne Barbeau!

2004-02-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

Cynthia Ettinger in "Self Defense"!

REVIEW

Cynthia Ettinger plays a searing, soaring serial killer in "Self Defense or, Death of Some Salesmen."

Feb. 10, 2004

Self Defense or, Death of Some Salesmen

By Ed Kaufman

The Actors' Gang, Hollywood
Through March 7

Although it's been 16 months since her state-sanctioned death by lethal injection in a Florida prison, convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos continues to attract attention. Currently showing is the fictionalized shocker "Monster," while Nick Bromfield and Joan Churchill have made two documentaries: "Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer" and "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer."

And now there's Carson Kreitzer's stunning and compelling "Self Defense or, Death of Some Salesmen," in its West Coast premiere at the Actors' Gang.

As part of Kreitzer's "Women Who Kill" triptych, "Self Defense" (an hour and 45 minutes without intermission) is raw and bold, brutal and ironic -- and full of nagging questions. Whereas the film "Monster" dealt with the more sensational aspects of Wuornos' Florida killing spree, "Self Defense" (a fictionalized docudrama) lashes out at the twisted society that turned her trial into simply another media-driven circus, depriving Wuornos of much of her own self-defense testimony.

Writer Kreitzer doesn't defend Wuornos, admittedly a killer. She only asks that we judge her within another context: a horribly and emotionally scarred hooker who became a media attraction for postfeminists as well as born-again Christians. And a legal system that was skewed and lax.

All is set within Sybil Wickersheimer's wonderful set: an open Brechtian stage setting with strip-club poles, giant vertical blinds and junk-food wrappers. Alix Hester's costumes allow us to realize an assortment of characters, while Adam H. Greene's lighting and John Zalewski's sound ably underscore the setting.

At the center of things is Cynthia Ettinger's searing, soaring serial killer Jolene Palmer (changed from Aileen Wuornos). She blends her torment with a kind of animal acuity, her pathos with her rage. She seems less physically ravaged than Charlize Theron in the Oscar-nominated "Monster," and so we see more of a battered and tormented soul as she commands center stage in her orange prison jumpsuit.

Aimie Billon, Blaire Chandler, Dina Platias and Adele Robbins are marvelous in multiple roles, while Ken Elliott, Tom Fitzpatrick and Gary Kelley (also in a variety of roles) offer strong support.

Credit Beth F. Milles for the astute, savvy, chilling direction.

Self Defense or, Death of Some Salesmen
Presented by the Actors' Gang
Credits:
Playwright: Carson Kreitzer
Director: Beth F. Milles
Scenic designer: Sibyl Wickersheimer
Lighting designer: Adam H. Greene
Costume designer: Alix Hester
Sound designer: John Zalewski
Cast: Cynthia Ettinger, Aimie Billon, Blaire Chandler, Ken Elliott, Tom Fitzpatrick, Gary Kelley, Dina Platias, Adele Robbins

Greg Reiner
Managing Director
The Actors' Gang
323-465-0566x11 (voice)
323-978-0011 (fax)
www.theactorsgang.com

2004-02-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

COMING SOON! Part II of our Interview with DANIEL KNAUF, and a New, Exclusive Interview with ADRIENNE BARBEAU!

2004-02-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

Dust Bowl Tour '34 T-shirts Donation Sent!

A special thanks to all of the fans who took part in our sale of the Dust Bowl '34 shirts. Because of your generous participation, we were able to send in a donation today in the amount of $1175 to the Beth Brown Memorial Foundation -- a fund set up by Clancy Brown's family, in his sister's memory, that offers scholarships to students going into the fields of medicine, journalism, and public service.

We won't be taking orders for more Dust Bowl shirts anytime soon, but there is a possibility we may offer them again at a later date -- perhaps after new fans discover "Carnivale" in its second season.

In the meantime, we would like to thank everyone again for their kind participation and generosity during this fund raiser.

2004-01-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

Photo of Daniel Knauf featured at: www.carnivale.org

2004-01-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

Interview with Daniel Knauf
Part 1

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
1-12-04

Beth: When do you start shooting new episodes of “Carnivale,” and when does it look like they’ll start airing?

Dan: We start shooting at the end of March. We will probably premiere, in all likelihood, in early January of 2005.

Beth: Is that a good time for the show to premiere, do you think?

Dan: That’ll be an excellent time!

Beth: Because you won’t be up against baseball play-offs and all of that?

Dan: Our series premiere and the time we premiered was sort of a double-whammy. Although HBO did give us a tremendous amount of support and was just marketing the show like crazy, and premiered us after the finale of “Sex and the City” – which was really good. But after that, our lead in was reruns. So not only did we not have any real lead in, we were up against all the new shows on the networks. And so this was sort of a first, as far as I know, for HBO to sort of… and I think it was a tremendous show of confidence in the show, and I’m glad we survived… But it was tough, very tough!

Beth: And you had the World Series and some of the playoffs seemed to be getting huge ratings, too.

Dan: Yeah, the Emmys and the World Series, and there were a million things and… I don’t even like to dwell on that, cuz it sounds like an excuse to me. But if you look at like “Deadwood,” it’s gonna be premiering mid-season, I think. And their lead-in is going to be new episodes of something, I’m just not sure what show…

Beth: If it’s in March, it’ll be “The Sopranos” probably.

Dan: Probably. But going in alongside new episodes of something like the “Sopranos,” it’s a much more supportive environment for a new show. But January will be much better for us.

Beth: Excellent! How’s the new season shaping up?

Dan: The second season is shaping up extraordinarily well. The writing on the show has always been, more or less, a collaboration between myself and a show runner. We had Ron in there. And what you end up with in that situation is basically a lot of the staff was being ping-ponged between Ron and I. Ron and I got along great, but two human beings are going to have two different sensibilities, and often you kind of end up splitting it down the middle. And often, that can be a worse way to go than going with either side. Ron was brilliant in that, a lot of times, he had to be Solomon. And sometimes you can’t split the baby. But I think that dynamic -- and I think Ron would agree – I think that dynamic sometimes compromised the show. Now Ron’s gone on to “Battlestar Gallactica” and so I’m running the writing. So that dynamic won’t be there anymore. So the show will basically be closer to what the pilot was. So there’s not two sensibilities running the show, it’ll be one. And all the staff has heaved kind of a collective sigh of relief.

Beth: It seems like it might be a little less stressful that way.

Dan: Yeah… I’m not saying it was like a “Godzilla” movie around here or anything but, you know, we had disagreements – respectful disagreements – but disagreements, nevertheless. It’s really tough when you’re a staff writer, you’re trying to write for two people, in a way…

Beth: Now, things were very different in the original pilot, as shot. Are you happier now with the way you changed things? Or are there things you may still incorporate in from that original vision of that pilot?

Dan: The original pilot… The Brother Justin side of it was changed considerably, and there was the addition of the Driefuss family. And the addition of the Dreifuss family was one of those things that happened because our Carny consultant was Johnny Meah -- he’s been in carnivals since dinosaurs ruled the earth… And I asked him about cooch shows, and he sent me this long letter describing that they were often families and it was, you know, the whole thing… And it was just too good to not put in. It was such a great piece of color, and so we added the Dreifuss family. When it comes to Brother Justin – which is what you’re really interested in anyway, Beth… (laughing)

Beth: Me? (laughing) Okay, I’m biased… What can I say?

Dan: (chuckling) But the Brother Justin story was… You know, my training and my writing had always been screenwriting. And the “Carnivale” pilot script was the first piece of television writing I’d ever attempted. So, I did pretty well. I designed characters that had some legs and you could tell some stories over and over and over about them. But I think the Brother Justin character was the only misstep that I made. And nobody really noticed it until we shot it.

Beth: And then it was like, “Oh, no?”

Dan: The misstep was, where do you go with this guy? Is this guy just gonna be some moustache-twirling guy who’s always…? And, I guess in my own defense, when I’d originally designed Brother Justin, I’d always thought of him as being a recurring character but not a regular character. And so, you can take a little bit of that… But to have him in every show, you’re just gonna fall into like the “Dr. Smith” syndrome!

Beth: Right.

Dan: So, the first thing we did when we sat down as a group, a long, long time ago, was we watched the pilot and I said, “We have to do something about this Brother Justin character.” And it was clear from the pilot that we had nowhere to go. So we sat down and put our heads together, and basically I guess what you could say we did was took him back in time about a year or two. And we sort of decided, let’s show a little bit of his path and how he got to where he ends up. How he starts out as sort of an ordinary Methodist minister in a little town. In a way, it was such a compelling story, that we all had to kind of… Everybody wanted to tell Brother Justin stories! And then it was no, no, no, no, no! This show is “Carnivale.” So there was a period of adjustment till we figured out just how to do it.

Beth: And you added the Sister Iris character then? She was not originally in it?

Dan: No, she wasn’t. Eleanor was in the first original draft…

Beth: And Eleanor is…? Oh that’s the…

Dan: Coin-puking Lady.

Beth: Coin-puking Lady, okay.

Dan: But Iris wasn’t, and we knew that we needed to… Obviously, when you’ve got a character, you’ve gotta have supporting characters around him. And we knew that he wouldn’t be married. So we started thinking in terms of a sister very quickly. And Iris just sort of developed from there.

Beth: Well, that’s a great character.

Dan: She’s a lot of fun to write, and Amy’s just terrific.

Beth: They seem to be having a lot of fun with those parts.

Dan: Yeah, they’re having maybe a little too much fun! (laughing)

Beth: They’re a kick, I tell ya what.

Dan: It’s a pretty perverse relationship…

Beth: It is! You keep wondering, “Where are they gonna go today?” And then it becomes, “Oh no, they didn’t!” (laughing)

Dan: Oh, it’s gonna be very, very trippy next season! (chuckling)

Beth: She’s just such a master manipulator. That’s my favorite part about her character. No matter how together he thinks he’s got it, she’s able to just whip the rug out from under him at will.

Dan: And a lot of that Iris dynamic you can credit to Carolyn Strauss, cuz she really wanted her to be a manipulator.

Beth: Oh, Iris is great!

Dan: And I remember sitting there when she was explaining what kind of a character she wanted Iris to be, I said, “Oh, I get it… So, you THINK she’s like Martha Stewart?” And as it turns out, she really IS like Martha Stewart! (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) She’s just the little bit dowdier, spinsterish Martha!

Dan: (laughing) Right! You think she’s just like this little Martha Stewart, and it turns out she really is!

Beth: And then when you throw Tommy Dolan into the mix, it gets really colorful.

Dan: Yeah, so Tommy and Iris will be like two siblings vying for Brother Justin’s attention this season. So there will be a lot of conflict between those two characters.

Beth: And what about Reverend Balthus? Has he run away or will we see him again?

Dan: Oh, yes! Reverend Balthus will be back.

Beth: Okay, cuz I was watching that last scene of him wondering, “Now, where’s he going? Is he a goner?”

Dan: You won’t have to wait very long. Probably within the first two minutes of the new season you’ll know exactly what’s happening with Reverend Balthus.

Beth: I was actually surprised, after Iris admits to burning down the church and killing the orphans, when I saw her in the preview for the next episode. I was really expecting her to disappear for an episode or so to make us wonder what he’d done to her.

Dan: (chuckling) Wha…? Nah, he’s bad, but he’s not gonna kill his own sister! He needs her!

Beth: It certainly looked like he was thinking about it, though! (laughing)

Dan: Well, on a very, very deep level, I think Brother Justin understands that what his sister did was necessary. And that perception of persecution will serve Brother Justin and his church very well.

Beth: And her “I did it for you” line was perfect.

Dan: (laughing) Yeah, Iris has always got her eye on the big picture!

Beth: And she’s not done talking yet.

Dan: Oh, yeah. And it just gives Justin something to make her pay for.

Beth: That’s true.

Dan: It’s just like every other brother and sister relationship. I have a sister, and when I was about twelve-years-old, I was building one of those airplanes that have the motor in them, one of those balsa wood jobs… And it was about three-quarters complete, and I had it on the sofa, and she sat down on it and crushed it. And I’ve been punishing her ever since! (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) Oh, my God…

Dan: But here’s the secret… It was coming out crappy, anyway. She did me a favor.

Beth: She did you a favor, and yet…

Dan: But she doesn’t need to know that.

Beth: (laughing) No, because there’s power in her not knowing that.

Dan: (laughing) “You broke my airplane!”

Beth: “You’re going to pay FOREVER!”

Dan: (laughing) “You didn’t just crush it, you SAT on it!” So much worse…

Beth: There was a very Wednesday and Pugsley Addams dynamic in that one scene, with Justin and Iris drinking their lemonade at the same time in front of Tommy. That was a scream…. Just creepy!

Dan: Yeah, it was a fun little moment. It’s really weird because lemonade has become this huge thing in the show! (laughing)

Beth: How could it not? That’s just demonic lemonade, I’m sorry!

Dan: Well, ya know what was really funny was… And sometimes you’re writing a million things, and ninety percent of what we do is just trying to keep our lies straight. And one of those things that I just WINCE when I see it is when Rebecca Donovan sends her man servant and Sofie out, and says, “Why don’t you get that girl a spot of lemonade?” I’m like, LEMONADE?!? We’re in the freakin’ DUST BOWL! Where’s the lemonade there? The lady’s dying of dust pneumonia! (laughing) But yeah, go and get her a spot of lemonade! (laughing) I kept saying, “We’ve gotta change that line to iced tea or something!” And then everybody kept forgetting…and it never got changed.

Beth: Aw, that’s okay. Cuz then the lemonade can become a plot point conspiracy that we fans can focus on and try to figure out the meaning of. (laughing) You’ve done us a favor! Now we can make a sort of connecting thread between Mrs. Donovon and Justin & Iris, cuz they all serve demonic lemonade! (laughing)

Dan: Yeah!

Beth: Lemonade could become our Grassy Knoll kind of thing… (laughing)

Dan: Well, I’m finding out just how smart I am! (chuckling) I’m reading these things and I’m going, “God, I’m just diabolical!”

Beth: Yes, you are. Don’t try to fool us by agreeing with us. (laughing)

Dan: (laughing) There’s things they come up with where I’m going… It’s sort of like, when you’re just a spaz and you’re up on the high dive, and you trip and fall and accidentally do a double flip. (laughing) And they’re going, “Brilliant!”

Beth: Bravo! You MEANT to do that!

Dan: You know, it is funny, cuz when I read that stuff, you know it’s buried in your own subconscious, too, and it’s going to come out in there. Although some of the things, the intention… If we were that focused on those types of things, you’d never even be able to sit in front of a blank page. Most of the time, we’re just focused on a good story, well told.

Beth: It’s sort of a Rorschach test, I think. Everybody sees what they’re gonna see in it, based on their own experience.

Dan: Yeah. And in a way, it’s a little bit interactive.

TO BE CONTINUED…

2004-01-30T09:36:00.000-08:00

Transcripts of all of Clancy Brown's "Decoding Carnivale" radio segments
as well as older Clancy Interviews can be found at:
The Official Clancy Brown Fan Club Weblog

Photo of Clancy Brown from: www.clancybrown.com

Clancy Brown Interview
Part 4

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
12/12/03

Beth: People are picking up on the idea that Ben’s middle name is Krohn, and I guess that means crane or bird in German. And does that mean that Crowe is somehow the Americanization of that old German name?

Clancy: I have no idea… Not a clue. No reference to it… nuthin’. I have no insight to offer on that. It could very well mean something, and it might mean absolutely nothing. That’s something I don’t know.

Beth: Do you think the chain-gang past is going to come more into play in the next season?

Clancy: Yeah, THAT has to! I mean, I gotta presume, is there’s something that I wanna know about – and I know a lot already about what’s happening – then there’s some significance to it. And I wanna know about that, I wanna know what that story was. And I wanna know about it mostly because Management said, in that speech, “I know you have the ability to make this decision, because you’ve done it BEFORE.”

Beth: Right!

Clancy: And it’s like… Something like THAT I wanna know about! Something about what happened in St. Louis, THAT I wanna know about.

Beth: Oh, yeah!

Clancy: These are the things that I wanna see at least addressed. I don’t know if I want to see them all spelled out, but I do wanna see them at least addressed.

Beth: I wanna see what made mama Plemina Crowe take off with Justin and Iris…

Clancy: Yeah, there ya go…

Beth: And I want to see the train wreck. I wanna know was the father really an evil man? Or was mama evil and trying to take them away from the man who was trying to save them?

Clancy: There ya go! Those are the things… I mean, I’m much more interested in those things than the fetus in the jar.

Beth: Yeah, me too. (laughing)

Clancy: Those are kinda the little side references that I just totally dig! I wanna know WHY we’re all the way back in medieval times?

Beth: Right!

Clancy: With heads on pikes and feet in baskets!

Beth: You gotta love any show that gives you heads on pikes! (laughing)

Clancy: Yeah, and I want to see what that’s about. I wanna see how that plays out.

Beth: And back to Management’s line about how Ben has made this decision before… Does that mean that, again, they’re bringing in the notion of judgment? I mean, a lot of people think Justin’s the judgmental character, but if this is Ben’s power, he’s gonna have the actual power of life and death, deciding who deserves to live and who deserves to die!

Clancy: Right. And you can’t have that power without exercising some pretty hubristic characteristics.

Beth: As soon as Management said that, I thought, well… Lodz is a goner! Because, if I was Ben, and I had to pick someone in that carnival who was doing me dirty, Lodz would be it!

Clancy: Yeah.

Beth: But instead he goes down there and drags that tubercular drunk out of the Cantina. I thought, wait a minute… Are there no jails with actual murderers and rapists and such he could pick his victim from – some actual vicious, guilty people instead of some poor pathetic drunk?

Clancy: Well, right! But that’s not insignificant, too. That, to me – and again, this is just Clancy talking as fan-boy… That, to me, was the greatest argument for him being a creature of light -- was that he wouldn’t execute someone so pathetic as that to achieve his own ends.

Beth: Right.

Clancy: But then he goes and tries to kill himself, which is a complete copout, and that’s a bunch of crap! We already know that you can’t kill yourself. Justin already tried it, and you can’t do it. So it must be that somebody else has to kill you… There has to be an X-factor involved, and you can’t just do this sort of whimsically, you can’t just kinda escape it. You have to conspire with someone else. And I think that’s why Justin asked Balthus to kill him, cuz he already knows he can’t do it himself. If it really is gonna end, then someone has to do it. Someone has to kill them, cuz they can’t kill themselves.

Beth: I know people have argued that Justin is so evil or demonic that all he’s doing is trying to turn Balthus into a murderer by asking him to kill him.

Clancy: Yeah, that’s a bunch of crap. Yeah, I’m so evil I’m trying to turn him into a murderer and, ya know, this show is all about compassion for murderers! What are you talkin’ about? (laughing)

Beth: Yeah, that’s true! (laughing) We’re more worried about the incest angle than we are that Iris burned down a church and killed how many kids?

Clancy: Exactly! We’re more worried about that sin, which some people have pointed out online was completely culturally acceptable in some cultures, in fact was part of the protocol of some royalty for much of human existence, but it doesn’t really matter that she fried the kids!

Beth: (laughing) I guess that part is just the cherry on top of how evil she is.

Clancy: The really awful thing is that the brother and sister might have libidos for each other?

Beth: And I’m still not 100% convinced they’re actual brother and sister, either. But that could just be me… Cuz I look at you two and think, that’s not the same family tree, I’m sorry!

Clancy: Aw…

Beth: I’m sorry, no-no… There’s a BIG branching off somewhere in that family to make the two of you!

Clancy: Well…

Beth: I was actually a little afraid you might pop her head off in that Iris confession scene.

Clancy: They kept telling me not to do that, cuz we finally shot one where I didn’t do that. And I thought, nah, this is the right thing to do. If this is gonna end in a kiss, you’ve have to think I’m gonna kill her!

Beth: Oh, yeah! Yeah! It had that whole, “I know it was you, Fredo…” feel to it. He was gonna kiss her or kill her, one of the two – and maybe both!

Clancy: Yeah, I mean, she’s pretty awful to have fried those kids… Even if she didn’t intend to do it, the fact that she harbored it was pretty terrible… and that she’s rationalized it and quoted Scripture to justify it!

Beth: That was the best line, when she was looking at him and says, “I did it for you…”

Clancy: Yeah.

Beth: I think that one line says everything you need to know about Iris. “I did it for you.”

Clancy: “Like the lambs of Abraham.”

Beth: Right! And just pushing that final button to see where he’d go, what he’d do with that information. That was a wonderful scene!

Clancy: Ya know what she is? She’s the anti-Eleanor Roosevelt!

Beth: There ya go! With her sensible shoes… But what I find interesting is that it seems like Justin has never actually tried to take a little peek inside Iris’s soul. Is that because he doesn’t wanna know? Or is he afraid of what he might see there?

Clancy: Yeah, he came awfully close there in the church in episode ten, though, didn’t he?

Beth: Yeah, he did!

Clancy: (laughing) That was pretty close! He almost made it up to her…

Beth: And then… U-turn!

Clancy: He almost made it up the aisle, and she was a little bit worried about it.

Beth: Yes she was! She had quite an alarmed look on her face.

Clancy: But fortunately, he turned around.

Beth: Yeah, can you imagine what he would have seen?

Clancy: That was great, that was just great… great acting, great directing, great story. But it wasn’t in the script. We didn’t know what the story was at that point, that she eventually copped to it. It was great, I just thought that was inspired.

Beth: I loved the final ten minutes or so of the season finale, too. I think that’s some of the best television I’ve seen… ever!

Clancy: It was pretty good.

Beth: The music, and the sermon, and the visuals going with it – it was just…

Clancy: You should see it on a big screen. Man, that’s just amazing!

Beth: Really?

Clancy: I saw it when they were doing the final dubbing, and they have this big ol’ projection of it and everything is a hundred feet tall… Well, not quite that big but, ya know… big! The sound systems is… dogs can hear it, it causes earthquakes in San Francisco… It was just amazing that sound system! And the subtleties that come out when it’s all blaring at you…And the imagery that’s there is pretty remarkable. It’s a big screen epic that’s confined to your little screen. And that’s one of the reasons that television critics don’t get it.

Beth: And I think you really have to play them back to back. If you get the chance and the time to just sit and watch the marathon, all in one long sitting, it’s impressive. It’s just so impressive when you see them that way, back to back. So I’m definitely looking forward to a DVD set.

Clancy: Well, let’s hope that Dan Bishop comes back.

Beth: And he’s…?

Clancy: The designer.

Beth: Ah…

Clancy: And Jim Glennon, and the photographers. Let’s hope they all sign up again.

Beth: Do you have anything you’d like to say to the fans about the renewal?

Clancy: Well, ya know, especially the online groups… You should be patting yourselves on the back. You don’t own this show, first of all…

Beth: No.

Clancy: But you should definitely… And Beth, you really should, because you really rode herd on these people.

Beth: (laughing) Well…

Clancy: For the first time, I think, for the very first time that anyone would care to acknowledge, I think the online presence made a huge difference in their decision making process, made a huge difference for their show. And Dan agrees with me on this… and it’s not just because we’re Internet geeks. But there’s no question that the online community spoke loudly and often, and were heard in this show. So, you know… You should definitely feel like you deserve some credit for this. I won’t say all of it, cuz some of it really has to be reserved for the people who finally made the decision, they get the lion’s share. And we’ll take some of it, who made it. But it’s ultimately HBO’s sandbox, and you have to give them their props and credit. Make sure that everybody writes in and says thank you, and tells them what a great decision and what a great network it is for doing something like that. Cuz I’ll tell ya right now, there is NO other network that would have signed this show up again. There’s no other network, first of all, that would have made it!

Beth: No, I don’t think so either!

Clancy: There’s no other network that woulda signed it up again. It did better than any other show they had on at that time, but still, their expectations were monumental and they didn’t achieve their expectations. Even when they’re unrealistic, if these execs don’t achieve their expectations, then that’s just one more reason for them to pull the plug. And they’ll do it at the drop of a hat, and I know that to be true.

Beth: Yes, you do.

Clancy: So I give them major props. I just think that HBO is the bee’s knees. But I also think this online community is pretty remarkable, too, to make a difference the way they have. And you, especially.

Beth: Aw… thank you.

Clancy: How you’ve taken the bull by the horns and managed it. Especially to focus it the way you did for these last few weeks, that’s made a big difference, believe me.

Beth: Well, thank you. And you’re right, as much as we fans love and support the show, we always have to keep in mind that ultimately, we don’t “own” it -- no matter how much we love and support it. That much, I know to be true.

Clancy: And you don’t WANT to own the show because, if we disappoint, you want to be able to say, “Ya know, you ruined my show!” and “Why didn’t you listen?” (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) Exactly.

Clancy: But ya know what? It is what it is, and you can only be an advocate for what you’re given. And I appreciate the advocacy and the enthusiasm.

Beth: Well, we’ve had some big fun.

Clancy: And I sure hope we live up to the expectations. But don’t be too quick to take ownership (laughing) cuz… if we mess up, then you have to take the blame, too! (laughing)

Beth: Well, Clancy, we owe YOU big time, too! Cuz nobody else -- NOBODY else – would be getting up at quarter-to-five every Monday morning to talk to two radio guys in Michigan!

Clancy: Aw… they’re fun guys.

Beth: I mean that… Just the amount of participation you’ve given the fans and the promotion of this show, and getting online to chat with the fans, etc., etc. has been amazing. And as you’ve seen, your radio interviews have been getting cross-quoted all over the place!

Clancy: Yeah, but it’s easy for me, because I love this show. I think it’s tremendous. And I’ve loved every show I’ve done… But I really think it’s great. I’m astounded by it. So I’m happy with what I do, but then I watch the stuff I’m not involved in and my jaw just drops! I mean, the actors are SO good! The writing is so good! And the look of the show is just…

Beth: Oh, yeah, the look is amazing! And ya know, now that’s it’s over, I’m really missing that quality. I switch around the dial, and there are a lot of MOVIES that just don’t hold a candle to the series, you know what I mean? The production values are just that high!

Clancy: Yeah. And I agree with ya.

Beth: It’s just amazing. And I gotta say, it makes me smile every time I’m snooping around, hither and yon, on the Internet, and I see the words, “Clancy says…X,Y, or Z about the show.”

Clancy: Oh, yeah. Though I might have to shut up here pretty soon. You’re asking me questions I don’t have answers for, but I love the questions! And even if I don’t have answers, I’m also formulating theories and everything. And sometimes that line gets blurred as to what I actually know and am telling you and what I’m just speculating on. You can safely say that I’m speculating on about 99% of it.

Beth: Right. Then again, that’s pretty much what all of us are doing, only you have that one extra 1%! (laughing)

Clancy: The only thing that I won’t speculate on is what I already know to be happening. And the proof of that is that, ya know, I got the call – the unofficial official pick-up call – and I was like, “Oh, yeah… right.” And I was still full of speculation until I read the articles in the trade papers.

Beth: Well, you’re like Ruthie… You’ve survived two snakebites with good series getting cancelled already.

Clancy: Yeah.

Beth: You’ve seen the light a few times…

Clancy: I’m very cynical about stuff like that. But also, I’m full of speculation and theories, and all the rest of it. But I don’t know anything more than anybody else.

Beth: So hard was it to be looking at all the theories and conversations on the Internet and not join in?

Clancy: Actually, it was kinda hard at the beginning, cuz you want to steer people away from stuff that’s just wrong, and maybe show off a little bit, and pretend you know something more than you do – and sometimes you do know something more. But then, after like the second week, it became fun just to see what people were coming up with. And many times, people were ahead of the game – like with the TAVATAR/AVATAR… Everyone got that right off the bat!

Beth: Yeah.

Clancy: (laughing) And that was one of the big series pay-off jokes!

Beth: Whoops!

Clancy: So it was like, “Well, I guess they got THAT about a month ago…”

Beth: (laughing)

Clancy: It was… It was cool. It was cool! There was never any temptation to deliver any misdirection or anything. Cuz enough misdirection was going on just in imaginations. And some of that misdirection was kinda more interesting. But it just became fun after a while. And then it became kinda a chore, just because there was so much to wade through, so I had to stop.

Beth: (chuckling) Tell me about it. Volume? What volume?

Clancy: (laughing) Yeah… Yeah, I’m sure!

Beth: But now things have quieted down a little, and folks are just involved in friendly back and forth – where we’re all just a big group of friends kinda hanging out.. There’s still discussion of the show going on, but not to the degree there was while it was on the air. It’ll probably stay that way until a couple months before the second season begins…. And then the posts and the speculation will really take off again!

Clancy: Yeah, that’s great! And I’ll be right in there speculating with them. I’m not gonna post anything, but I’m speculating like anybody else until I get that first script. I’m as much in the air as anybody else. I’m just dying to see where it goes. I’m SO psyched! I just really wanna get on it and get started!

Beth: Well, we’re just tickled that we’re getting this second season. That’s a good thing! We’re very happy.

Clancy: That’s a good thing… that’s a great thing!

Beth: I’m also glad that whatever help we were able to give, we could give…

Clancy: Well, it was real. It was significant. And I’ve never seen it happen before.

Beth: I’ve never seen a fandom grow in quite this way, quite this fast. I mean, I don’t know that “Carnivale” is the kind of show that’s going to ever be as popular as “Survivor” or something like that. Probably not. But it seems to me that the people who do like “Carnivale” like it intensely.

Clancy: The whole marketing machine of showbiz is so behind all those reality things, “The Bachelor” and all that stuff. You’ve gotta figure that there’s some high margin involved, cuz it always traces back to bucks. They’ve made it for nuthin’ and they’ve created these stars. They’re getting their pictures taken for nothing, and the magazines are selling for the same amount of money. It’s all about how much cash, how much profit they can generate, so it’s not really about the quality or anything of a piece, unfortunately.

Beth: Speaking of magazines, do you think they’ll be doing any interviews with the cast or on the talk shows.

Clancy: Well, we’ll see… The news [about the renewal] is just hitting the stands today. We’ll see if there’s any of that. I doubt it, I really doubt it, because it didn’t make the kind of noise that “The Sopranos” made, or “Oz” or “Six Feet Under.” Ya know, “Six Feet Under” really hit at the exact right time for HBO. That show definitely benefited from the HBO mojo. Our show benefited, but also it’s an old story now. Critics are getting tired now of HBO being so successful, to the point where they’re almost resenting it. And I think that hurt us a little bit, but the proof is in the pudding. The bottom line is, HBO just does things better than anybody else… And that pisses people off! There are people who don’t like the Yankees, cuz they keep winning championships.

Beth: And I think the critics kinda vented their frustration at David Lynch and “Twin Peaks” all over you guys, like you had anything to do with that!

Clancy: There was a lot of “Twin Peaks” resentment going on, which I blame Michael Anderson for! (laughing hard)

Beth: (laughing) Yup, it’s all his fault!

Clancy: (laughing) All his fault…But they’ll get over that and, pretty soon, they’ll forget about “Twin Peaks” because they just don’t compare. There’s nothing similar about them.

Beth: I did see something in one of the newspapers where they’d named a scene from “Carnivale” as one of the Ten Best Things on TV of last year, or something like that.

Clancy: Oh, yeah…. Easily! Easily one of the ten best things on TV this year. But “Carnivale” is always gonna have this problem… Because all of the critics who dissed it and let their own little stuff get in the way of doing their jobs, and weren’t enthusiastic about “Carnivale,” they’re wrong now! So, it’s always gonna be a reminder that they were wrong. So they’re gonna work extra, special hard now to prove that they were right.

Beth: Wonderful…

Clancy: So… It’s just gonna be one of those shows that, I think, after it’s off the air – and maybe before it’s off the air – it’ll be regarded as one of the seminal moments of television, cuz it’s just such a good show. But it’s gonna take a while for these people who were just blatantly wrong to come around. We’re just gonna have to be patient with them.

Beth: I seem to recall there was an awful lot of predictions of cancellation and snarking from the TV pundits when the “X-Files” was wrapping up its first season, too.

Clancy: Right, and that being said, there were far more positive reviews than there were negative reviews. I mean, it was really a consensus “best” before it hit the air. But the negative reviews were the squeakiest, and the only people who wrote reviews of the finale didn’t necessarily have good things to say about it. So, it’s just a pain in the ass.
Ya know, you go on rottentomatoes.com, which I do every other year, and one day “The Bride” is the worst movie ever made, and the next day it’s one of the best. Actually, it’s not quite THAT volatile (laughing) cuz it is “The Bride.” But “Starship Troopers” was just called awful when it first came out, and now there’s people who think it’s the best thing Paul Verhoeven ever did.

Beth: Yeah, so times change, opinions change…

Clancy: As soon as we forget that they were wrong, then the critics will be able to say, “I knew it all along!”

Beth: That’s right. And as we wrap up here, let me just say, thanks for doing this, Clancy.

Clancy: Thank YOU for doing this!

COMING SOON: Our Exclusive Interview with Daniel Knauf!

2004-01-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

Clancy Brown Interview
Part 3

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
12/12/03

Beth: I’m starting to see some parallels between Sofie and Brother Justin…

Clancy: Yes.

Beth: Though I may be alone in that. (laughing)

Clancy: Well, it was certainly hinted at in the first episode. And then… Sofie kinda disappeared. Then we kinda went on that weird journey. I mean, it looked like Ben & Sophie were gonna kind of get together – or at least hang out and kinda solve their problems together and everything – but then, these great characters emerged, the Dreifus family, and the writers fell in love with them, and Jonesy, and so they decided to work those guys into the whole fabric, and they just kinda ended up taking over. (chuckling)

Beth: Now, by the end, they seemed to be the vehicle to sort of get Sofie to where she had to go character-wise, in a way.

Clancy: Yeah… But I thought that was a little forced, especially in light of her little trip to the Mexican town, when the Templar guy came out…

Beth: Oh, yeah. We’re still waiting to find out about those Templar guys and what they have to do with everything.

Clancy: Yeah, we’re still waiting to figure that out! And he says to HER, “Every prophet in their house.”

Beth: Hello! There’s a hint!

Clancy: It probably happened the way it should have, but I gotta tell ya that I feel a little cheated from the whole Sofie story. She’s a really interesting character… And she went and got laid by that guy, and then that was it. Then it was just, like, arguments with her mom.

Beth: Well, maybe we’ll find out soon what we’ll reap from that whole situation.

Clancy: So, maybe I’m wrong about that, too, cuz she did see her mom raped and everything.

Beth: Yeah, and what was that all about?

Clancy: So she’s got mysteries to solve…

Beth: Yes, she does.

Clancy: But I guess I’m disappointed because I really thought that her and Ben were gonna at least carry some portion of the narrative and the theme together, that we were at least gonna have a couple scenes of them together everyday going, “Man… What’s going on? How’s your quest comin’? How’s your journey?”

Beth: I think her story, or at least where I think her story may be going, I think her story may work out that she comes to the fore a little bit in the future. Cuz if I had to bet on whose dead in that fire, I’m betting on Apollonia.

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: I think Jonesy will get out and I think Sofie will get out. But Appy? I dunno…

Clancy: Jonesy will come out… (evil voice) and he’ll be all scarred…

Beth: More scars? (laughing)

Clancy: Horribly scarred… So Rita Sue can just lick him all over. (laughing)

Beth: Oh, I dunno, it would depend on how bad his boo-boos were. But they’d have to leave his face alone! (laughing)

Clancy: Nah, he’ll have to be completely deformed, and Sofie will be catatonic like her mom. Her mom can become like Obiwan Kenobi, and she’ll show up on her shoulder every now and then. (chuckling)

Beth: There ya go…

Clancy: You’re the one who thinks she’s pregnant?

Beth: Yes, I am.

Clancy: Hey, your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea about that story! And that’s a story that, again, is tremendously well acted. I think it’s clearly tremendously important to the show, but I think it got a little marginalized by the soap opera, and could have used a little more action. But, ya know… That’s just me.

Beth: And do we think Lodz is playin’ possum with Management there, manipulating Ben into only thinking he’s mostly dead?

Clancy: Well, ya gotta figure that Ruthie’s alive, so somebody died.

Beth: Somebody died!

Clancy: And whoever is dead, then the other person could be alive in some respect.

Beth: Right. And I’m wondering does Management have the same gift as Ben, so Management could have said, “Okay, I’ll bring this one back. There’s another one dead, so I can trade…”

Clancy: Oh, that’s a good point. I dunno.

Beth: I mean, that power of resurrection thing could come in pretty handy, ya know? Somebody messes with you, you off them, then raise them back up and warn them, “Now, don’t do that again…” (To paraphrase an old Eddie Griffin routine.) Maybe that’s a little lesson Management is giving Lodz, while he’s at it.

Clancy: Yeah, there ya go… Perhaps. I think Management has a whole sort of portfolio of powers, and can do lots of things that potentially Ben can do. I mean, we saw Ben stop the dust storm, at one point. So he can definitely do a lot more than what he’s doing. And you’ve got to presume, if that’s the case, then Justin can do a lot more than what he’s diddling with now.

Beth: Because that was something I wasn’t sure that Lodz was making Ben see or if it was real – the stopping of the dust storm.

Clancy: I have no idea…

Beth: Oh, and we have to talk about this, too, since we brought up Apollonia’s rape. What is Brother Justin’s face doing on the Tattooed Man in a few frames in that scene?

Clancy: All I can say about that is that way, way, way, in the beginning, I played the Tattooed Man for an instant. But that’s an old storyline and I don’t think that’s the situation anymore.

Beth: Interesting… Because I’m very curious as to what the Tattooed Man is about.

Clancy: I am too.

Beth: He seems to be some kind of a manifestation of…. whoever… maybe anybody could be the Tattooed Man.

Clancy: It could be… I’m sure there’s some mythology that’s being referenced, probably something to do with Templars or something to do with the tattoo. Somebody online was talking about the Tree of Life, the Norse Tree of Life… The tree and the snake…

Beth: The one Day of the Dead ritual that I found has got something to do with a specific area or a specific tribe in Mexico where they actually took the human sacrifice out into the fields and cut them up, and made that blood sacrifice to the gods for their crops.

Clancy: So, there ya go…

Beth: So, if you got taken out there, you got fed to the field! And the field grew because of it…

Clancy: Maybe it’s the revenge of all those sacrifices…

Beth: Yeah, the Children of the Corn rising up. (laughing) But I’m the one that usually gets asked if that’s Clancy’s face on the Tattooed Man in that rape scene, and I’m saying yes, mostly because I’d recognize your profile anywhere. (laughing)

Clancy: (laughing) Well, in a certain light, we do kinda look alike, that guy and me. And I think that’s intentional, cuz he doesn’t look like me. He’s much better lookin’!

Beth: Is that Patrick Swayze’s brother playing the Tattooed Man?

Clancy: Yeah, Don Swayze. A nice, nice guy… really a great guy. A real sport to do this. But I don’t know how that whole thing is gonna pay off, and I think that might be a real running theme in the show – that when you string it all together, depending on how many seasons there are, if you string it all together it might be one of those things that actually does tell a story on it’s own.

Beth: Ah… Interesting. And ya know, I was wrong when I was saying that Lodz took on the point of view of the Tattooed Man in that vision he stole from Ben, when Scudder snarled, “He’s mine!”

Clancy: Oh, yeah?

Beth: After watching it for a third or fifth or whatever time, the Tattooed Man’s point of view is not Lodz’s point of view. It’s actually…Ben is running away from the guys with the clubs, or whatever they are, who are chasing him. And he sees the Tattooed Man, and turns from the Tattooed Man, but then you see whatever it is… I think Ben. Somebody fell, and whoever fell, that’s who became Scudder. So I’m not sure that Lodz was seeing through the eyes of the Tattooed Man in that scene or whatever, when Scudder talked directly to him. But it was a freaky little scene, the way they shot it.

Clancy: Yeah, those are the moments that I really love the most, where it just screws with your perception… Like the diner with the mirror, and that little scene. I really think those are great. I really like those moments.

Beth: So the Tattooed Man is kinda a mystery, and Daniel’s not telling that secret yet, is he?

Clancy: No, he’s not telling us much. And you don’t wanna hear it from me, anyway… I’m not privy to the whole story, and I don’t think I want to be! (laughing) You just want to discover it, that’s the game.

Beth: Yeah…

Clancy: But I really don’t know… If I’m saying I don’t know, I really don’t (chuckling) I mean, I’m still not sure that Justin is the Avatar of Darkness! I think, at the end of the show, he thinks he’s a deeply sinful man. But I don’t think that’s any different from what he thought before.

Beth: He’s still got a lot of the same characteristics, and he’s leaving with what he brought with him…

Clancy: Yeah, it’s just kinda on a different level now. And there’s plenty of time to have him rationalize that, as we human beings are so good at doing.

Beth: And he’s never really… I mean, for a minister, he’s never really taken on the idea of his own redemption.

Clancy: No.

Beth: And I’m not sure if that’s a carrot that Iris holds out to him or what.

Clancy: Oh, absolutely, she holds that out to him. She’s always talking about redemption to him, and I don’t know how much that has to do with the overall deal.

Beth: And it would appear that the whip is not a secret he keeps from his sister.

Clancy: No, not anymore, anyway…

Beth: No! That was sort of surprising, cuz I thought that was his kind of guilty secret.

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: But now it’s all out there!

Clancy: It’s all out there. Everyone knows… And Iris and Justin know an awful lot about each other, that’s all there is to it – as sisters and brothers do. That’s not unusual. But you have to assume, if you’ve got a brother or you’ve got a sister, then you’ve gotta assume that their relationship is very similar, and you know some stuff about your sibling that not everybody else knows. You don’t need to discover certain things. That’s family stuff!

Beth: I have no experience with siblings, so I’m flying blind on this…

Clancy: Well, there’s certain things you don’t need to discuss.

Beth: You’ve just got that shorthand… You know that they know that you know…

Clancy: Right. If the audience needs to know it, then they’ll tell Tommy Dolan or someone.

Beth: How fun is that working with Rob Knepper, who you went to college with?

Clancy: Oh, that’s fun. It’s always fun to catch up with somebody after so many years, and see that they’ve progressed and matured according to plan. And I know that he gets the same kick out of it that I do, and it’s just a goof that we’re actually doing this together.

Beth: So, do you think that Justin is operating under this idea that he is a demon now, or does he still have doubts about that?

Clancy: I think, at this point… The question I have is, at the point when he’s looking at that whip, and he says that maybe “God has other plans for some of us.” Is he being Judas at that point? Does he know that he’s been foreordained to test humanity to a Godly end, and that’s what he has to face? Now THAT is a frightening prospect! Or… Does he think that he’s still a good man and doing God’s work, just in a way that isn’t widely accepted, ya know? (chuckling) Sort of a “No Excuses!” kind of religion…

Beth: Well, it’s definitely “No Excuses!” The sermon there, at the end of the finale was kind of interesting, too, because you can read it both ways.

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: Because you can look at it as him just sucking in the power now, or you could look at it as him being right about certain things. It all depends on your viewpoint. It seems to me that he’s… Well, we’ve talked about this before. In HIS mind, he’s got to believe that what he’s doing is righteous. I don’t think he does anything just for the heck of it.

Clancy: Right. And one of the things that continues to baffle me, is the fact that Ben consistently does things… As much as everyone loves him, and he’s got a huge following and an incredibly intricate rationale going on for his place as the Messiah… It’s just getting a little hard to buy! Not a little hard to buy… I mean, REAL hard to buy! He doesn’t really do Messianic things. And he’s definitely not… I mean, Samson is a better guy than he is, and Samson takes the rubes for all they’re worth. So, that’s part of my consternation, and part of my… I won’t say hope… cuz I’m not sure I necessarily hope that Justin’s the good guy. But it’s one of the reasons you’ve gotta take pause. Cuz in relation to his opposite number, Justin is a much better person. Definitely flawed… HUGELY flawed! But definitely living his life in a much more responsible, and proactive, and positive way than Ben is! (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) Well, I wonder if, in the end, it’s not actually going to turn out to be a battle between the good and evil in each person.

Clancy: Or we’re two parts of the same entity. Yeah, all those theories are valid, at this point, I think. But that’s what’s great about the show. It really… It says it’s about good and evil. It says it’s about black and white, darkness and light, BUT… Is darkness really darkness and is light really light?

Beth: And it’s kind of a motley crew Ben is surrounded by… If these are all the people who are supposed to be on the side of Good, then you’ve got some pretty flawed people on the side of Good, too. We’ve got some pretty dark things going on there.

Clancy: But then there’s that curious thing he says about Wonder and Reason…

Beth: Right.

Clancy: And there’s the idea of Humanity and Divinity…

Beth: Or Order and Chaos…

Clancy: Order and Chaos… There are all sorts of opposites that are not quite as stark as black and white and good and evil, so…

Beth: So it’s gonna be interesting to see where they go with it. Do you think they’re going to want to keep building Brother Justin up with his power base, or are they going to have to keep him almost marching in place until Ben catches up a little bit?

Clancy: No… I think we’ll probably see Justin’s acumen grow. His ability will grow. The first season was really about a teenager growing up, it was sort of about his adolescence. Cuz he starts out very petulant and sort of whiney and idealistic, and kind of self-absorbed. And then, by the end, he’s a completely different guy. That’s one of the things I love about the role, is that he is everything that the critics got so nasty about in the beginning, without… The ones who were nasty played right into our hands! (laughing) I mean, that is what he was, but that’s not what he continued to be.

Beth: There were critics who were specifically nasty about the Brother Justin character?

Clancy: Oh, somebody said there was some B-movie pathos, ya know, and all he does is scream and yell. And that’s true, he’s very much a teenager in a lot of ways. He’s a petulant, whiney guy! He reacts very predictably to extraordinary situations. I won’t go so far as to say he was a stereotype of the evil minister, because he certainly wasn’t. But he was definitely not reacting in a sophisticated way, a mature way, to what was going on. He’s a very immature man, at that point. But then, then… he changes. He changes from the time he imagines jumping off the bridge, that’s when it starts to go. Actually, from the time he leaves the burned out church. He’s sitting there railing at God, “Tell me what you want me to do! Tell me what you want me to do!” It’s like a little teenager yelling at their parents, (angry teen voice) “Just tell me what you want me to do! You’re not being clear” Well, you gotta learn that on your own. I’m not tellin’ ya!

Beth: Go and figure it out!

Clancy: Yeah, life’s not fair, and you gotta get to a place where you can deal with that and go! I can’t tell you what I want you to do, cuz then you don’t grow up. So Justin’s growing up.

Beth: And you could say that Sofie & Ben are taking that same journey…

Clancy: Yeah, a little bit. But that’s the problem. I think Ben doesn’t take that journey as much.

Beth: And he needs to…

Clancy: I think he gets shoved into the situation, so he still has a justifiable out. And the fact that some of these people online are kinda embracing that as the reason -- you have to give him an excuse -- is a little bit much, cuz then you accept a character that’s not full, I think. I tend to think it was intentional by the writers. But if it wasn’t, then it’s something that has to be developed.

Beth: Yeah.

Clancy: Sofie, on the other hand, she kinda rests through the whole thing then, all of a sudden, has this scene where she’s mad at her imaginary lovers! I mean, that’s kinda weird. I’m wondering why Jonesy and Libby didn’t just say, “Man… She’s kinda weird. So, you’re naked now… What’re YOU doing?”

Beth: (laughing) “We’ve got some time!”

Clancy: (laughing) Yeah! “I’ve got some time, obviously. That Sofie’s a weird one… So, whaddya think?”

Beth: “Let’s just forget all about her and just…”

Clancy: In the context of it, in what actually happened, she was also very much a teenager.

Beth: Right.

Clancy: So she’s sort of somewhere where Justin was in the beginning.

Beth: Exactly. That’s what I’m thinking, too.

Clancy: Yeah, yeah… And Ben is… Ben, I don’t think is even there yet. I dunno, Ben’s kinda on his own thing, I guess. But he really has to be allowed to grow a little bit more than what they let him do. And Nick can handle it, man. Nick is… I don’t think there’s anything that guy can’t do.

Beth: I think the irony with that character is that he spent so many episodes this season turning on his heel from Lodz, saying, “Go away, I’m not listening to you, leave me alone.” And not listening to Samson, either. But then, when he NEEDS them, neither of them can or will tell him anything.

Clancy: Right. They can’t help him.

Beth: “Sorry, kid, ya shoulda listened to us the first time…”

Clancy: Right, right! “Cuz we coulda gotten you to this point where we CAN help you faster.”

Beth: But, noooo…

Clancy: Maybe Ruthie will clue him in.

Beth: Yeah! Though I’m not sure how much Ruthie actually knows.

Clancy: I dunno… She’s seen the light a couple of times, apparently, so she’s gotta be somewhat enlightened.

Beth: And she’s not too fond of Lodz… There’s some bad blood there.

Clancy: Yeah.

Beth: And I’m thinking poor Lila there, she’s just gonna be out of luck!

Clancy: Well, if he’s really dead, she is. That’s for sure! (laughing)

Beth: That’s right. Her little plans for being Queen of the Carnivale are gonna be right out the window. And I also was just thinking about this… They’ve got a dead body to explain now, if Lodz is indeed dead. I mean, I can see Samson getting one look at that situation and saying, “Well, John Q. Law’s been nosing around, better throw that body into the burned out bus, and light it on fire, too” I mean, that is a wrinkle for someone in the carnival to worry about.

Clancy: Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think that’s as much of a problem since the powers-that-be, the establishment, didn’t really care all that much what happened to people like carnies.

Beth: No, probably not. But still, this might be an instance where Carnival Justice might come into play, because they have to say something to his fellow carnival folk….

Clancy: Oh yeah, the carnival folk, in terms of explaining there, yeah!

Beth: I’m wondering how they’re going to keep Ben out of facing Carnie Justice on this one.

Clancy: Lodz is an old guy…

Beth: True, it might have been a heart attack.

Clancy: And Apollonia got caught in a fire that was a terrible accident. So, ya know, if those are the two people who are dead. Nobody knew that Ruthie was dead…

Beth: Right…

Clancy: Except those people who were in on the bigger joke.

Beth: Was I the only person who was alarmed by how long her body was laying in that hot trailer -- dead?

Clancy: (laughing)

Beth: I’m thinking, this isn’t gonna be smelling too pretty soon.

Clancy: Yeah. I think the guy at Television Without Pity, it crossed his mind a couple of times…

Beth: (laughing) I just sat there watching, thinking oh, boy… That can’t be good! It’s gotta be getting a little stinky in that trailer, and poor Gabe is sitting out there all alone keeping guard. He was such a pitiful figure in this last episode…

Clancy: Yeah, I wanna see more of him! Here’s an interesting thing… This is something that sort of occurred to me in a flash. He’s got a broken arm, and Ben healed his arm. But he’s also got another handicap – he’s also mentally deficient. So now, if Ben heals his arm, what’s to say that some of that residual healing power that Ben is so immaturely using…

Beth: Just throwing around…

Clancy: What’s to say it won’t go up there and tie together some of those loose neurons in his brain, or whatever they are.

Beth: That’s true! I hadn’t thought of that!

Clancy: He could be a real interesting character, if they… I mean, this is just like me being a fan-boy, ya know? (laughing)

Beth: Well, we’re glad that you’re a fan-boy. That’s fine. (laughing)

Clancy: He could be really cool. He could really emerge as somebody interesting, if they wanted to go down that path. They could do it very easily, and tie it in with Ben quite well.

Beth: People are landing on the idea that maybe they’re half-brothers, too.

Clancy: Yeah, maybe… I dunno.

Beth: I think maybe they’re getting a little of that Princess Leia/Luke Skywalker nostalgia going.

Clancy: Yeah, see, and that’s what I think is boring – sort of tying it all up in a “Star Wars” kinda way. That’s a little…

Beth: Nah… we don’t need that.

Clancy: A little too neat.

TO BE CONTINUED…

2004-01-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

Clancy Brown Interview
Part 2

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
12/12/03

Beth: A lot of people have landed on the breakfast scene or whatever it was… the liver chopping scene…

Clancy: Oh. my God!

Beth: …as proof positive, though we didn’t actually see it, that Justin and Iris have gotten together and consummated this forbidden relationship. What do YOU think?

Clancy: I think people can see whatever they wanna see. It’s part of the carnival, part of the fireball show, ya know?

Beth: (laughing) Yes it is!

Clancy: If you see it, you see it. And this is also the way I was when looking for renewal – when I see it, then that’s what it is. If somebody is just playing games and doing semantics with me, and not showing me something, then there’s a reason they’re not showing me something! They’re trying to fool me…

Beth: That’s the way I look at it, too.

Clancy: We didn’t… Amy and I didn’t play it, and didn’t presume that there was any consummation of any lust or mutual lust. But there was, certainly, some kind of acknowledgement of it between us. And so, what was in our heads, at that moment, when we were playing that scene? It was simply that now we know that at least Justin wants to screw her.

Beth: Which she didn’t seem to be objecting to, too much. Considering Tommy Dolan got a slap upside the head, and Justin just got looked at…

Clancy: Right. Which is a tribute to Amy’s power as an actress, because the fact is, she’s HALF my size.

Beth: Yes she is!

Clancy: (laughing) Ya know? And anyone else would have been terrified into submitting. But she’s a tough cookie, so…

Beth: All I could think, when he throws her down on the couch, is that she’s about to try to talk her way out of this one, yet again. She was starting to say something!

Clancy: Right…

Beth: She wasn’t anywhere close to done talking yet, or just giving in to whatever her fate may be.

Clancy: Yeah, the scene ended differently when we shot it, so…

Beth: Oh, really?

Clancy: But, I mean, I’m sure that they… HBO was very hot to have then get together in the first season. And we were v-e-r-y reluctant to do it, Amy and I. Because we felt it was too early for them to… We didn’t want the whole season culminating to that moment, cuz that’s really not what they’re about. It’s a sidelight to what they’re about. Ya know? It’s one of the things that informs them, informs their character and informs their motives. And everything else is this kind of repression. Which is much more interesting to me than just some kind of guilt or consummated guilt. “I did something bad, I committed a sin with you…and I’m… Now that’s gonna inform it the whole way…” It’s much more interesting if “I want to sleep with you, and you KNOW it… but I’m not going to because of what we BOTH know.”
Then… THEN it can rear its head at any moment! And then the tension continues, and it’s frightening. I think any kind of conversation with anyone else – like that conversation with Tommy Dolan, when Justin said, “You want my sister?” It’s like, whoa, my goodness! THAT line has been crossed! That’s definitely directed at embarrassing both his sister AND Tommy. So it can pop up and manifest itself at any moment, in any kind of guise. It’s a nice thing to have in your back pocket.
Have we slept with each other…? Ya know, I can understand how people would think that. I don’t think so, honestly, I don’t.

Beth: Well, my thinking is that -- being as it is a motivating factor or something that’s percolating there in the background, it would be something that they would actually SHOW us if it had happened, ya know what I mean?

Clancy: Yeah, yeah… right!

Beth: And say, “This is a momentous decision here.” Because he has to throw everything else he believe in aside to say, “This is what I want more than anything. Nothing else matters.”

Clancy: Yeah, right! And there was a good post to that affect, too, sort of in a very cynical, kinda cultural way, saying that, “Well, ya know, they showed Apollonia getting raped. So the reason they didn’t show the Justin/Iris combination was because it wasn’t rape.” -- and so, therefore not worthy of dramatization or something. And I was like, “Noooo…” That’s… That is a really… I mean, it was completely rational, but it’s really kind of a scary thought, so…

Beth: Because that would be such a life-altering decision for them to make. As much influence as she has in his life, as inter-dependent as they are on one another, if you change that relationship, which it would…

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: It’s gonna be major!

Clancy: Right! And there’s… That’s just… You’re right, you’re right… And there’s so much more to be mined from just that part of their nature that isn’t satisfied, I think.

Beth: Oh, yes! Frustration and jealousy and power, and all the other classics!

Clancy: Yeah, I mean, we already saw Justin try to pimp his sister. I mean, holy moly!

Beth: Although, I took that more as a very wicked sarcasm, just to try to put Iris back in her place, and put Tommy on the spot.

Clancy: Of course! Of course it was… But hey! It was what it was…

Beth: Yeah, take my sister – please! (laughing)

Clancy: And it’s not like there isn’t precedent for that in the show, to begin with, so…

Beth: The scenes with you and Amy are just great. And the scenes where you throw Tommy into the mix are even better. Because it’s not all written there in the script. A lot of it is just so there in the acting. Like the scene where Tommy comes to the door and finds that you’re back home, that was a great little scene. I loved it with those sidelong glances at Iris & Tommy, and the huffing out of the room… And Iris playing her little game of, “Well, let’s just invite Tommy to church, if you’re going to be a spoiled baby about this!”

Clancy: (laughing) Oh, man… We went right down that path to begin with. They actually had to hold us back, cuz we were just being very petulant and funny.

Beth: I thought it was great. The way she manipulates him is wonderful. Cuz here he is… He’s comin’ home – home from the asylum – and he thinks he’s got it all figured out…

Clancy: Right!

Beth: He’s thinkin’ “I’ve got the world on a string!”

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: And within minutes, she’s got him right back where she wants him… just that quick. And I’m still looking at that Balthus revelation, too…

Clancy: Yeah, well when we shot that, we weren’t sure whether Balthus was killed or not…

Beth: Really?

Clancy: Yeah.

Beth: At what point would he have been killed? Do you think Brother Justin might have done him in?

Clancy: Well, we just couldn’t figure it out. We couldn’t figure out… There was a moment in an early draft of the script where, at the end of that scene, Balthus is subsumed by some dark cloud or something…

Beth: Hmmm…

Clancy: And it was a little too extreme, but the question mark for the whole final episode was, “Who’s alive and who’s dead?” So… It’s possible that Balthus is dead, though I don’t think so.

Beth: They didn’t give us that much of an indication that he was in any kind of physical peril, so… I’d agree with you. I don’t think he’s dead, either. Plus, I think he serves a better purpose alive, since he’s the one man who knows what’s going on with Justin – or he thinks he does.

Clancy: Right.

Beth: I’m thinking really, what the test is now… If Justin was really thinking clearly and he was really actually worried about finding out if he IS a demon or not… The test now is to look into Balthus’ soul again, and see what he sees now. Because, if he sees Balthus rescuing the two children, again, then maybe his greatest sin is saving Iris. But if the next time he looks he sees that Balthus’ worst sin is not bashing Justin in the head with that candlestick, then he’ll know for sure he’s the evil he fears he is.

Clancy: Or… maybe the power is not just revealing someone’s worst sin. Maybe it’s something else!

Beth: Aha!

Clancy: Maybe it’s revealing their deepest desire…

Beth: Okay…

Clancy: Or maybe it’s the greatest turning point in their life somewhere. Maybe Templeton’s deepest desire was to sleep with this little boy, and he did it. Maybe Balthus’ deepest desire was to have a family, because he couldn’t and he saw his moment. I was trying to figure out a way to actually make that scene… How do you interpret that scene as self-serving to Balthus -- and a lot of people online have done it -- but also maintain what’s consistent in Balthus’ character, his humanity and sincerity. And you can want something that’s worth wanting bad enough that you make a wrong decision, whether you know it’s a wrong decision or not.

Beth: Yeah…

Clancy: So… And no matter how good of a person you are, you can do the right thing for the wrong reasons, you can do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Beth: Because, right now, he seems to be the last righteous man standing.

Clancy: Yeah…

Beth: And I don’t have a problem with that. Because there have been people just waiting to see what kind of horrible spider is gonna coming crawling out of his closet.

Clancy: And ya know, I don’t think a lot of these things are gonna be tied up that neatly. I think that some of these, it’s okay to leave them ambiguous. Some of these questions are okay left ambiguous. Like the fetus in the jar… It’s really not important. It can be whatever you think it is. It MAY pay off, but if it doesn’t pay off, then all it was, was what it was.

Beth: (chuckling) Maybe a cigar is just a cigar, maybe a bear is just a bear…

Clancy: (laughing) Yeah! And sometimes ambiguity itself is more informative than having some neat little plot moment that completely explains down to the last detail what was going on in someone’s mind at this time. I mean, too much exposition is just that, ya know, too much exposition. And we got other fish to fry!

Beth: Oh yeah, we do…

Clancy: But that being said… Is there gonna be a payoff for fetus in the jar? Perhaps.

Beth: You never know…

Clancy: There might be. It might be one of those things that actually, there was a payoff intended, or people perceive that they actually need one.

Beth: Well, fandom has certainly landed on that one.

Clancy: Yeah! Well, and it was early, too. But I always thought that was just kind of a moody thing… That was a mood thing. That was not so important, cuz this isn’t a comic book, it’s a big ol’ novel about the human condition. So there’s a lot that we can’t explain, cuz nobody quite knows all those answers. It’s a weird thing, so minute… To me, if you explain something so minute, then you kinda lose your credibility, in a way. Cuz it’s presumptuous to claim to know the answer to everything. That’s what bugs me about a lot of movies these days, that they just have to answer every question. And it should be left up to the mystery of life and all the rest of that.

TO BE CONTINUED…

2004-01-30T09:33:00.000-08:00

Clancy Brown Interview
Part 1

Interviewed by Beth Blighton
12/12/03

Beth: So how do you feel about “Carnivale’s” renewal for a second season?

Clancy: How do I feel about the renewal? I feel relieved. I feel vindicated. I feel impatient. I feel kinda exasperated that they took so long to do it. I feel like I can hardly wait, and I also feel like I’ve waited long enough. So, ya know? It’s like, YEAH! Let’s get going! I would start filming tomorrow, if they would let us!

Beth: And how did you find out?

Clancy: I got sort of an early phone call, early in the week last week, which was probably the Monday after the Friday that they made the decision – when all the muckety-mucks made the decision. So those people who hold that kind of information, who make those decisions, once they give up that information, that’s kind of a power that they release, so they hang onto it as long as they can, right? So, certainly, I’m sure I was one of the first cast members to know, but I know I wasn’t even CLOSE to being the first person to know! I wasn’t even in the top twenty!
Dan tells this story… Dan was told about the renewal, and he got it from the horse’s mouth, the Big Kahuna at HBO, their Tony Soprano, you know… And then he was told, “But don’t tell anybody. Keep it under your hat and everything.” And he was like, “all right… I understand, I’ll keep it under my hat.” And so he goes into work the next day, to continue breaking out the scripts, and he gets there early (and I guess they get there pretty early in the morning), and he’s walking in the building… And the guy is there, the maintenance guy who opens up the building is there, and he says, “Hey! I heard you got renewed! Congratulations!” (laughing)

Beth: (laughing) That sounds about right, doesn’t it?

Clancy: And then he’s going in to talk to… kinda hanging out with the wardrobe or the prop people, and somebody who was working on another show comes by and says, “Hey! I heard you got picked up… Congratulations!” (laughing) So that’s a bunch of garbage, that keeping it under your hat stuff! But I didn’t mention it… just because I don’t believe it until it actually happens, and I know that from experience.

Beth: And you’re not about to jinx yourself…

Clancy: And it’s not even about jinxing, really. It’s just that I believe that they’re lying to me! (laughing) I mean, I just don’t trust em, at all! And when you care about something… Ya know, I always care about these shows like WAY more than I should, and you leave it in the hands of these people, and they make the wrong decisions 90% of the time…
Not HBO! I mean, HBO’s very GOOD! They’ve actually proven themselves to be what I thought they were, which is a very brave, instinctive group of executives who don’t really live and die by the culture of numbers that’s out here. And I can’t stress that enough! So it’s really my own paranoia and my own failings that make me so skeptical about stuff like this. I also don’t want them to be insulted by thinking, “Well, jeez! What’s wrong with Clancy? He doesn’t think we’re liars, does he? What’s wrong?” Cuz there is that culture in Hollywood that admires duplicitous-ness, which I’ve never quite understood…
But to me, HBO did the right thing. And they’ve once again proven that they have different standards, or march to the tune of a different drummer, however you wanna put it. And it’s to my benefit this time, and it’s been to other benefits, for the most part. I mean, they killed “K Street” and they killed “Mind of a Married Man,” and I don’t think anybody will miss any of those shows. But I would have missed “The Wire” terribly, and I’m dyin’ to see “Deadwood”! They’ve maintained if not enhanced their own position, as far as I’m concerned. My own regard for them is intact. I just wish they could make the decision quicker! (laughing) That they could come to these decisions and announce them, and not goof around. But they did it now, so I’m not gonna complain!
So I’m THRILLED! I’m excited! I would start this afternoon! I would start tomorrow! I would start doing it in a second! I love this show so much, and I love playing this character so much.

Beth: Now, what do you think that HBO survey was about?

Clancy: Ah… The Survey! That weirdo survey!

Beth: Yup, that weirdo survey that all the fans got ahold of real quick.

Clancy: Ya know, it’s funny because, I was thinking about this after our last conversation… And, ya know, it was a survey FOR the demographic of the fan base that showed up from the internet!

Beth: Right.

Clancy: I mean, I’ve never seen a survey like that connected with any show! A kind of marketing survey like that… connected with any show, on any network, at any time! And so specifically targeted! I mean, it’s not like they emailed their entire HBO list. You had to actually FIND that survey and fill it out. So they were really… Ya know, the more I think about it, they were really getting the opinion of people who watched the show, and paid attention, and liked the show.

Beth: I don’t really know who got it first. I don’t know how it got out, in the first place, cuz I never got it. I mean, I only heard about it.

Clancy: I know! I never got an email… I saw it on the list! So… It’s kind of a weird thing. It’s kinda cool, if you think about it, cuz it’s very shrewd on their part -- if it is shrewd on their part – that they have a control group built-in, and they have people who are into the show. They know the people watch the show. It’s not just some bonehead they have to ask a bunch of preliminary questions to see if it’s gonna be a useful interview or not. I mean, on further analysis, I thought it was pretty smart of them! I don’t know what the point of the questions were, that they were asking. They were pretty standard kind of marketing questions, and what kind of decision they’re gonna be making from that.

Beth: So, the decision about the renewal was probably pretty much made by the time they put that survey out, though, do you think?

Clancy: I would imagine. Cuz at the time that they put it up, they had already hired the writers to break out the first five or six scripts, or whatever, to at least kinda give them an idea of what the arc might be. So, I think they were on that path, and maybe trying to get an idea about what stories served the people that are devoted to the show.
Now, I read a couple of posts that said people were kinda alarmed by it, that it was some kind of marginalization of the show, but I don’t think so. I think it’s got a different purpose than that. I think it’s really… Just because it was so specific, it was so targeted, it was so hard to find… I mean, there was nothing about it on HBO’s website. There was nothing on the “Carnivale” portion of the HBO website. I mean, you had to sort of discover it!

Beth: Yeah, it had to be brought to you by your own contacts in fandom almost.

Clancy: Right, so in that sense I think it was kinda cool! I just hope that Brother Justin scored well! (laughing)

Beth: Yeah! That’s what I’m worried about, too! Cuz people have kinda tagged you as the villain, and I would hate to see that reflect in that survey just because people might not want to answer in favor of “the villain,” ya know what I mean? (laughing) Ya know, kinda the “Boo, hiss!” vote expressing itself.

Clancy: Well, it could be that if they see high marks for Lodz and Lila and Samson, they might say, “Okay, obviously, we’ve handled that storyline well. So, now what we need to do is concentrate on these other stories.” I mean, you just never know what’s going to be derived from the quantification of this sort of thing. So you just gotta kinda take it as a whole piece of cloth, and say… well, it’s interesting that they did it, and it’s probably good that they did it.

Beth: So where do you hope that your character goes next year?

Clancy: Well, more to the point, where do I hope the show goes next year…I think the show kinda got off track somewhere around “Babylon.” As excellent as I think “Babylon” and “Take a Number” were – and I really think they were probably the two best shows that we did -- although, all of them were very good. But those ones really got to me. I loved those the most. And you have to take that with a grain of salt, cuz I wasn’t IN them as much. So I was really kinda watching it fresh. But I really liked those shows, and they were very episodic in nature. But it’s also where we got off track, I think.
Right around there is where we got off track. Ben goes down in the mine, and he sort of loses his mind. When he emerges, he’s not the same character. I mean, he’s really driven in those first few episodes to find out who Scudder is, and to solve his own mystery. And right around then, he kinda takes a back seat in the story to the grief of the Driefuss family, and Stumpy in particular. So that was great. Toby and Cynthia and Tim got a chance to shine. But they shine at the expense of what we’ve established as our central storyline. You can take issue with that, that maybe there was still plenty of things going on with Ben. And there certainly were with Ruthie and all that stuff. But you can’t deny that whole storyline, because it was acted so well by the actors and written so well, kinda took over the show.
So, I’m sitting here thinking, how can we have that and have it inform the main point which, we know, is a battle between good and evil, or wonder and reason, or whatever the ultimate confrontation is. And I’m thinking, well, maybe that’s the key… That you write it, you construct stories that become these sort of allegories to the main story. And maybe they don’t give particular clues to it, but you basically see that struggle manifest. And our own story can deliver whatever clues we need.
The fact that I was basically out of two episodes just tells you that you can tell the Brother Justin story in ten! (laughing) And then if you say, well, he was in half of those shows – and that would be generous – then you could say, well, you can tell Brother Justin’s story in five. (laughing) So, I mean, you can go on and on like that. And I think, actually, my arc was probably the best conceived and executed, just in the narrative sense. It was very clear. There wasn’t a lot of wasted stuff. But there’s still plenty of interesting speculation going on. Answers were given, and the character moved through the season, and he is a different character from when he started the season. And that’s the key, to me. The journey in the character is what’s gonna excite me. But it’s also what’s gonna keep people watching.

Beth: Now Dan did an interview with TV Guide, I think, toward the end, when they were talking about renewing. And he was saying that even next year, Brother Justin and Ben won’t meet.

Clancy: I don’t think they’ve decided that just yet…

Beth: He was saying that their worlds would begin to intertwine, though.

Clancy: Yeah, that’s probably true. I don’t know how they can avoid that. I mean, they gotta do that, at least, for cryin’ out loud. Ya know, the woulda, shoulda, couldas are all over the first season. So I think that if there are any mistakes that have been made, they’ve already been made. And that’s the end of the mistakes. It’ll start being a lot more focused. And if anybody asked me, which they don’t, or wanted my opinion, which they don’t, the first thing I would say to them is – you ask yourself, in every episode, in every scene you write, how does this illuminate the human struggle between darkness and light? It has to be about that. It all has to be about that in some way.

Beth: And if they’re working toward this confrontation, eventually, I think we need to see how Ben is going to get to the point where he’s going to take an active part in that. Because Brother Justin, you can kinda see where his power base is building. But I can’t quite figure out what Ben’s power base is going to be.

Clancy: You certainly know that Brother Justin has got some idea of what he can do and what he can do with it – how he can change things, how he can affect things. We don’t really know what ultimately his goal is, though we can safely assume there’s some religious rationalization to it.
But you’re right. Ben kinda is the same guy. It was frustrating for me at the end of the first season, in the finale, because he really didn’t get the moment where he accepted what he did. He killed in a moment of passion and was cornered into it, manipulated into it – which doesn’t reflect well on his own self-control and his own self-awareness, self-possession and intelligence, or whatever else. And that’s not to impugn the job that Nick did, cuz he did exactly what he should have done, and he did it excellently. But I think the writers aren’t giving Ben enough credit yet, aren’t – I don’t know what. It’s like they don’t trust him enough yet.

Beth: It seems like they’ve got to tell us a little bit more. We have to see him grow a little bit more into his destiny.

Clancy: And he’s gotta get sharp! He was very sharp in the beginning. He was a sharp kid. He was his own man and everything else, and he was not a dummy. And then he just got dumber and dumber through the show… Now, you can argue that it’s sleep deprivation and everything else, but at the same time, it’s sorta “keep your eyes on the prize” here. You have a mystery you have to solve. And it’s not just a matter of avoiding it, it’s a matter of solving it. He was very proactive about that in the beginning, but by the end of the show he was completely a pawn in everyone’s hands, which doesn’t bode well for our little buddy!

Beth: No, because he’s being manipulated!

Clancy: He’s being manipulated, and he’s manipulated into committing mortal sins. And, ya know, I just have a hard time with this whole “he’s the messiah” thing (laughing), if he’s so easily controlled, and will commit a murder based on hearsay evidence, and all the rest of it. It’s like, c’mon you guys… C’mon, c’mon, c’mon… It’s either a mistake in the writing, or it’s NOT a mistake in the writing – which I tend to think – and he’s not who we think he is!

Beth: It may be purposeful that he’s not quite with the program yet?

Clancy: Well, yes.

Beth: And I’m just wondering, if there IS gonna be some kind of ultimate battle, right now I’d say Justin has got the upper hand on him – big time!

Clancy: Yeah, and in the original vision of Dan’s, the original thing that we all read first, that was part of it. It was part of him learning and cultivating his power enough to really confront somebody who was in the full flower as a powerful preacher. It’s much more interesting now. They changed it for the better. And it’s one of the reasons I tend to trust HBO and give them a pass on losing our way in the middle of the season, because you could see them running to get back on track there in the last two or three episodes. Which I was pleased to see, but it wasn’t quite as artful as the first four, I think.

To Be Continued…