It's the kind of blue-skied mountains-meet-the-ocean day that Vancouver was made for. And the cast of Men in Trees (premiering tonight at 10 pm/ET ABC) is spending the whole day in a bar.
OK, so the Chieftain is not a real bar. It's a copy of a nearby bar, right down to the posters offering expert rifle cleaning and bear repellent, and it's where the fictional citizens of the fictional town of Elmo, Alaska, fictionally hang out.
But according to star Anne Heche, the friendly you-scratch-my-back-I-loan-you-my-sled-dog atmosphere that makes the ABC drama such heartwarming fun is anything but fictional.
"The cast and crew of this show really do comprise a real-life Elmo," says Heche, who plays Marin Frist, a New York City writer who finds solace, community and even love in Elmo. "We're all great friends with lots of humor and warmth betw
read more
Wow! I was just about to turn in this week's blog, procrastinating as usual and pushing it down to the wire, when I got a call from James Tupper that we are picked up [for the full season]! It was extremely bizarre because I had just finished typing his name moments before. I never thought the words, "I was just blogging about you" would come out of my mouth. Anyway, I promised that you would all know the moment I knew, so here it is. And if that wasn't enough good news, they're moving us to the slot after Grey's Anatomy beginning Nov. 30! Exclamation points are actually warranted here! I know some of you were enjoying having something good to watch on Friday nights, but it looks like you're going to have to go out to dinner instead. So here's this week's blog — and I guess there will be more of them to come! A new episode of Men in Trees premieres tonight [at 9 pm/ET, on ABC], and so the Bergl blog is back. I'm sorry I didn't post a little warning that there wouldn't be a new...
read more
Greetings, all! I'm back from the wilderness of Men in Trees [Fridays at 9 pm/ET, on ABC]. Actually, I am back from being trapped in the wilderness, literally! It's as if I was living this week's episode of Men in Trees, "The Buddy System," which also involves a couple of characters getting trapped in the wilderness. It's a real cliff-hanger.Yesterday I went on a hike with Adrian McMorran, who plays Carl on Men in Trees. He's the rather morose drunk who's always at the bar next to Jerome (the hilarious Timothy Webber, whom I also worked with on a Spielberg miniseries called Taken.) Well, it turned out this hike Adrian and I went on was a 10-mile, 1,700-meter climb up to the top of West Lion Mountain. We were a little ambitious, and by the time the sun had set, we were way up on the side of this mountain, in the middle of the forest, where large bears and cougars reside. Even outside of Alaska, bears seem to be a recurrent theme in my life. It took us three hours to find the trail in...
read more
I have to begin by giving a major shout out to Marsha Smith, the publicist from ABC who hooked me up with this whole TVGuide.com blog thing. And also to Sara Glasser Havens, [executive producer] Jenny Bicks' assistant, who always catches the typos and makes everything sound better, as well as makes sure everything goes through the proper channels (so you're not exposed to the initial dirty versions I put out.) Basically, I've been procrastinating more and more, turning the blogs in later and later, and these ladies have made sure that they get out there. Props!This week's episode of Men in Trees [Fridays at 9 pm/ET, on ABC], "The Caribou in the Room," made me very happy, because our writer, Tim Davis, put Annie in bed for a good portion of the show. This meant that I could shoot almost all of my scenes in one day, which meant I could go back to L.A. and get in bed with Tyler! So I have very fond memories of this episode. I also remember getting a frantic call one day from Cynthia St...
read more
