Since there were so many television centric questions in last week's "Ask Nathaniel" insert, I figured we'd have to give them their own Q&A post. We'll get to the movie questions on Tuesday. But for now let's handle all these questions involving smaller screens than we usually go for.
BENSUNCE: Like George Clooney, which current television actors would you see having a successful career on the big screen?
Expecting anyone to have Clooney-sized silver screen success after switching from the small screen is, well, a recipe for disappointment if not disaster. He's a 1%er. Most of the people I enjoy on TV now already had their movie shot and have gone small screen for better / bigger roles than they were getting at the movies. But the current small screen actors I think absolutely deserve and would ace major big screen opportunities are Christina Hendricks and Jon Hamm (Mad Men). On a riskier pipe dream note I hope Harry Shum Jr (Glee) gets at least one romantic comedy opportunity both because he's adorable and because Hollywood really needs to end their strange delusion that Asian men can't be romantic leads... or leads at all.
SEAN D: If you were in charge of the Emmy awards how many nominations/wins would Buffy the Vampire Slayer have received?
I knew talking about Buffy earlier this month would get send us all spinning back in time to Sunnydale. It's always difficult to answer questions like this because so much of what should have been nominated and won in any given year in any given artform is contingent upon the competition that year. But I will say that I think Buffy's second, third and sixth seasons had no business whatsoever not being nominated for Best Drama Series and I think they should have won the Best Series Emmy at least once for Season 3. I'd probably have nominated the show itself for seasons 2 through 6 consecutively though I get why people have issues with seasons 4 through 6. But the standard lines of complaining about those seasons are wrongheaded ("it should have stayed in High School") and short sighted ("it got too depressing!"). In the first short season Buffy The Vampire Slayer was merely finding its footing and establishing its identity and the last season was a badly paced mess with a couple of wonderful moments but the rest is gold. As for writing Emmys, it's inexcusable that "The Body" and "Once More With Feeling" didn't have writing and directing nominations and in both cases you could make strong arguments for actual winged statues, too.
Shouldn't "Doppelgangland" have secured Alyson Hannigan an Emmy nod?For acting the show deserved the following nominations at least (Season #)
Actress, Drama
Sarah Michelle Gellar (2, 4, 6)
Supporting Actor, Drama
James Marsters (2), Anthony Stewart Head (6)
Supporting Actress, Drama
Allyson Hannigan (3,4), Emma Caulfield (5, 6)
Guest Actress, Drama
Juliet Landau (2), Eliza Dushku (3)
Guest Actor, Drama
Harry Groener (3)
TOM M: Which recent film would make the leap to television and prove a MASH-ing success? And which television series has the bones to make a great film?
Crazy difficult question. The mediums are so different despite all the crossover these days. I don't know about M*A*S*H* level success ratios for anything but I would love love love or should I say I would ♥ a series based on I ♥ Huckabees that focused on the existential detectives Vivian (Lily Tomlin) and Bernard (Dustin Hoffman). I would fill my DVR with that nonsense and delete every other show taking up too much room. I could see a series based on Inception working fairly well and I think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World should have been a TV series to begin with.
Nathaniel's dream television series
The other way doesn't work for me because I think the best television series are always the ones that understand themselves as serials whereas movies are short complete stories... or should be.
TERENCE: You're cast in a film version of American Horror Story and you have to choose a famous male actor from this past decade to be a ghost who will possible have sexy time with you, who would you cast? Lol
Wait, what do you mean "possibly?". That's such a cocktease. But, trust, nobody wants to see me acting. I've only tried it twice (high school) and I was horribly wooden. Unlike many bad actors, I thus removed myself from the acting equation because the performing arts are too sacred to have untalented people taking up space!
MARTHA: From all the CW shows, what's your favorite?
My best friend from Puerto Rico likes to call all of their shows "Pretty White People With Problems". I literally don't know their shows because almost nothing bores me more than television shows with big casts of interchangeably attractive actors of no discernably special acting talent (Life is too short to settle for competence!), That said, I enjoy Ringer because it is all SMGellary and nighttime soap cheesy though it's way more of a guilty pleasure than a pleasure. I'm having this uncharacteristic experience enjoying the huge chasm between how good it could be given all the issues it keeps raising up and it's seemingly total lack of self awareness about its veritable goldmine of identity crises drama potential. This is especially true when it comes to the sex or lack thereof. Ringer is strangely asexual in tone given its premise and its multiple story threads that involve sex; quite tellingly, almost all of the sexual storylines deal in past-tense or implied future sex but almost never with actual in-the-moment sex.
LESTER: You just got the greenlight to cast and start filming your TV Comedy Pilot about a girl starting college and have to cast an actress in the leading role who would you cast that definitley needs an career boost?
Such a narrow range of famous actresses that would be needing a career boost at 18/19. Hmmmm. Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Jesse's little sister)? She was so funny as a child actor but she hasn't been working very often these past few years and she's 19 now. Surely her talent didn't vanish with puberty if big brother is any indication. She'd be my first choice off the top of my head. Otherwise, I don't know how she is with comedy but the career of 21 year old Rachel Hurd-Wood isn't quite what I was expecting after that terrific debut in Peter Pan. Those were two that came to mind but you could always just give Sarah Hyland a college spin-off once she leaves the House of Dunphy on Modern Family.
CAST THIS!
DANIEL: You have been given the greenlight to cast a gritty 1 hr Showtime series following the lives of 3 Las Vegas sex workers and their jaded, tough-as-nails former call-girl boss. Cast the ladies!
The cliché answer here would involve Gina Gershon but I don't want to be that obvious even though we always support using Gina Gershon in entertaining ways... so I think I have to have either Daryl Hannah (who needs a great role post Elle Driver) or another blonde 80s icon Elisabeth Shue in the lead role. Shue would be both an against type casting coup and a Leaving Las Vegas homage coup. And yes the tough former call girl boss is the lead role! I wouldn't have it any other way.
I want to leave the three younger supporting or co-lead ladies up to readers in the comments, though I think one of them needs to be Lizzy Caplan (I really do). So CAST THIS! You know you want to.
• Who would yo have as the three younger Vegas hookers?
• How many Emmy nods would you have given Buffy... and for which seasons?
• And which movie has your vote for "Ideal TV series transfer"?